‘The things
you own end up owning you’
Tyler Durden, Fight Club
The happiness >< consumption conundrum of our
modern lives is fascinating… Whichever way you look at it, we seem to find ourselves in
somewhat of a pickle…
Consumption: a strange new religion
Its an undeniable paradox that as GDP rises in the developing world, happiness has plateauxed - we are in fact
apparently no happier now than any other time in the last 50 years despite the
fact that we are effectively still proportionally ‘wealthier’ than we have ever
been. In fact, we are witnessing worryingly high levels of mental health
issues, isolation and loneliness is several sectors of society as our new found material
wealth ultimately fails to provide us with long term spiritual satisfaction.
The concept
of ownership: a curious thing
The concept of material ‘wealth’ and ‘ownership’ is
pretty bizarre if we think about it; at the end of the day we are born and die naked and material items pass through our hands in a perpetual cycle as we pass through life, eventually everything is either given away or discarded in favour of
newer, better things…Our earliest ancestors inherently lived with this for a long part of our evolutionary journey, existing as nomadic hunter gatherers and restricting their material 'wealth' to items of practical use which they carried from camp to camp. No Ikea storage solutions required there.
Anthropologists and social psychologists will tell you our recent consumption frenzy is driven by
our social nature and need for security and peer acceptance. When we evolved from living in as hunter gatherers to more sedate pastoral societies in which we built established elaborate physical
settlements etc, we began to hoard material items to complement our increasingly
complex lives. Some were of practical use and made our daily
lives easier and others became a symbol of our social standing, affluence and
status. This trend in increased exponentially in line with geographical expansion, population growth and ambitious society building, and 50% of the world's population now lives in sprawling urban centres, plodding away on our various hamster wheels of consumption to feed our desire for more and more material wealth. We are of course, simultaneously, facing a deeper spiritual and planetary resource crisis than ever before so, something is rotten in the state of humanity...
Hmmm. So what now?
If we concur that happiness should be our ultimate goal, we
can conclude that the current status quo is leading us down the wrong path. So its time to break out and carve out a lifestyle that works better for the 'modern homo sapien' and takes more of a balanced approach to material wealth and contentment. We evolved away from our hunter gatherer past due to our drive for expansion and ‘progress’ and our next steps need not 'regress' us back to an acetic lifestyle. Hell I'm not ashamed to declare that some of our
modern material items are incredibly useful and desirable - I won't be giving up my laptop, Android phone or magic mixer anytime soon! However, there are of course some key values and aspects
of the uncomplicated nature of our 'early days' which we can
draw lessons and wisdom from. Whatever way we look at it, we have somehow reached a natural crossroads in our evolution at which we will benefit hugely from spend time examining
how our hard fought for lifestyles can become more compatible with some very basic
human needs which don't seem to be being met...
Cursed to live in interesting times
We are indeed cursed to live in interesting times. The advent of the Arab Spring
and Occupy movements in 2011 for example, taught us that we are perfectly capable of change - bold and ambitious paradigm shifts - if our goals have enough momentum behind them. Our life force is strong and alongside a number of other outdated concepts and behaviours from the 'old world order', our approach to material wealth and consumption needs revisiting... over-consumption is SO 20th century...
How does our new low
consumption lifestyle look....
So, some questions for us all - predominantly of course, how could a new, revised, non materialistic lifestyle
look for all of us? We all vaguely know the answers to this – less consumption, more reuse,
better design, more respect for each other and the planet etc, but what are actually the
next steps for us as individuals? The answer to this probably lies in what each of us feel is achievable in relation to our own parameters, circumstances and priorities and as usual there are a plethora of approaches we can take to working this out. One good place to start, as ever, is asking ourselves a few probing questions about
our personal attitudes towards consumption and taking it from there. These could for example be as follows…
Some
questions…
- When have you been most happy in your life and what was your ‘material’ status during that time?
- How do you feel when you buy things - are you an emotional consumer in search of a 'quick fix' or a practical one?
- Is it owning or buying things that generates the most satisfaction for you, and does the satisfaction last?
- What are your favourite things and which of those do you actually need, value and just simply want to own?
- Think about whether you really need the next few things you buy this week - can you re-use something else, borrow it, go without, etc?
- What three key steps could you take in 2012 to reduce your overall consumption and how would you feel if you achieved these?
What do you
think?
It would be fantastic to explore these questions - am really interested in everyone's answers in the comments section below. Lets jointly explore whether we can get somewhere with this curiously peculiar conundrum...
@clerkenwellgirl
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Interesting
links to explore:
VIDEO: Story
of stuff:
CONCEPT: Maslow’s
hierarchy of (human) needs:
BOOK: ‘Free: Adventures on the margins of a wasteful society’ by Kathrine
Hibbert
BOOK:
'Enough: Breaking free from the world of excess' by John Naish
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Enough-Breaking-Free-World-Excess/dp/0340935928/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329515645&sr=1-1
Fascinating post, Ms Wielandt! For me, the times in my life I've been happiest is when I've had the least. Living in Mexico and owning two skirts, which I alternated each day, and barely having enough pesos for the bus to work - I remember feeling so FREE. And now, at the Hub, the inspiring company makes me feel richer than any fat pay packet.
ReplyDeleteYou're right though, technology ownership is generally the exception as it's empowering (although I don't have a phone at the moment, and it's a bit of a relief not to have something to constantly check all the time) Couldn't live without my dancing shoes either!
I think most people would admit that their 'stuff' doesn't make them happier, but it's like an addiction and very hard not to influenced by your peers, especially if you're not lucky enough to spend your life surrounded by enlightened, non-materialistic sorts like we do (smug-face...)
I think, though, that we're seeing a movement away from the cult of possessions towards a society that values 'experiences' more than things. Obviously many of these (ski-trips, foreign holidays, etc) are also a drain on the world's resources. But hopefully there's scope here too for encouraging more good clean fun that doesn't involve buying loads of stuff.
In China and HK last year, I saw what society looked like when you went even further down the (neon-lit) road of consumer fetishism. And it was not pretty (shops open round the clock, people obsessed with making money, rampant over-development)It all seemed so antiquated somehow - like a throwback to the eighties (all those Rolex shops!!) - but they're only following our example. Time to set a better one...
I don't know Kirstie...my labrador will eat himself to death and my one year old daughter is very possessive over things and will try and carry as many things as possibly can at the risk of falling over and hurting herself. Is consumptive nature really 20th century or is it more about a consumptive economy?
ReplyDeleteI definitely recognise what you're saying: that more and more things don't make us more and more happy. And I do think a lot of people do recognise that (although that may not necessarily mean they stop buying things). To talk for myself; fewer things make me more happy: it gives me space to breathe and think. If you're reading this, try it for yourself. Pass on all the things you don't use- it's like a breath of fresh air!
ReplyDeleteOn reading your intro I started immediately thinking of an article I recently read by Bill McKibben where he says the average American has half as many friends as the American citizens of 50 years ago - he makes the point while talking about the difference between shopping at a farmers market and supermarkets. I thought that was an outstanding figure. The commercial epoch causes us to grade ourselves via material wealth but also affects the way we purchase - in those impersonal machines where we never look to talk to people or make friends, only to buy products we have no relationship and little appreciation for. They destroy community, and the 'leap forward' in our ability to buy things, based on the fact they are made/grown by someone in another country, separates us from being able to value things properly. Goods just appear, be they fruit or trainers, We take it for granted they will always be there, we can always replace them - never thinking of where they come from. So we are greedy, we take things for granted, and we have less of a community because of it. This 'strange new religion' definitely needs a rethink
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