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BOOK REVIEW -- Not Buying It: My Year WIthout Shopping, by Judith Levine 4/17/2006 7:01:13 AM
hardcover, Free Press, 2006, ISBN 0743269357
I'll wager that you have had the experience of getting distracted by a piece of computer technology nagging you or dragging you through some process you did not intend to engage, when all you wanted to do was send an email or start the word processor –- for lack of a better term, I call this the "tech-induced back-step." Likewise, we have all purchased things we did not intend to buy -– perhaps it was that recent trip to the store for milk and bread when we snuck in an extra candy bar from that display strategically positioned next to the check-out stand.
I had that feeling of déjà vu on both counts repeatedly while reading Judith Levine's NOT BUYING IT, her memoir of the year (2004) that she and her partner Paul agreed not to buy anything that was extraneous to their basic health and well-being. As Levine points out, our consumer habits can bring us more pain and suffering than pleasure, particularly when we are spending beyond our means.
I'm already a proponent of "not buying it," a habit I acquired when I quit using speed in 2004 -– so, coincidentally, I was retooling my life at the precise moment when Levine embarked upon her downscaling experiment. I learned that my drug habit was merely the outermost layer in a hierarchy of wants masquerading as needs. My about-face was perhaps more dramatic than most who choose an abstinent path; in short order, I also abandoned two decades of promiscuity and quit overspending.
Levine's book, then, is simultaneously more and less than I had hoped for. I was rather disappointed that she chose to return to "buying it" at the end of her year-long experiment. If, as she posits, consumerist America has settled for a cheesy form of "fulfillment," and thus far less than it could attain in the way of spiritual health by returning to the basics, why does she not then heed her own counsel?
On the positive side, she manages to achieve a new mindfulness about her spending habits, and I hope for her sake that it lasts. I imagine that setting herself up as somewhat of a role model of "not buying it" with the publication of this book might aid her in this effort. I know that I was aided in my quest to remain unmoored to my previous vices by adhering to an "ask-all, tell-all" policy with my partner and close friends. Ultimately, it became more bothersome to do the disclosure and subsequent "processing" regarding any slip-up, than simply to avoid slipping up in the first place. This, too, is mindfulness in action.
Upgrading one's habits out of this type of pragmatism often achieves an unexpected satori that results in lasting change of a spiritual nature. Annihilating one's credit card balance, for instance -- which Levine achieves in the course of her year, and which I achieved as well -- greatly reduces stress in one's life. In other words, I've learned to pay as I go.
On to the book's politics: they didn't bother me, and not because Levine and I share the same politics. Ultimately, as Levine wisely points out, simply attending the mass-cult catharsis of Fahrenheit 911 or engaging in "push-button activism" to be a part of the democratic process simply doesn't cut it. (Au contraire, IMO, but that's another topic.) She articulates well the extent to which politics *have* become a consumer item -- not that this is any great revelation, but I think some of the other reviewers miss her on this point. Once she can't throw money toward a solution, she is forced to confront her own passivity and begins to participate in her culture in more meaningful ways.
During her year, Levine becomes a more active and conscious participant in her own life, and achieves greater mindfulness, balance, and a more fulfilling and stress-free existence. Still, I'm not convinced that she deeply understands to what extent this is an ongoing process and not a "luxury item."
[NOTE: An edited version of this review appears on the Amazon.com webpage for this title.]
