A Very Commercial Valentine

So happy we found each other

That’s what I saw printed on a shipping envelope that arrived today from a major online retailer.

“What’s this?” I asked the person I married in 1995. 

“It’s a narrow spatula so I can scrape the inside of jars.”

“Genius. Great idea.”

But still the words printed on the package bugged me: “So happy we found each other.” 

Seriously? Really? On a shipping envelope? Looking at it more closely, besides those words and our home address, I’m counting three bar codes and four QR codes printed on this thing. And why does this bug me, exactly?  I’m writing to discover that. Maybe I’ll find out. For now, it just does.

Ya know, I guess I could ignore the crappy feeling this gives me. I could feel blessed that I’ll have a handy tool that will help me get the last of the tahini out of a jar so we can eat it. I should feel glad I have a thrifty partner, and I do feel glad about that. And what the heck: with Valentine’s Day fast approaching. I could even get creative with my resources, cut the words out of the envelope with a scissors and tape them to the front door or something. That would be a positive re-purposing of this disconcerting marketing strategy. “So happy we found each other,” recontextualized in a healthier way.

But the curmudgeon in me wants to bitch about a company printing something suitable for a Valentine on an envelope that might as easily contain a toilet tank gasket. Transposing language normally reserved for close friends, romantic partners and anyone who will read my rough drafts, and using it instead to personify the arrival of a kitchen tool by truck – it’s pissing me off a bit.

And granted, there’s a long history of people reinvesting their implacable yearnings or impossible desires into achievable desires that involve material possessions. Fine then. Whatever. I’ve been there at times. Heck, when I first took delivery of my DeWalt cordless drill (for like $50 off retail!) I didn’t want that thing out of my sight for long, so reassuring it was in all the amazing things I imagined I could do with it. That drill has proved itself. It did not disappoint.

But the real challenge I’m wrestling with is between these two distinct trends and patterns of response. One response pattern is to critique what I find wrong in my world. My hope in doing so is that this will fortify my waking up to endless media manipulation, strengthen my forbearance and passive resistance to it, and inform my principled non-participation in some of its worst aspects, when possible.

The second option is the (possibly) more intelligent and obvious response of simply going along with and enjoying things. Does it really make any sense to bitch about a shipping envelope? Well, it sort of might. Sometimes it seems the stairway to heaven always has a few rungs removed at odd, terribly timed intervals. Regarding the sled sliding into hell on the other hand, it seems at all times to have had its runners professionally greased with the lubricant of convenience.

So, it seems like a yoga of sorts. Can I laugh? Can I respond in any way that feels positive? Can I do anything about the trends that most concern me? Can I at least be honest in my emotional response? Can I be open to the fact that my emotional response is a shifting amorphous thing, and can I acknowledge this, building neither higher fortifications of judgment nor stronger bridges of personal identification with any of it?

Because the bigger thing is, I don’t want to get stuck. I don’t want to either shut myself down or lose myself by leaning too far in either direction. Investing too much in social critiques can feel like a waste of life energy, especially seeing as how dumbass commercialism predates my existence by so many years that it might now be described as an official, state-sanctioned religion. And yes, the constant media manipulation and the inordinate preoccupation with material stuff does feel like an affront at times, if not an outright threat. But does my attention really need to go toward cursing rather than blessing?

Maybe I can just be kinder with myself when it does. Maybe just being aware that I’m responding to my sense that longstanding trends toward folly and dehumanization can at times start to feel distinctly and actively insane and anti-human. And maybe it’s okay that the place where that distinguishing line appeared to me this time was a piece of marketing language that attempts to conflate the fulfillment of romance with the romance of fulfillment.