I often think of myself as a fish swimming in the ocean. But I envision it as a metaphor for my fulltime RV (trailer)ways. Going from town to town, like going from reef to reef. Around me are all those folks who live where I am visiting. They tend the RV and the flight parks where we rent a little space.

They are all the folks in all the nice large houses that we drive by. All the folks going to work on the freeways that we take from town to town (although we try to miss the rush hours). They are the folks who love LA.

But I'm not thinking about that ocean at the moment. I'm thinking about another ocean that we all live in whether we live in RV's or immobile homes. The ocean of desire and consumption. The manufactured human environment consisting of all the objects of our work efforts (those of us who actually produce objects). All those things that we can buy if we have the means. All those objects that speak to us about how desirable they are and how we can or maybe could possess them.

I (and I'll bet you) experience this world in my head and in the world. There is almost no boundary. It exists almost every where I go. It is totally emotional in my head, without more than an ounce of rational thought.

When I look at the brown hill sides near here (Spark, Nevada), I think about how beautiful they are, how roughed, how basic. I don't think about possessing them. I think about how I could get up them or fly from them.

When I ride by some houses below these brown hills, I think about possessing them. I think about what it would take to possess them. And rationally I don't particularly want to possess them. I don't want to be tied down to them. I don't want to have the anxiety of paying for them. This makes no difference to whether I have the emotional desire to possess them or not.

I'm in a "nice" RV Park at the moment (I prefer funky ones, as they are less costly) and there are lots of fancy motor homes around. They look much nicer than my "little" seven year old trailer and I feel the feelings of desire for nicer accommodations whenever I see my neighbor's places here. No matter that our trailer in the inside has a lot more space for the length and I have a retrieval vehicle without having to tow one.

Maybe you're looking at a new hang glider with desire, so you can relate.

It is often thought that this ocean is created by advertising, but I find that most advertising just annoys and really doesn't speak to me with anything like the force of the objects themselves. Of course, they are designed to sell themselves. They are their own advertisements.

Of course, perhaps you are thinking that we are currently in a time of great economic turmoil and everyone is cutting back on their expenditures.  Well, that just means that the deals available on houses and RV's (for example) are vastly better than ever. Your desires can be so much easier fulfilled because there are no or few other buyers out there competing with you to purchase that object.

I was thinking about these issues and watching my own feelings in my head and coming up with strategies to deal with these desires (fixing up the trailer, putting in sweat equity, as they say) when I came upon something that really illustrated this for me, and maybe for you. A short distance from our current parking place is a new store than opened up less than three weeks ago. The shopping area that it is in is under construction (I wonder how their construction loans are doing) and they are the first store to open. People are flocking to the new store, just to see the store.

Nevada is the state that apparently has been hurt the worst in the current downturn. Of course, home construction in Las Vegas was way out of control, so they had a long ways to fall. So it is somewhat ironic to see this development in this area. Here it is:

All these photos can be clicked on to view larger versions.

This is the left side of the entrance to Scheels, a "Sporting Goods" store. This is their biggest store by far and their first foray outside the Midwest (well, they have two stores in Montana). This store is 295,000 sq. ft. You're looking at two statues of the four that I have seen. One is a fly fisherman with a fish on the line and the other is a bow hunter packing out an Elk rack.

On the right hand side you'll find large statues of a snowboarder and a mountain biker (downhill variety):

Enter the store and you'll find on your right side the Gary Fisher museum (he'll be at the store next week to give a presentation):

And in front of you you'll see the 16,000 gallon fresh water fish tank filled with perch, trout, sturgeon, etc.:

Across the store is another 16,000 gallon tank, this time salt water, with a "reef" and many of the fish I've seen diving in Fiji. But, before you get there you'll see this:

Yup, a real 16 car Ferris wheel. Right there in the middle of the store. You buy tokens for a buck to ride it. And there are many other "entertainment" centers inside the store, including a shooting gallery. Amazingly they didn't have a rock climbing site.

Upstairs in the fishing department you'll find an airplane (this is a hang gliding ezine after all) hanging from the ceiling:

This store seems to be a mash up between Cabelas and REI taken to a much higher level. It looks as though their marketing folks have done plenty of survey research to determine what would appeal to the folks in this area (and folks coming over from California). It certainly has moved beyond its Midwest roots of hunting and fishing.

Mountain biking (and road biking), snowboarding, in-line skates, rock climbing, skate boards, skiing, coffee and twenty four kinds of homemade fudge. The bike shop has hundreds of bikes (they are the biggest Trek bike dealer in the US), but like REI's bike shop it doesn't really have any depth. Not like a dedicated local bike shop (LBS) likeBob\'s in Boise. When I visited Bob's they were about to move from 7,000 sq. ft. to 20,000 sq. ft.

This is a store filled with objects of desire. It is a church of desire. It is a department store for people who would go into Target only out of necessity, and not for entertainment. It is a store that says to you that you really are an active outdoor oriented person.

The store uses the romance of sport images (as you saw above) to sell. To sell sports equipment, of course, and to sell all the clothes that make you look like you are a participant, even if you aren't.

I noticed that there were no hang gliding images (unlike what we've seen before in the Patagonia stores). Not really possible to sell hang gliding equipment there. (Takes up too much room, you need training first, too small an existing buying public, on and on.) But I did remember again how hang gliding images are romantic and are used to sell also.

This is America's real religion. Any religion that is recognized as such is just a minor religion, not one that grabs a hold of the parishioner's unconscious and never lets go.

Seventy percent of the Gross Domestic Product is individual consumption. Without our continual purchases people lose jobs, homes, cars and wives. Talk about an eternal circle. The creation and satisfaction of needs and wants. Stop shopping and it all begins to fade away (as it is at the moment).

Sorry for the off topic article, but I thought you'd find it interesting.