Dear Kate,
I am writing this letter to you from the picnic table of an outdoor coffee shop in Austin which did not exist 6 months ago. The parking lot is crowded with Teslas. Multiple patrons have brought their golden doodles. I hear a man in a vest say into his AirPods, āFrom a high level perspectiveā¦ā while he paces around the picnic area. His laptop is open, blinking, alone, on a table for four. Today is Sunday. I came because I needed to get some writing doneāI spent $3.75 on drip coffee, opened my books, and connected to the WiFiābut now all I can do is look and watch and glare. The compostable lid to my cup keeps falling off, and coffee drips down my wrist.
At this coffee shop, snowflake lights hang from the ceiling, and āboozy eggnog latteā is on the menu. Here, and everywhere, is talk of shopping. āWhat are you getting your mom? Your sister? Your brother? Your grandparents? Your spouse? Yourself?ā
Itās the holidays.
This year, gift giving does feel important. Weāre far away from our families. A box of chocolates might be the only thing we can send to replace a hug. The economy is in dire straits. Almost 100,000 small businesses have permanently shuttered in eight months. If we ever needed a reason for consumption, weāve got one.
Still, I have the lingering feeling that for a certain American, this yearās holidays, like every other yearās holidays, will serve as a handy excuse to do exactly what we want to do anyway: Buy pretty things.
Over the past few weeks, weāve come up with lots of reasons for why buying $209 cashmere sweatpants is a good idea. We latch on to the Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Giving Tuesday messaging, to the whispers that our purchaseāweāve been looking at these sweatpants for weeks, and actually do want them very badly, and honestly we work hard, donāt we deserve them?āwill in some small way make a difference. Our personal responsibility shrinks just an inch.
āA portion of every sale goes to charity.ā
(Hmm. Why not continue sleeping in your old sweatpants, which may have a stain from eating mint chip ice cream in bed but really do work just fine, and send the entire $200 to charity?)
āSupport small businesses.ā
(Yes. We certainly should support small businesses. Are venture-backed cashmere sweatpants the most impactful use of your dollars?)
āThis brand is carbon-neutral.ā
(Again, hmm. If you really care about the environment, isnāt the best thing to simply not buy new sweatpants on every whim? Donāt order another pair to be manufactured overseas, shipped on a boat to the U.S., picked from a warehouse floor, wrapped into branded packaging, placed in a brown UPS box, and driven in a diesel truck across the country to another warehouse, and another truck, and another driver that will place the package gingerly at your doorstep, on the promise that the brand will at some point pay off that environmental debt with carbon credits? Just use the old sweatpants? And plant some trees at the local high school instead? Am I insane?)
Thereās a certain person who will read this and say: āWell, thatās why we need electric 18-wheeler trucks! Elon Musk is working on it!ā
We will find any excuse to justify our consumption.
Of course, consumers do get a vote with our dollars. Every time we shop at a farmers market instead of Costco, money reaches pockets it otherwise might not have. When we support Black-owned businesses, we stand behind members of our community. When we order dinner from a family-owned pizza shop instead of Dominoās, a kidās college fund gets another contribution. When we buy local products, we reinvest in our cities. Itās important to use our wallets well. Our dollars are powerful.
But so often, we check our āsocially activistā box by ordering laundry detergent from a women-owned brand while neglecting to select any women for next springās intern class. We buy carbon-neutral clothes from Reformation and then take a 45-minute shower. We buy organic, bright, farm-to-table veggies from Whole Foods and toss them in the trash after getting too tired to cook. We order Uber Eats, our neighbors go hungry.
Consumption becomes a Band-Aid we stick and re-stick onto much larger problems.
My biodegradable coffee cup has now started to dissolve. Why the hell did I buy this? Why didnāt I just drink the coffee in my own kitchen, from a glass mug, which I will wash and use again tomorrow?
Is there any good reason to consume? Thereās utility. We need laundry detergent. Still, we buy so much more than we need, and we need so much less than we think.
Thereās one other reason we consume. A more important one: To give to others. To show our love. To let people know we enjoy having them in our lives. This is noble and worthy. A carefully chosen present, wrapped in delicate silver paper, can be an act of sacrifice: It took something from me to give this to you. That sacrifice is what makes it precious.
A present can deliver the words we canāt bring ourselves to say: I love you. I miss you. Iām scared. Iām lonely. I want to be understood. Iām trying.
But this year, with so much to say and so much left unsaid: What if our gift was to be honest?
What if our gift was not to outsource the work of our relationships to a box, to a bauble, to a goodie? To a supply chain of Amazon pickers, packers, and couriersāpeople who have their own families to nurture? What if it was to choose the difficult over the easy?
What if we used our words instead of material things?
What if we just didnāt order the sweatpants?
What if we considered our familial bonds to be more than an obligation to order Bath & Bodyworks candles and Starbucks gift cards?
What if we said what we meant, and did what we said?
What if we took our role as citizens, neighbors, daughters, and granddaughters seriously?
What if we put the well-being of others over our own?
That would be a present indeed.
XOXO,
Ali
My book rec: These Truths
Ugh I have such a crush on Jill Lepore. She is well researched, and diligent, and precise. The woman has written so many books. In this book, These Truths, she covers the history of the U.S. The whole thing. Literally all of it.
Hereās a particularly relevant passage about Benjamin Lay, a vehement disavower of slavery and a friend of Benjamin Franklinās.
āBenjamin Franklin printed Layās book, All Slave Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates, a rambling and furious three-hundred-page polemic. Franklin sold the book at his shop, two shillings a copy, twenty shillings a dozen. Lay handed out copies for free. Then he became a hermit. Outside of Philadelphia, he carved a cave out of a hill. Inside, he stowed his library: 200 books of theology, biography, poetry, and history. He decided to protest slavery by refusing to eat or drink or wear or use anything that had been made with forced labor. He also refused to eat animals. He lived on water and milk, roasted turnips and honey; he kept bees and spun flax and stitched clothes.
I must sayāif any more tech dudes move to Austin you might find me living in a cave sometime very soon.
The book: These Truths
My rating: šŗšøšŗšøšŗšøšŗšøšŗšø
Read more: An October Surprise in New England by Jill Lepore