Society, Lifestyle, and Capitalism

Un-Commoditising Life, Writing, and Living

In a world where everything is for sale

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

Whenever money gets involved in something, that thing becomes a commodity, whether it produces joy or not, whether it serves as an essential need or not, whether it was something you loved or not.

Like lemons.

They’re delicious. But if your job was to sell them, or sell lemonade, you wouldn’t care. You wouldn’t care that lemons are yellow, round, and sometimes go bad before you juice them and sell them to someone. You would only care about making a profit from lemons, and hopefully have the wisdom not to sell the ones that have already gone bad.

Hence why the lemons of today are so sour and bitter.

But the same thing that’s been done to a lemon by people behind lemonade stand is being done to cars, lemon cars, homes, workers, and even writing.

There was a time, albeit a very long time ago, when people lived in houses. Their houses were their homes, their homes were a part of their identities, and their gardens, trees, and land were cherished at all costs.

Today, people finance, retail, rent, and “live” in houses until they can no longer afford to, or until they see an opportunity to sell and make a profit from it. Home, a sacred space and a cared for place, is no longer sacred, or home, when it becomes a marketing tool, when it becomes a commodity.

You’re living in a commodity. We’re all living in commodities. Unless you live in a campervan on a mountain 10,000 above the Atlantic — if you do, then you’re probably enjoying life. But even campervans can be flipped. Pun intended.

The same thing’s happened to writing. Hundreds of years ago, writing was a craft, and nothing more than a conventional way to note down your journeys in life. Today, people write for paper and plastic bills.

Of course, there are still people who write for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and you might even be able to tell who does and who doesn’t, but what does it matter? Writing is now commodity, even if it isn’t for you or me.

The only thing that can’t really become a commodity is creativity, but even that you can monetise in ways, because despite creativity being partly a natural gift and talent that grows from passion and the mind, creativity is expanded on by knowledge, experience, craftsmanship, and skills — all of which can be bought, sold, cycled, and commoditised.

And that’s not to say any of this is a bad thing. That’s not to say capitalism or the way our markets and economies are built into our societies is a bad thing (although it kind of is, but that’s a topic for another day).

That’s just to bring up life could be so much more enjoyable if things weren’t commodities, because you would just enjoy your passions, your craft, your writing, and not worry about where or what it gets you.

We need to take a page out of the Indigenous book and spirit — protect, hold dear, and be grateful for your land, your home, your nature, your crafts, your jobs, your writing, and yourself, and don’t treat it like something that can be bought and sold, because if you do, then it may well become something that is bought and sold.

In other, simpler words, we should still live first, and be curious rather than greedy.

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