What I craved was a reassurance that the glut of pleasure and variety—from the ninety-nine-cent bag of chips to the heaps of grass-fed ground lamb—weren’t an unfair bounty but an opportunity. That my passivity could actually be flipped into a chance to take action, validate myself; that despite all my taking, I could give back. Which is, of course, precisely what those ethical, organic, and fair labor seals are offering. Talking to Kevin about bliss points, I begin to understand: third-party certification does not exist to solve a problem in the world, but to solve one inside of me. Their
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