Want or need?

Posted on Categories Quotations
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Greed
Everywhere
In boardrooms
In legislative corridors
Hiding in ivory towers
Smiling from promo game prizes
Promising health, pushing toxins
Lurking in virtual spaces 
Grasping gadgets
(Obsolete in a year)
Insatiable want.
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consumerism quote 1.jpg
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Want
Feelings of lack
Need, scarcity 
Memories passed on
from past generations
Need became wanting
more, more, more
Shopping, discarding 
Shopping, discarding
Repair and durability,
Simplicity and frugality,
faint quaint memories.
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Famous role models
prestigious beauty stars 
As close as a finger tap
All day, all night
Ads everywhere
absorbing through hungry pores
Tickling, entertaining
NEW, better, faster
‘All natural’, ‘Green’
Descriptors unquestioned
Plastic bottles in spiral pink
Shrink-wrapped delicacies
Vacuum-sealed scissors
Waterproof cardboard, 
Recycle arrows appease 
flickering consciences,
sooth doubting whispers:
Hypnotism.
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Published in  1962, Island was Aldous Huxley’s last novel ; Chuck Palahniuk is a contemporary American author; and Jarod Kintz is a contemporary American author known for his humour. I discovered these quotes on Goodreads.
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This is a Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge post hosted this week by Ronovan Hester.  The optional theme is ‘trust’, touched on indirectly by my consumerism theme (or perhaps the ‘touch’ is on mistrust or overtrusting?).
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Published by Janice

My name is Janice.  I started blogging as Ontheland when I moved from Toronto to a rural area near Kingston, Ontario in Canada.  Over time I have found myself writing poetry, mostly in Japanese forms, such as haiku and haibun.  One of my deepest interests is the natural world: the joy of it and how we can look after it better.

17 thoughts on “Want or need?”

  2. These are very powerful and emotional poems coming from your heart. I am being simplistic when I wish, if only we would ALL say NO to the organisations that manipulate us. Could’nt things change dramatically?

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  5. Very thoughtful quotes Janice, we all get carried out with consumerism , we get greedy and selfish and forget that others deserve their part of share too .Thanks for reminder it always helps to pull us back on track.

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  6. Janice, I really enjoyed the quotes you selected and your poetry to accompany them. Wow! I see this everywhere. I have a friend that owns over a hundred pairs of shoes. I think I own 6 and don’t even wear most of the ones I own. Our entire economy is based on consumerism. It will be the death of us yet! Well done. You always make me think. Thanks for that. ❤

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    1. I’m happy you enjoyed the post Colleen. The shoe story makes me think of all the fancy closets that have been designed to keep fancy wardrobes. Thanks for your comment 🙂

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  7. Your poetry makes a powerful statement. So do your well-chosen quotations. “Shopping, discarding” is the problem. George Carlin used humor to point out that most of us have too much “stuff” cluttering up our lives. I don’t know if I can claim this as my intellectual property, but one of my favorite sayings is, “Wealth is not just measured in dollars and cents.” Now… if you’ll excuse me… you’ve inspired me to go reread Thoreau’s “Walden”.

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