The Disposible Society

 One of my favorite companies to drool over is Saddleback Leather, whose founder designed the company and its products to outlast the purchaser; one of their catchphrases is "they'll fight over it when you're dead." The idealogy behind it is that it makes more sense to lay out a bit more money at the start for a quality product that will last, rather than saving money initially to buy something that will wear out much sooner and need to be replaced - thereby costing a good deal more in the long run.
 This is certainly not a new idea. But he recently posted a lament about today's "disposible society" in which we purchase cheap stuff intending to throw it away. Plastic water bottles, paper napkins, jewelry and watches that fall apart after the first few wears, tools that break, wallets that separate into their respective pattern pieces the 500th time you unfold them...essentially, we live in a society that produces garbage. I mean that in so many ways.
 I love the movie Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, based on the American Girl books set in the great depression. It captures the spirit of that generation - their determination, frugality, sense of community, and sometimes hopelessness.
 A lot of people compare today's economy with the Depression era; this post talks about the differences in the actual economics (in language that my poor little dummy brain can actually understand) while this page gives a memoir-type synopsis of the life lived on a farm during those years.  The comment on the bottom again contrasts the difference between this generation and way of living and those that survived the 1930s. We truly are the antithesis of that time, whose motto was "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
 This has been on my mind a lot lately; it's part of what prompted my last post about doing and making more myself as opposed to buying ready-made (and often more expensive) items. Cooking more from scratch. Crocheting my own laundry baskets (and probably soon re-usable grocery bags). Not buying clothes unless I really need them - really, not buying anything unless I need it. I feel like our society needs to re-learn these things, the difference between wants and needs, between worn out and used up. Between the convenience of disposable versus the practicality and frugality of re-usable.
 I want that classic motto to reflect my lifestyle, but it's such a big change in perspective and habits! We'll see how it goes...