As within, so without

Interesting article here on what a real depression in 2009 would look like. Possibly not much, the author argues, as people stay inside...

In precarious times, hunkering down can become not simply a defense mechanism, but a worldview. Grant McCracken, an anthropologist affiliated with MIT who studies consumer behavior, calls this distinction "surging" vs. "dwelling" - the difference, as he wrote recently on his blog, between believing that the world "teems with new features, new things, new opportunities, new excitement" and thinking that life's pleasures come from counting one's blessings and appreciating and holding onto what one already has. Economic uncertainty, he argues, drives us toward the latter.

Empowered by Zillian's own websearch, I found McCracken's blog post, which is also a good read.

It's weird that in our economy/culture we go through the surging-modality transition something like once a decade, and you would think this would be enough to prompt us to formalize the transition. I mean, shouldn't we have a ritual or something? But no.

I'm standing by what I said in my public blog -- not everyone is going to have to adapt anything for the recession, and the best policy of living below one's means applies all the time, not just in economic crunchtime. It's kind of funny though (and remarkably bad timing) that I'm looking at possible unemployment right when it'll be especially hard to get a new job. Sigh... insert visions of desperately job hunting while my savings go to zero. I'm not used to being part of mob mentalities, but this one is hard to hold out against.

How're you feeling? Surge-y or dwelly? I haven't changed anything economically yet, but emotionally... yeah, I almost stayed home with the cats today just because.