I notice every week when I put out the recycling that our family has a significantly larger amount than anyone else on the block. Mom and dad say it's because they're retired so they consume more at home, but it's not just extra soup cans and milk bottles. It's cardboard boxes. Every week I find myself collapsing endless amounts of these fuckers.

Dad mentioned the other day we needed a flashlight for the basement, so I went on amazon and bought one. I leaned back, stared at the screen, and pondered this for a few moments. I literally am requiring someone to drive to my house and hand me another cardboard box for this single product instead of me just walking to the store and buying one myself.

The New York Times had an interesting article about the environmental impact of e-commerce, but it said it only talked about instant gratification being one of the pushing drives behind it. I have Prime, but I didn't really need that flashlight right away nor did I particularly care whether it came in two days or two weeks. It's just a good LED flashlight cost less there than whatever I could find at Staples or Home Depot even if I factor the built-in shipping costs. And I highly suspect a lot of people are like me. With things like amazon's reduced price for pre-ordered games, why the hell wouldn't you get delivery instead of leaving your house? I started off this post with complaining about cardboard boxes, but that consumes less of my time than walking to 207th or commuting downtown. It's a logical decision to make.

Humans are going to be humans; we rarely look at the big picture and focus on the immediate. I felt a twinge of guilt as a I bought that flashlight, but I know I'd do it again in a heartbeat. (I did actually; dad liked it so much he asked me to order three more.) And I think many people who promote causes — environmentalism, animal rights, etc. — forget that basic part of human nature. We're too fucking busy to care about every single big issue until it affects our every day lives. Yeah, we all know coal and oil are bad, but we're not going to switch over until it becomes too expensive and there's a cheap alternative. So instead of putting most of your energy decrying such things, perhaps a better method of pushing agendas is to intertwine it with that lazy, cheap part in all of us.