Count me

It's an odd sensation, knowing you are being counted constantly. As I purchased my organic diced tomatoes and Kashi granola bars last night, I was aware, as usual, that using my Ralph's card to get a discount also meant that my purchases were being tallied in a database somewhere.

I don't mean this to be a paranoid observation. I find solace that my choices are being noted somewhere, while in this busy phase of my life in which I don't have time to write to my senators, actually edit blather like this for a newspaper editorial, or sometimes even to vote in local elections.

I buy organics sometimes just to make a tiny tick in the column of the "good guys." I click on news stories on CNN that have to do with the environment, health, and nature. Even if I don't read them. I note with dismay the "most viewed" articles on various news websites are the "man bites dog" types.

I give "hits" to websites I like. Indeed, there are some that actually are paid by their commercial sponsors by the click (see http://www.therainforestsite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=4 -- no endorsement implied).

While I do find some of this borderline intrusive, of course, (e.g. advertising website cookies), going about the business of living my life at the moment means getting grocery store receipts announcing that I've earned $95 in the "Wine Club," whether I like it or not, and Amazon.com suggestions of books I'd like to buy (the latter being an amusing reminder of a journalism course I took 5 years ago, as that's the last time I bought a book from them).

However tiny our personal track record may be, at no time have our lives been so tracked, and have trends been calculated using such seemingly mundane details of our lives.

So count me, why don't you?