I don't believe in hell but I might be changing my mind thanks to Westfield Stratford City

I don't believe in a place called hell but having experienced Westfield Stratford City, Europe's largest shopping complex, I am re-evaluating my position.  

Shopping malls don't appeal to me at the best of times and I know December is an especially bad time of year to go anywhere near one.  So, I should have known better.  I do now. 

I needed to get something checked out on my MacBook Pro and decided to go to the new Apple Store in Stratford - 2 tube stops away.  What seemed like a quick, convenient trip, turned into an adventure into the underworld.  

Westfield is amazing for its huge, clean, bright and buzzing atmosphere.  It is a modern cathedral of capitalism.  On one hand, I admire the ingenuity of creating such a structure and appreciate it's an engine for east London regeneration.  On the other hand, I see a spectacle of mass consumption and consumerism - a soulless compound that lures people in with promises of a better life and sells them crap instead.  

Why I hate shopping malls in 3 rants...

1) People who walk really slowly or block busy pedestrian thoroughfares annoy me.  There are way too many of them there (Get out of my way...I'm trying to get in and out of here).  

2) I saw the funniest (i.e. stupidest) thing.  Shoppers were waiting in line at the Hollister store as if going to a club (see picture).  First of all, I grew up near Hollister, the town in California.  It's a hole.  Second of all, the clothes are ridiculous. These people were waiting in line.  Morons.

3) Hallelujah should be sung by either Leonard Cohen or Jeff Buckley...never, ever by Mariah Carey. Thanks to the piped in Christmas music, I still can't get it out of my head.  I feel dirty.     

I'm obviously a grumpy middle aged git.  I just think somehow we humans can do better to celebrate life than through the medium of shopping for its own sake.  I'm not interested in everyone having a possession-less life (I like my MacBook Pro), but, we have gone too far.  

So what's better?  The Slow Food movement and going to concerts and drinking with friends all seem better somehow.  Oh yeah, excercise.  That's a good one too.  

As fancy as it is, Westfield Stratford City represents a form of hell...on a personal level and in terms of living on a planet with natural limits.  There has to be something better...

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For more articulate views on what I'm getting at, check out videos of The Story of Stuff and Tim Jackson's TED Talk below.  

The Story of Stuff 

Tim Jackson's economic reality check - TED Talk 

 

 

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Until next time,

 

Jason