The Incredible Shrinking Planet

This is Chapter Eleven of my book, Gideon McGee's Dream, published in 1995. I'm post it here as it relates to our penchant for conspicuous consumption, which drives the economic system of Capitalism.

Chapter Eleven


I've decided to introduce you to the Incredible Shrinking World,” Zack said. “The ISW, as we in the guide business refer to it, may be our most important visit. I saved it until I felt certain about your decision to return to your body, for without your return this lesson would have been wasted. It also comes last on our journey, for unless you absorbed the wisdom imparted by your other experiences, then the ISW would be meaningless to you.”

Gideon felt a sense of pride, not the pride that inflates the ego, but a pride that acknowledges a job well done.

“We will have a guide on this tour,” Zack said. “Her name is Sarah, and she has endeavored for many years to halt the shrinkage of her planet.”

“What's the name of the planet?” Gideon asked.

“The name of this planet is Earth, and on this particular earth the consequences of cause-and-effect are readily apparent to an observer, but not to the inhabitants. Cause and effect, as you are beginning to learn, is a belief and not a truth, although it is your truth.”

“Where is the planet?”

“There's one in every Universe.”

“The Gold Universe has two Earths?” Gideon asked.

“Why not?” Zack replied. “Each Universe has over eighteen billion galaxies. Each galaxy has over one hundred billion stars, and each star has an average of five planets. Do the math. Your universe is no puny thing, just as you are no puny thing.
“How do we get there?”

“Need you ask?” Zack said, arching both white eyebrows.

“Just think ISW, right?”

This trip was instantaneous. There were no light shows, no super novas, and no doors to go through. Gideon was becoming an experienced pilot, but still didn’t realize that he could get to a place he didn’t think he knew because he really did know.
Zack and Gideon found themselves on Madison Avenue in New York City standing on the sidewalk in front of the Gleason Building, home of the world's largest advertising firm. Both wore navy-blue pin-stripped three piece suits, button down collars on white linen shirts, gold cuff-links at their wrists, and diamond studs in their red power ties.

“Everyone looks overweight,” Gideon observed. “And very rich.”
He noticed a beautiful woman dressed in a burgundy suit striding purposefully toward Zack and himself. She was decidedly thinner than the other women on the street. Her hair was the color of spun midnight and her teak-colored eyes gazed directly into his.

“Hello, Gideon,” she said, offering her outstretched hand in greeting. The blackness of her hand stood in stark contrast to Gideon's white. “Zack tells me you're a fast learner. It's too bad I can't say the same for the majority of people on this side of the planet. I'm Sarah.”

“What do you mean by this side of the planet?” Gideon asked, forgetting to return Sarah's greeting.

“The west. You know. The developed side, just as on your Earth.”
Gideon didn't understand her meaning, but figured it would eventually become clear.

“How have you been Zack?” Sarah asked, turning toward the guide and embracing him in a big bear hug. “It's been several lifetimes.”

“Yes it has,” Zack replied, returning Sarah's embrace. He noticed Gideon's puzzled look.

“Do you remember the dream you had about the four desert wanderers?”Zack asked.

“The one where they found the city of gold?”

“That's the one. Sarah is like the fourth wanderer to climb the outer wall of the city.”

“I woke up,” Gideon cut in, “before the fourth wanderer decided whether to follow the others over, or climb back down to show the way to those lost in the desert.”

“Sarah is one of those that climbed back down,” Zack said. "She's known in my parlance as a Seeker, one who is devoted to teaching with the least distortion of truth. When consciousness is about to shift in purpose, people like Sarah come to make others aware that their beliefs create, but are not truths. She comes to teach acceptance and non-judgment.”

“Is she one of those old souls? You know, one that has had many Earth focuses.”

“Enough about me, already,” Sarah said, cutting off Zack’s answer. “Let's get on with what you came here to get on with.”

“Why is everyone so heavy on this planet?” Gideon asked.

“Watch what you say there, young man.” Sarah put her hands on her hips and did a pirouette. “Not everyone here is heavy. The heaviest people are right here in New York City, and Madison Avenue in particular.”

“I don't get it,” Gideon said. “And why is this called the Incredible Shrinking Planet? I don't see anything shrinking. Everyone's big.”

“All these big people don't get it either,” Sarah replied. “You see, Gideon, New York is the economic center of the world, and Madison Avenue is where the people work who find ways to make people like you and I want things we don't need. They make us feel that our happiness is all wrapped up in the acquisition of things, and they get very rich doing it.”

“And fat too, it looks like,” Gideon said.

“As the west consumes more than its share of the Earth's bounty, those in the east wither away. Here,” Sarah said. “Let me show you.”

Sarah placed both hands on Gideon's head. From the right hand he saw a family in the west sitting down to dinner. The table was laden with enough food for ten people eating sensibly, but this was a family of four. There were platters of steaks, mashed potatoes, corn, salads and pies. The four ate to their fill, then threw the leftovers into the garbage.

From Sarah's left hand Gideon saw another family of four sitting on the dirt floor of a thatched hut. On the floor was enough food for one person eating sparingly. It was divided into four equal shares.

Sarah removed her hands. “What did you see?” She asked.

“Two families eating dinner. One had too much, the other too little.”

“Describe the people.”

“One family was rich and overweight, the other poor and malnourished.”
“I'm going to touch you again,” Sarah said. “This time over your heart. I'm going to speed things up dramatically.”

The families were similar in age. The parents were in their thirties, and the children appeared to be around the ages of fourteen and five. The family with the abundant life style lived in a suburban community only a few miles from a sprawling shopping mall, whose contents equaled the gross national product of the small impoverished country of the poor family. The needy family lived on a barren plain with only a few scrub bushes in sight.

Gideon saw the family on the right eating and buying, and eating and buying; using and throwing away, using and throwing away. Years passed in a matter of seconds. While the right-hand family was consuming, the left-hand family was searching, searching for firewood, searching for water, searching for food. While the family on the right was growing fatter, the family on the left grew more and more emaciated. Soon after the scene began, the youngest of the poor family disappeared.
The more the right-hand family consumed, the more the left-hand family suffered. Gideon could not miss the implication.

“Are you showing me that the family on the left doesn't need to starve?” Gideon asked.

“That's exactly what I'm showing you, and the other family doesn’t need to grow fat.” Sarah answered.

“But what can one family do?” Gideon asked. “It would take the whole world to change to make a difference.”

“You’re assuming that there are victims here, Gideon. There are no victims, for all that happens, happens within the intent for which each individual entered their particular life. There is a famous seer named Seth, and this is what he said about victims, You make your own reality – or you do not. And if you do not, then everywhere you are a victim, and the universe must be an accidental mechanism appearing with no reason. So that the miraculous picture you have seen of your body came accidentally into creation, and out of some cosmic accident attained its miraculous complexity. And that body was formed so beautifully for no reason except to be a victim. That is the only other alternative to forming your own reality. You cannot have a universe in between. You have a universe formed with a reason, or a universe formed without a reason. And in a universe of reason, there are no victims. Everything has a reason or nothing has a reason. So – choose your side!

“Change is slow,” Sarah said. “But it starts with the individual. Change takes place one person at a time and the change that takes place for that individual is reality.”

“Come,” Sarah said. “We're going to watch a little TV. But this TV only plays commercials. It's in the Gleason building, just behind us.”

They passed through the gilded glass doors of the fifty story building, and entered an elevator that would take them to the thirteenth floor. They exited into a large waiting room filled with overstuffed chairs and a wall-sized TV screen. In twenty-second segments, ad after ad bombarded the room. Gideon noticed that children, in particular, were targeted by the ads, and he questioned Sarah about it.

“Children are the most impressionable,” Sarah began. “The admen realize that if they can hook one of us early enough they can trick us into believing that what matters most is what we possess. The inner life goes begging. The admen grow consumers. They're gardeners in a sense, but what they grow are the weeds. The weeds choke the flowers. The children grow up believing that happiness is found in things outside of themselves and the belief creates the reality. The ads tell you to be an individual, but theyre making you over in an image of their choosing.”

Gideon watched the TV screen, and in twenty-second sound and vision bites he began to understand what he did not understand on his home planet. Sarah touched his head as he watched, and the TV screen split into halves. On the right was the ad and on the left the effect the ad had on the planet as people bought what it was trying to sell. As he watched, Gideon under­stood why this was the Incredible Shrinking Planet.
This was a throw-away planet. What they took out of the planet to manufacture their products and create their money was never replaced because they believed that the earth could not replenish quickly enough what they took out. They saw money as their capital. Natural resources that made everything possible were expendable. As the ads whisked by in rapid succession on the right, representing the use of rain forest lumber, fossil fuels, ore of all sorts, water, and topsoil, the planet on the left shrunk perceptibly.

The entire screen changed as Sarah placed her other hand on Gideon's head. He saw beef cattle grazing on the right, and for each one an acre of grain disappeared on the left. As a boy his age wiped his hands on a throwaway paper towel, an old-growth tree from the temperate forests disappeared. As a young boy tried on a new pair of high-tech basketball shoes on the right, landfills rose to the height of mountains on the left. These scenes were repeated over and over until Gideon could stand no more. He brushed Sarah's hands away and the screen returned to its normal mode.

As he was about to speak, in walked the largest man he had ever seen. He was dressed like Gideon and Zack, but with ten times the material. Gideon figured it took five acres of cotton to clothe this one ponderous man. He could feel the floor tremble as the man lumbered over to them.

“Well, Sarah,” the big man said. “I see you're up to no good again. How did you get into my building?” Henry Gleason asked.

“The security guard must have been on a coffee break,” Sarah replied, eyeing the five hundred pounds of Henry Gleason. “I see business is good. You must have gained fifty pounds since I saw you last week.”

“Fifty-five,” Henry Gleason replied in short breaths, but obviously proud of his weight gain. “If business keeps improving I should reach seven hundred by spring. Only the CEO of Goldendeal will weigh more. Who are your two skinny friends?”
“They're just visiting,” Sarah replied.

Henry Gleason looked at Gideon. He knew his age made him a better prospect than Zack. “Can I interest you in anything?” He asked. “A new TV perhaps? You can never have too many TV's.”

Gleason knew the way to ones soul was through TV. It did more to mold beliefs than any other medium.

“I already have one, thanks,” Gideon answered.

“Well, then, how about a bigger one. Bigger is better. Maybe a new bike. One for the roads, one for the mountains, one for racing, one for loafing, one for downhill, one for uphill, one for going right, one for going left. Or, perhaps a car. You can drive here at twelve. We changed the law to increase sales. You can buy one for going short distances, one for long distances, one for on-road, one for off-road, one for snow, one for rain, one for heat, one for cold. We have front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, two-wheel drive, four-wheel drive, and all wheel drive.”

“I can't drive until I'm sixteen,” Gideon said. “And I think I'll just borrow my parent's car.”

Henry Gleason gasped. “Borrow, not Buy? Sinful. Just sinful. How about some new shoes? My company has done wonders for the shoe business. Why, I remember the days when people actually had to get by with one pair of shoes, and, can you believe it, they lasted for years. We changed that belief. Bad for business, that. Now we have shoes for walking, sitting, jumping, and skipping; shoes for grass, sand, rocks, roads, dirt, and ice; shoes for rain, snow, sleet, and shoes for cold and shoes for heat. What will it be? Perhaps one of each? That would be best.”

Gideon thought of the five pair of footwear in his closet at home, and felt a twinge of guilt. “I have enough, thanks,” he said and ducked as one of Henry Gleason's buttons popped off his vest and whistled past his ear like a bullet.

“I must be able to tempt you with something?” Henry Gleason said, his frustration increasing. “I know. How about some CDs. We have CDs for every kind of taste, and all sorts of machines to play them on. We have walk-man, jump-man, run-man, and jog-man. We have sit-man, stand-man, sleep-man and doze-man. You name it. We have it. And the best part is that you just throw the CDs away when your tastes change. We discourage trading.”

“Don't you have radio?” Gideon asked.

“We haven't had radio for fifty years,” Henry Gleason said proudly. “My father was responsible for that. He figured it cut down on all kinds of sales. The advertising wasn't so great on radio anyway. Dad discovered we could sell more for our clients if we got rid of radio altogether. My father gained two hundred and thirty-three pounds from that discovery. Now, instead of the music industry getting free advertising every time a radio station played their music, they pay us to advertise, and nobody gets their product for free. Great idea, huh, kid?”

“How do people who can't afford a CD player get to hear music?” Gideon asked.

“Not my problem, kiddo. Not my problem. My grandfather always said, 'money talks, B.S. walks'. Good man my Grandad. Died at four hundred and eighty-three and three quarter pounds. Started this company, he did.

“Look, it's obvious you're not here to buy or to enlist Gleason's help in selling a product. I don't want any potential customers seeing skinny people like you hanging around. Sarah,” Henry Gleason barked. “Get yourself and your light-weight friends out of my building before I call security.”

“My pleasure, Henry,” Sarah said. “We got what we came for. You better sit down. You're sweating all over your new suit.”

“Plenty more where this came from,” Henry Gleason replied. “Why, I have suits for hot, suits for cold, suits for driving, suits for flying, suits for high humidity, suits for low humidity...”

Sarah, Zack and Gideon didn't wait for Henry Gleason to finish. They had seen and heard enough. Gideon, was first out of the Gleason Building door and gulped-in the air. He had a sense of suffocating while inside.

“How can you stand it here, Sarah?” Gideon asked. He loosened his tie and threw the diamond tie-tack into the street. A smartly dressed gentleman dove into the gutter after it, and as he grabbed the diamond the button on his waistband popped off.

“Is it much different here than on your Earth?” Sarah asked. “It's all a matter of degree and it’s all based on your beliefs.”

“I don't think I'll ever buy another thing when I get back,” Gideon swore.

“You will,' Sarah replied. “But with more awareness of the impact your purchase has on the rest of the planet. Over consumption is not right or wrong, but the beliefs behind it carry consequences.”

“I don't think I need to go east,” Gideon said. “The point was well enough made right here in the west.”

“It's up to you, Gideon,” Sarah said. “You know, I think you're going to climb back down the outer wall of the city of Gold.”

“It's not going to be easy, my going back. Is it?”

“There's much yet to remember, Gideon,” Zack said, making a point not to use the word ‘learn.’. “And you'll remember it on your Earth. It won't be easy, for you have planned a big life for yourself. You staged the Round Pond episode to jump-start yourself.”

“What do you mean, 'I staged it'?” Gideon asked.

“That's another story for another time. Just remember, you are essence. You are powerful. You are no better. You are no worse. You simply are. Are you ready to go back?”

“More ready than ever before. Let's go.”

In the flash of a thought Gideon and Zacharaias were back in Norwich, Connecticut, hovering above the hole in the ice of Round Pond.