Capitalism Creates Hungry Ghosts

Learning to forego the allure of new

I pet-sit a lot. It’s how I travel, because otherwise I can’t afford to travel. I love taking care of people’s pets and houses. Each house has a different spirit, imbued with the spirits of all who live and have lived there. Sometimes the house spirits are grounded. Sometimes they’re chaotic. Sometimes they’re light or dark or disturbing.

I’ve noticed something about houses, and the kinds of houses I prefer. I love sparseness— or maximalism, in an artistic sense, but many houses feel stagnant; stuffed with possessions. Unused purchases fill drawers and cupboards: rotting art supplies, unworn clothing; baskets and baskets of skincare products, barely used or never opened. Hundreds or thousands of dollars spent to fill one’s drawers and cabinets.

This summer I started thinking about how I spend my money, and what it means to buy things. Why, when I have what I need, do I buy more? Why do we buy more? Why don’t we give away what we have before it wastes away into nothing?

I think we know the answer to that.

This is my first summer teaching in Hawai’i since 2019, and it’s a different experience. I’ve changed.

I used to spend way too much money here. Always too much. I ate out often and bought myself many “treats.” Expensive candles and expensive soap. A pair of earrings. A new dress. More groceries than I could eat. I think that buying things, for me, has historically affirmed that I am not poor anymore. But buying things kept me poor. There was always a tension inside me: the tension of wanting the thing, knowing I didn’t need the thing, and knowing that I’d regret buying the thing at some point, because I couldn’t really afford the thing.

This summer has been different.

I found the cheapest place for groceries and have been cooking at home— only going out for meals when I meet a friend. I haven’t bought anything except beads to make some necklaces and one bar of soap. In the past, I’d put things on my credit cards and imagine some future self who had more money to pay them off. Now I am that future self who lives with credit card debt. All of my friends seem comfortable with their debt, but I’m not comfortable with mine. I didn’t own a credit card until I was 34 years-old, because my mom was constantly in debt when I was younger. I fielded the calls from creditors. I remember.

Of course, I had to get a credit card, because our society is a trap. No credit card? No credit. But now that I have credit card debt, and student loan debt, I refuse to pretend as if they don’t exist. As if they’re of no consequence. I feel their weight on my shoulders.

House-sitting has taught me that material possessions also have spirits, but they’re often false, fleeting spirits. They lose their luster. They end up hidden, and we forget about them, and buy more.

I love the shapes and colors of Honolulu

Their ephemeral luster gleams and beckons like a desert mirage, promising to quench our thirst.

Our thirst is unquenchable.

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Yesterday I walked to Ala Moana, a shopping center adjacent to Waikiki.

I strolled through the open air mall. Icy fingers beckoned from inside the air conditioned shops, soft like silk Hermes scarves. Leather-scented. I passed Gucci, Prada, Kate Spade, Doir, Victoria’s Secret, and Sephora. I passed Tesla. There are Tesla shops in malls now, I guess.

As I passed the Kate Spade shop I couldn’t help but think of her suicide, and how her death clashed with the cheery display and its promises of fulfillment (if only your purchase these expensive products). I thought of all the people who had “everything” and still took their own lives.

I thought of my mother, who spent her half a million dollar divorce settlement on wine, Costco trips, fancy skincare and perfume and antique shopping binges, until she ran out of money and decided her life wasn’t worth living anymore.

I remembered how, after her death, I felt more vulnerable to the same expensive products she’d coveted, because they made me feel closer to her. My perfume obsession that lasted a couple years. My boot obsession. My skincare obsession. All of them in the past now.

Now I own three pairs of shoes: Birkenstocks, Hokas, and a pair of rain boots. (My feet are terrible, hence the expensive brands).

I have one bottle of nice perfume instead of ten, a niche perfume created by a single person.

Now I walk past those fancy stores and recognize their false gleam and artifice for what it is: a fantasy. A promise of superiority and control.

Buy this bag. This bag is a symbol. This bag will show others that you are worthwhile. With this bag you can feel superior.

This bag means nothing.

This bag was made by children, for fifty dollars, and sold to you for $500.

Capitalism cannot survive unless we are hungry ghosts, always searching for our next purchase.

If I want capitalism to die, I must kill that part of me that thinks any physical possession can change who I am.

Kill, or transform.

I can feel this transformation happening inside of me.

My neck loses its elasticity, and I begin to accept who I am.

A human being, vulnerable to the elements.

My vulnerability is what makes me real.

I glance at the immovable faces of the models at the mall and know that their lives are no better than mine.

No worse.

Joy is at my fingertips; in the palm of my hand pressed to my own heart.

Joy has nothing to do with my appearance.

Nothing I own or do not own makes me better or worse than anyone else.

Being alive is a gift in itself.

Living is giving and tending rather than taking more than I need.

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I might buy myself something special to signify this last leg of revisions on my book— this almost in production period. But as I consider this, I also consider how it feels not to buy anything, and instead to have lunch with a friend, or to buy my friend lunch, or to pay off some of my credit card debt, as a gift to myself.

Maybe I will go to the farmer’s market and buy something from a local artist, or some local honey or coffee.

What feels different is the choice. That it’s not a compulsion. That I have nothing to prove to myself or anyone else. That I am thinking of my impact on the planet, the world, and myself. How that ripples farther than I can imagine.

Everything we do ripples out into the world. We are more powerful than we think.

If you’ve read this far: thank you.

Thank you so much for reading my words and supporting this newsletter.

I am grateful for you.