choosing self awareness

Many scholars, people far more distinguished and possessing larger vocabularies than I, have spent long hours looking into the meaning or purpose of life.  They have written volumes on ethics and morals and how the world should be. I can not pretend to know enough that I might publish volumes on the topic.  My personal purpose, the things that constitute right action in my life, this is evolving and changing at all times.  I can not say that I know where I will end up in life as my brain is too small and self limiting to know my death day and what I will have figured out by then.

I am quite aware that I have been well trained in how to consume, finding happiness and satisfaction by spending money and possessing goods is the epitome of the consumer lifestyle.  I wonder what my life would be like if I could shift my focus away from buying all the wonderful things that the industrial and technological revolutions have presented us with. I hope that you would not take this to mean that I would stop participating as a member of society.  Nor do I wish to segregate myself from the outside world through the creation of some exclusive society or “cult.”  To think the only choice we have is backwards or isolationist is to decide we have no choice at all.

To generate economic prosperity (and let us remain mindful of who our economy benefits because this is where the power sits) participation rates must remain high and it is best if it is on a voluntary basis.  We all contribute to economic growth and at this point in time most of it is unsustainable. 

There is such a veil of complication; consumption, a desire for goods that is created by a need to fill the void that each of us feels. Richness defined by possessing goods, and by ones ability to overspend creating cradle to grave debt.  Advertising and entertainment remind us how important it is to wear the right clothes, use the right cling wrap, and give the right diamond ring to show love for another well educated consumer.

I am a lover of beautiful things. I prefer items that are personal and expressive, objects that have been given a life by someone. These are things that we cherish and use with care and love.  By its very nature, mass production creates a conformist mentality, losing originality and personalization in favor of having the very coolest thing that everyone else has too.  

I am a lover of the world around me, of the beauty that is created by natural forces we can not perceive or explain.  Wilderness is disappearing at the hand of man, in the name of economic progress, resource management, and unsustainable population expansion. I can not help but see destruction when I look around.  I see waste and greed and hedonistic consumption that lacks self-awareness. This is not true of all cultures or people in my life, but certainly I believe it to be true of our society in general.

Is it possible to live a life that is intentional and deliberate?  Can I find a way to derive joy from meaningful work.  Is it possible to find some happiness and balance in this world.  It so easy to dismiss these choices as backwards granola fed hippie ideals.  Many do. It is so easy to choose the 40+ hour work week and buy food produced with slave and child and migrant labor in some unnamed town/city/state/country suffocating under the cloak of capitalism.  It seems the obvious choice to spend $130.00 on a pair of jeans produced in Indonesia by little girls for only pennies a day.  Media of all sorts tells us that those jeans are very stylish and that I will look better and be happier if I have them.  I find myself wondering who it is that has such power over us as to have destroyed the ideals of local economy, self sufficiency, and financial independence. I find myself defending my choices.

Why is it that our society rewards and glorifies large, corrupt, multinational corporations whose operations result in the repression and destruction of self sufficient, indigenous cultures to the exclusion of all other choices.  I am often frustrated when I realize what a grip this relatively tiny, elite group of individuals has on our socio-economic belief system.  Explain, justify, convince.  I will have none of it.   There are powers with far more influence and money trying to suppress or else make money off the choices that I would exalt.

I simply wish to live my life. And for the others, the ones who would degrade, question, or even openly ridicule the path I choose I ask only for respect and the ability to live my life in peace.  

I choose a path that endeavors to do no harm.  I choose a path that may one day be openly accepted and encouraged within our culture but that few seem to recognize as viable, or else they are so threatened by my choices that mockery and arguments challenging the legitimacy of my path seem the best course of action when the issue arises. 
I do not need plastic goods, petroleum by products, promoted as easy to use and easy to throw away when their ‘useful life’ is over; filling landfills and cluttering the earth for millennia.  I do not need another one of this or more of that to take up space on a shelf.  I do not need cable tv to fill my head with truths written with the help of corporate funding and providing suggestions of ways to spend my life energy – converted into cash money – via the federal reserve.

I have set out to do something different and sometimes I succeed at that. There are some things I think I do well and things I fail miserably at. All I can do is cultivate self awareness for this is better than walking through life blind and deaf to how I fit into this world.