Stuff and Values
Very curiously, the shift toward consumption and “progress” as primary driving values of our society, which results in us throwing away 90% of the products we purchase in a matter of 6 months (in the US at least), and which came about in the 1950s, conincides with a begin of a declining happinness in our society as well.
Stuff does not make happy, as much as the 3000 or so advertisements each US citizen is in average targeted with per day try and persuade you. Stuff is just that. Stuff. When you don’t have it and are told you should, you are unhappy. When you finally decide to get it (oftentimes not even with disposable income, but with fake money generated by credit card companies), then you immediately fall into post-purchase dissonance (ever wondered why many product manufacturers are so eager to congratulate you on your purchase?), and worse, your mind will immediately jump to the next thing you don’t yet have and for which you have a perceived lack. So where is there any room for happinness?
It seems that happinness is rather ephemeral. Heard a saying once that said “Happinness is not getting what you want, but wanting what you have”. Think there is a difference between happinness and joy. Think happinness might be the result of getting what you want, but joy comes from a deeper place. It comes from a place of gratitude, where you realize how amazing it is to be here, to experience, to have sensory input to play with. It comes from being authentically creative, from loving, from doing what each of us is here to do (see the idea of dharma in one of my prior posts).
Stuff won’t help much in that regard. And stuff is what is killing us and is making our survival on this planet a rather dubious outlook…
If you want to learn more about stuff, check out this most excellent 20 minute video. Think it is one of the best I have seen on the topic… The Story of Stuff
One great point the movie makes is that the core issue is in our value system. Accepting consumption as a value is accepting death. Think about it: when you consume something, it is gone. Done. Finito. In the old days, they used to have a diagnostic called “consumption”: it was the slow death by withering away… If we do not replace consumption with creativity, we shall soon have consumed ourselves on this planet. It’s time to change our value systems back to consciousness and creativity: Toward becoming ever more aware, piercing through the layers of dullness our last fifty years of overstimulation have provided us with, really feel again, fully experience again, focus on the experiences of joy and love, replacing lack and fear, and toward becoming ever more creative, expressing our experience of being here using each of our unique set of talents and gifts. That will bring joy, not more stuff…
Where have all the utopias gone?
Before anything can be realized, it has to be imagined. The first step in any process is the visualization of what the end result might look like. Looking at movies today, representing the myths and stories of our times, I wonder, where all the utopias have gone…
We have a whole genre of Sci-Fi. We have tons of movies about robots taking over, evil aliens, space wars and evil empires. But where are movies that paint the picture of a future that is sustainable, where we live in harmony on this planet, without nations or wars, without governments or armies, without wasting money on a huge military-industrial complex, where people are not poisoned with plastic food and laugh tracks every day of their lives while being worked to death in useless and unproductive cubicle jobs that have little to do with their natural gifts and talents, where we overcame the global challenges the UN just published in their State of the Future 2007 report ?
[two of the items above I think could be easily helped by legalizing all drugs and prostitution - it would take a chunk out of international crime and ultimately allow women to step up and demand a different place in society]
The solution lies in imagination. First, we have to imagine, then we can create. As children we are taught to worry and fear, but rarely are we encouraged to dream and imagine a positive future. We need to have film makers who dare to step outside the common themes of fear, lack, guilt and shame – making up the ego – and dare to create works of art that inspire each and every one of us to do something about bringing forth a different future (rapture is not an all too pleasant notion).
And each of us can help as well. By imaginig brighter futures for ourselves and for our environment, by creating personal utopias, we can begin to create more joy, love and creativity. By smiling at strangers we can improve the state of this world…
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twitter- The Role of the Visual Arts in the Enhancing the Learning Process http://t.co/cDXlM9KH
- No Safe Path - Interview about the role of #artists in crafting #culture http://t.co/Jy0IxLKg
- There is no more future but yours...
- Shine your light. Bright. Please!
- Communications groups destined for collaborative innovation http://t.co/u7lA75Bn
- Knowledge shall be free... http://t.co/UAAI5h7B
- The secret life of personal data http://t.co/qelhuW7f
- Top 5 regrets of the dying http://t.co/socS0MkM
- Multi-Tasking can work well - with layering http://t.co/vVX7bQZW
- We Know What You Want And When You Will Buy It http://t.co/NDCAPHvy
- Our attitude towards death determines our attitude towards life
- Bonobos (And Maybe Baboons) Domesticated Themselves http://t.co/kamMkeDj
- After The Revolution, Enter The Evolutionary http://t.co/okyynYap
- Hardwired For The Mystical? http://t.co/yUM4MZ2v
- Your brain on values... http://t.co/nnnNhfoN