On this Christmas eve, while I gather whatever last minute gifts in stoned surrender to expectation and decency, magically turning objects into fomites of my adoration with simple tape and wrap, gritting my eggnogged teeth ‘gainst my own Oeconomicus, I would like to share with you all a thought: soon, the most luxurious gift will be - nothing.
I once had to find a home to rent in my least favorite town in America. The kind of town that blinds itself with stoney eye-gazing and de-fangs its opulence with native patterns. Ojai, California (no offense to dear friends who live there). After an exhaustive search, I found one. It was peculiarly expensive for its size. Scanning the ad, I tried to understand why. The heading read “Private Home - Internet Free”. Then it hit me: internet-free. Not "free internet". This place was more expensive because it had no internet.
And that’s when I realized that as the last inch of the globe is festooned with connectivity, the polarity of desires will somewhat flip - and disconnection will become a luxury good. Those of us who can afford it will pay for the privilege of nothing. A gift card for 5 days of nothing (10 days of nothing was just too pricey). While the rich already pay for “Digital Detox” retreats, I imagined an entire sector, the buying and selling of nothing futures on the stock market. Amazon with its flagship brick and mortar: NOWHERE: Experience Nothing. 50 square miles of pristine tundra insulated within 500 square miles of faraday mesh!
I say all of this now, tongue half-cheeked, all Christmessy, to muse on the far-off possibility of an odd quirk of consumptive post-fate: consumptive inversion. The apotheosis of status being less, not more. The objects of our desires being less material, not more. The maximizing of minimalism. The bottom of each well-to-do Christmas tree being so, very, ostentatiously, opulently, empty.
May we all one day be rich enough,
Ebert
This correlates to an what I’m currently practicing, the isolation of the spirit from the environment and the physical self.