As of
November 22nd 2005 I am a free man.
I am freed from that most heinous of taskmasters, my own materialism.
The real background for this exists already in my ‘Poverty of Plenty’ entry from June, but in summary, the possessions had come to possess the possessor.
I blew two and a half years of my life with a frivolous pursuit that brought little in return save for lower back pain and endless hours of tedium.
Why, you may ask did I bother? The answer is simple enough: greed. I’ll admit that with no hesitation. I had some deranged idea that if I could just make enough money, I could buy my way into a happier existence. That is not to say that I was unhappy per se but one of the clear messages that society sends our way is that more is better. Consume, consume, consume and you’ll be happier. What right had I to disagree? If I can sell more, I can make more money and therefore buy more stuff which will make me happy! YAY! That’s a wonderful and simple formula that results in total happiness for everyone!
Well, finally, it seems the fog has lifted. I’m in the process of selling off enough of this ‘stuff’ to keep me in ‘oranges’ for an indefinite period with no real desire to acquire anything else. Due to some recent contacts I’ve had with a certain Buddhist friend, I’ve realized that stuff sucks. Material possessions only lead to suffering and disappointment. No matter how much item X may please me today, it’s only going to end in regret later that I wasted scant resources on X instead of Y. Of course Y is no better than X but I don’t actually HAVE Y so it’s bound to seem better.
It seems the only real satisfaction comes from within. I cannot begin to tell you how amused and satisfied I have been reading back over some of my previous blog entries. These cost me nothing to compile except for the time it took to write them and yet they’re infinitely more amusing to me than the coin collection I’ve compiled over the past 2 years in my pursuit of … well, whatever I was really pursuing. Such irony… all these years, looking for the yellow-bricked road to happiness when all the oranges I could eat were right here all along. Now I know how Dorothy must have felt.
1 comment:
Hooray and good for you!! Sounds to this certain Buddhist friend that you're well on the way to a healthier relationship with stuff. Don't feel bad about greed, it's just a delusion. And it sounds like now you're seeing through it.
You're right, "more is better" -- it's a very clear message from our consumerist culture.
Well, stuff doesn't suck, it just is what it is. Stuff. Nothing is good or bad in itself. It's us constantly applying value judgments to things that make them seem good or bad. It's all projection, in the psychological sense. Material possessions do not lead to suffering and disappointment, it's the expectations we put on them to deliver more happiness than they are capable of that leads to suffering and disappointment. And another clear message of our consumerist culture is that such wild expectations are actually appropriate. Really, they're not. It's laughably silly, if you can see the whole thing from outside. But that's a difficult perspective to get to, starting as we all do in the heart of our consumerist culture.
Charlie
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