I have happily embraced our new online shopping overlords and do 90% of my shopping online. It's great because it makes tracking my spending a lot easier — I have the amount spent shown in my online store account and an email detailing the same, so there's no need to double-check physical receipts (which are being phased out) or my bank account. It also allows me to access more sustainable products than I have available locally, such as via Flora & Fauna.

However, I find myself heading into physical stores to buy groceries and one-off items now and then. Every time I am reminded of why I find the experience thoroughly overwhelming, but none more so than preceding an upcoming holiday celebration.

Currently, the upcoming celebration is Christmas. Christmas-themed items have been adorning the supermarket aisles since the weeks before Halloween, and wow, they are obnoxious. As were the Halloween decorations proudly displayed in this country where the origins and traditions of Halloween never had roots. We have merely adopted this now consumerist holiday because the Americans do it, and the things they do are cool. Allegedly.

The same can be said about Christmas — while I'm not religious, nor do I do anything to celebrate on this day, it is interesting that the day's origin has shifted so much. Once Saturnalia in Roman times, the birth of Christ and a monotheistic holiday the next, and now a time of buying presents and possibly spending time with loved ones.

While some people thrive in these massive sale environments in physical stores — they find them exciting or interesting and get joy from finding specials and whatnot — clearly, I don't have the same enthusiasm. That isn't to say I don't enjoy sales either, but 90% of the time, I only buy products on sale. So a special is a baseline for me to consider a purchase. Of course, there are exceptions, such as when the per unit price of something on special is still higher than something that isn't. However, I digress.

As I see it, this problem with overwhelming marketing is also highly prevalent on stores' websites. But it generally used to only be the home page. However, now I can go to Woolworths's household goods or dairy section, and encounter a selection of products perched just below the header. Most recently, it contained an array of various decorations, all clearly made from cheap plastic and suggested that I may be interested in these Halloween decorations.

The amount of plastic on sale is laughable but not surprising. The companies selling these products are giants who claim to be looking towards a more sustainable future, using the fact that they're switching away from plastic bags and setting up recycling programs as proof. Remember when our supermarket giants initially stopped using plastic bags? But then one of them started giving out plastic toys instead. It was as though they had an agreement with a supplier to move x amount of plastic and needed another way to keep to that agreement. Of course, this was widely ridiculed, and they stopped for a while, but I'm pretty sure I've seen similar "deals" since.

Regardless, let's remember they're being forced out of using plastic bags already, so why not go one step further to save on costs and look good while doing so? And that the recycling programs are, at best, a combination of good PR and a way they may have found to cut costs further. For example, if the government subsidises this or if they make some money from collecting recycling for another company. These might be considered "win-win" scenarios, but if one doesn’t do good without incentives, were they ever actually "good"?

These are significant steps forward, but we shouldn't begin to describe them in ways that glorify them. It's not that I'm cynical — at least not all the time — but when they take the matter more seriously, I'll pay attention to them. Off the top of my head, this would involve products that are unnecessarily wasteful and produced unethically or have been unanimously determined to be detrimental to one's health — regardless of whether customers want them or not. They should either remove such products, as would be the case with cigarettes, or replace them with sustainable and ethically produced alternatives at the same price point. (I say "price point" because Woolworths and Coles aren't the best places to get a bargain; they're merely the most convenient for most people.)

It's not a strict guideline, but you know a company is more dedicated to a cause when,

• They make changes for the better despite customer backlash;
• They don't need prompting from a ruling body, such as the government, and,
• The changes don't put the majority of the burden of doing the right thing on the customer.

As an aside, these are all hoards of items they didn't need to have in the first place. The amount of products these stores buy is always more than they can consistently sell, regardless of whether it's holiday decorations or apples. Usually, the idea is that displaying a significant amount of each item encourages the customer to purchase it — the feeling of abundance creates comfort in doing so. One encouraging thing in response to this is some laws being passed in other countries, such as France, and states, like California, which prohibit companies from throwing away excess stock.

Now that we've spent sufficient time on these tangents let's get back to the topic. The topic where I talk about how these tactics of increasing sales feel like being followed by a salesperson constantly showing me things and asking if I'd be interested in buying them.

In this particular instance that spurred me into writing a thousand words on the topic, I wanted to buy toilet paper. But the page emphasised all of these other Halloween products, such as a singing, dancing skeleton. If you know me or have read some of my other posts, you know I'm generally cautious towards marketing due to its power over people given enough time and thoroughly encouraging of constantly asking "why?" (We Feel Free Because We Lack the Language to Articulate Our Unfreedom and Embracing Curiosity: The Power of Never-Ending Questions both introduce my perspectives on both, respectively.)

We are so convinced we need these things that we will defend them with every generic argument we've been spoon-fed to use. These range from arguing on a personal level that some people enjoy shopping to insinuating negativity as a desire to suck the happiness from the world. It's all about personal enjoyment in the moment, not having to worry about consequences beyond one's own feelings, and not having responsibility for anyone beyond oneself.

That's why these seemingly innocuous aspects of our lives are more pernicious than we initially believe or are instructed to believe as we navigate a world that constantly tries to control our behaviour and frames it as a personal choice. So, of course, these kinds of obnoxious things bother me. I believe the solution goes beyond telling me to personally ignore it, that it's okay because some people like it, or that it's apparently "not hurting anyone".

Firstly, you won't find it coincidental that many people happen to like whatever the latest trend is. So what does that say concerning our preferences? A trend isn't created simply because the desires of the world's people will it into existence. Secondly, the phrase "it's not hurting anyone" is such an irresponsible cop-out. If a practice or behaviour doesn’t rip your wallet from your pocket or stab you in the face, it's fine by our standards. So irresponsible borrowing is the focus, not irresponsible lending. Allowing people to work under potentially harmful conditions that could cause debilitating health issues later in life is fine because those people signed a contract that waived their employer’s responsibility. Great. Are those the standards we want to have? How about entities are held to long-term accountability for their actions?

Indeed, the rationale of our liberal hyper-individual capitalism is genius — we are constantly persuaded to behave and think in specific ways, including being convinced that it's all our conscious choice. At the end of the day, everything is political. In fact, there's no such thing as being apolitical — it's just a way of admitting one's adherence to the status quo without realising it.

That's why questioning and aiming for a consciously minded living are essential. Encouraging a more thoughtful way of approaching life is more important than being called a stick in the mud for promoting it. It's more important than worrying about bothering people with tirades about it.

And it's definitely more important than me having a singing, dancing skeleton on my balcony.