Quote of the Week: Lucille Ball on Finding Happiness
Earlier this week, we read a Lucille Ball quote that had nothing to do with postconsumerism, happiness or the satisfaction of enough (and we’re going to share it later). But it got us curious about the wise woman we all know as the crazy redhead from “I Love Lucy”, so we did some research and uncovered that she also had made one of the wisest statements that we’d ever heard about happiness and [...]
How Linus Van Pelt Found the Satisfaction of Enough
If you’re like us, sometime in the next handful of weeks, you will excitedly rush to your television and prepare for the annual Halloween classic, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” It is, of course, at base a cute children’s cartoon. On a second level, it’s a statement on faith and belief (though that is probably too heavy to write about on this blog!). However, as we prematurely re-watched this favorite this [...]
Five Tips to a Very Sustainable Halloween
Halloween is one of our favorite holidays! The chance to get to dress up again like we did when we were kids, the excuse to eat bad, sugar-filled food, the feeling of fall in the air … it all combines to form a festive holiday that can be enjoyed as much by single adults as by families. But we all also know that Halloween can work against our goals to reduce “stuff” [...]
Quote of the Week: Jon Stewart on the Marvels of Mankind
Since we discussed his new book, Earth (The Book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race, last week, we thought we’d give Jon Stewart our quote of the week spot. Of course, there are many, many humorous Jon Stewart quotes to pick from, and no shortage of certainly controversial ones as well. We went with something that had to do with a topic that’s near and dear to our hearts: the marvels [...]
Brad and Angelina Spend $27,000 a Month on a House to the Dismay of Other Activists
At Postconsumers, we believe that there can be many definitions of what it means to be a postconsumer, and that can mean living with a little or a lot. Just because somebody is wealthy and buys more than we would, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not, in their own way, working to live sustainably or find the satisfaction of enough. Their definition of enough may just be different than ours [...]
Can You Live Sustainably with Eight Kids?
Personally, we think that the real question is, “Can you remain sane with eight kids?” However, we apparently can’t stop watching TLC, and thus we’re aware of the plethora of television shows out there right now that are helping us to vicariously experience the “thrills” of a large family. However, for us, the question remains to a certain degree: Is continuing to have child after child a good idea for a sustainable [...]
OOPS! … Did NASA Scientist Just Predict End of World??
By Michael Beck NASA’s political spinmeisters must think that their global-warming attack dog, Dr. James Hansen, slipped his leash again this year when he released his first book ever, Storms of My Grandchildren. Now the book doesn’t exactly predict the destruction of the planet, only the living surface that we tend to be fond of. The subtitle gives you the drift: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to [...]
Reducing Tip: Reward Yourself for Staying Under Budget
It seems like the idea of rewarding yourself with something that you wanted might go against the idea of being a postconsumer. After all, we keep telling everybody to find the satisfaction of enough without always having to buy things! However, what we really believe is that a postconsumer is somebody who consumes mindfully, whether that be with a little or a lot or somewhere in between. That’s why we think it’s [...]
Jon Stewart is a Postconsumer!
Last week, the latest book from Jon Stewart and the writing team of The Daily Show hit the stands (or, for many of us, hit the “download” list). The book is an instant classic called Earth (The Book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race. It’s contextualized as the “everything you would need to know” book for aliens who discover the planet long after the human race is extinct. It’s also a [...]
The Social Network: More Than a Statement About Facebook
The Social Network opens this Friday. We’ll admit that we’re more than a little bit excited about this movie. We’re excited because it stars Jesse Eisenberg and features Justin-Superstar-Timberlake. We’re excited because it’s written by Aaron Sorkin, who wrote not one but two of our favorite television shows ever (Sports Night and The West Wing). We’re excited because we’ve heard rumors that the story behind Facebook is pretty salacious good drama, which is [...]
