In this holiday season, people may go out on spending sprees, going into debt, and spending the rest of the year paying it off. We are the consumer culture, buying things we can’t afford made by people in third world countries we’ll never meet. It’s just the newest chapter of exploitation and greed. Imagine a world where we didn’t do all of this. Imagine a world where we were happy with what we had, and didn’t constantly need a new product to make our lives feel whole. Imagine a world where we saved money, instead of frivolously spending it on things we would later regret buying. We buy and buy and buy for others during this holiday season, when what we could give them is much more meaningful than a gift. You could cook them a meal, make them some cards, or just tell these people how you feel about them. You could have a nice family meeting where everyone goes around saying good things about each other. There is plenty you can do in lieu of gifts.
For the past few years, when people have asked me what I want for Christmas, I’ve often said, “I don’t know.” The only thing I would possibly want would be maybe an Amazon gift card to add a few more books to my Kindle, or something that I will get continuous value from, like a mug warmer or a new desk for my computer. But I don’t really need those things, I just want them. The desk I have is okay, it works, and I would have to get rid of this one in order to get a new one. What I could really use is a small filing cabinet that could fit where the tower part of a computer would go if I had a desktop computer. That way I could be a bit more organized. Ever since the drawer bottom came out of my one drawer in this desk, I’ve been using a box on the floor. But it hasn’t caused any suffering yet. It’s just a minor inconvenience. And I could easily head down to the Salvation Army and find a file cabinet that fits my needs and I could easily afford it.
What is it we actually need? Food, water, some kind of shelter, people who support us, and fuel for those terribly cold months some areas of the world experience. That’s pretty much it. It is not required to have an iPhone or a Sony Entertainment System. Those are things that can easily be done without. Most of us would say we need a computer or a television, but that is simply not true. Even though today’s world is full of them, and many people’s jobs rely on these new technologies, are they really necessary? No, but they are still worth having sometimes because we all like to use them every once in awhile. Self-deprivation is no fun, and we should have things we use, but things we do not use or will never use should be donated, or simply thrown away. Or even recycled.
Many people today are minimalists and they don’t even know it. There are people who are minimalists by necessity, because they have very little or no money. Then there are those who are very wealthy who own very little, because they’ve seen beyond the socially-conditioned way of life and choose to only own what is useful to them. It’s all about the mindset. Not to mention that it is wise to save money and buy less now before the complete collapse of the economy. It won’t take long for this to happen, just a few decades at the most. We have no idea of the times that we are headed for. Things certainly haven’t gotten any better, and if that’s any indication of how our future will be, then we need to stop spending fast. I just hope our government stops printing money so that we don’t experience hyperinflation, which will make all the money we saved up essentially worthless.
I’m trying to justify minimalism in these hard times, because it will be best for us when it all comes crashing down. And that all this spending, all this debt, is exactly the problem. Stimulating the economy through credit cards and loans is not going to solve the problem, but just make it worse. Do you hear that, Washington? Stop all the spending and maybe someday we’ll get out of this recession. Stop spending all our hard-earned money on things that don’t benefit us, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars haven’t helped the American people one bit. In fact, it has crippled them. So has all this outsourcing to China and other countries that will willingly exploit their people to send up cheaply-made merchandise. Is this the world we were meant to live in? I think not.
Why aren’t people willing to do the things that are necessary to creating the world we were meant to have? It’s going to start on a conscious level, moving down to the physical. We need to have a global rise in consciousness before we can get anything done. We need leaders to get those who are not quite there yet up to our level. We need to educate people about what is really going on in the world, so that they can make informed choices on what to buy and what not to buy. Not only that, but what to do, and what not to do. If we stopped buying things from the corporations who exploit other nations and other people, then they would have no power whatsoever. If we all stopped going to Walmart and Target and Best Buy, then perhaps we would see a change for the better. If people would actually think of why something is so cheap and think of the people who actually have to produce these things, there would be the start of a consciousness revolution.
It sure is a mad world out there. And most people would rather be left in the dark about it, because if they don’t know, they don’t feel they are contributing to it. But that is sheer willful ignorance. We are all contributing to this world in one way or another, and we can decide in which way we want to contribute. We can move towards fear or we can move towards love. We can keep going on this suicidal trainwreck, or we can stop the train and figure out which steps need to be taken to restore the world to what it once was. For the benefit of all creatures, not just our narrow, unenlightened self-interest. Why is it that everyone who ever told us to live together in harmony either got shot or killed in some other way? When are we finally going to be ready to hear this, much less do it?
