Consuming Thoughts: R

R is for (Re) That Begins the Begin. Michael Stipe: Let’s begin again. Begin the begin. Yes, REM again. It is slowly dawning (at least publicly) on key economic muckety mucks that a straight line growth model for business and the economy driven by relentless consumer spending may not be the direction we want to continue heading in. From No more reliance on consumer spending: Volcker on the Reuters site:

Consumer spending accounted for 70 percent of the U.S. economy before last year’s economic meltdown, a level that Volcker said was sustained only by “the magic of financial engineering.”

“We cannot rebuild the economy to the tune of 70 percent consumption or housing booms. It will just break down again,” Volcker said.

“We cannot have so much consumption.”

Begin the Begin. Volcker’s position is that we have to shift our paradigm from one of endless production and consumption of stuff to one of innovation and creation of value through projects like infrastructure development, “green” technology, energy efficiency and (re)trofitting of existing buildings. For consumers that means a strategic (re)direction of our spending. Instead of accumulating stuff how can we (re)orient our spending to create value?

Can we (re)invest in community?

Can we (re)trofit our homes?

Can we (re)duce our mindless buying?

Can we (re)place waste generating habits with value generating ones?

Can we (re)cycle the waste we do produce and the stuff that we do buy?

Can we (re)pair things instead of throwing them away?

Can we (re)use things and the things in things?

Can we (re)fuse that which is wasteful, poorly designed and, essentially, junk?

Can we (re)direct our spending on things, businesses and services that strengthen the Value Web?

You get the idea. Feel free to add to the (re) list and, please, begin the begin.

Tags: Begin the Begin, consumer spending, energy efficiency, green technology, Michael Stipe, Paul Volcker, recycle, reduce, REM, repair, retrofitting. reduce, reuse, Reuters

Consuming Thoughts: Q

Q is For Quiet When the Noise Relents. Michael Stipe: Answer me a question I can’t itemize, I can’t think clear, you look to me reason, it’s not there…Begin the begin. Competing desires, a hundred brands of breakfast cereal, 1000 channels of TV, millions of blogs, websites, billions of people and a gnawing feeling that most of this has little meaning. Noise. We are surrounded by noise and most of that noise is designed to encourage us to shop, spend, consume over and over again. We rarely get or give our selves the gift of being alone, silent, quiet, still. Gretel Ehrlich wrote The Solace of Open Spaces a wonderful meditation on living in the vast silence that surrounds and holds this noise. In “The Body and the Earth” Wendell Berry refers to our moments of communion with quiet as “atonement”-literally “at one-ment”. To achieve this “at-one-ment” is to practice fidelity to deeper commitments like marriage, family, friends & community and our relationship with place-our home. This is a fidelity that can “preserve the possibility of devotion against the distractions of novelty.” It is local, it is living in appreciation of the abundance brought forth from our commitments to our selves, the place we call home, and to each other.

Turn off the TV, gently return your iPhone to it’s charger. Go, sit down and draw and play with your children. Hug your husband or wife like you mean it and, then, find a place. Your place. Sit and be quiet. Begin the begin. At home. At one. Atone.

Tags: atonement, Begin the Begin, Gretel Ehrlich, iphone, Michael Stipe, The Body and the Earth, The Solace of Open Spaces, Wendell Berry

Consuming Thoughts: ABC

Last post on consumerism catalyzed a considerable cavalcade of conversations. So, here are some more mangled musings in alphabetical order on the art of consumption.

A is for Appetite Grown Uncontrol’d: Michael Stipe: “…What we want and what we need has been confused…” Let’s face it. Our current consumer economy depends on us buying, accumulating, consuming and throwing away a staggering amount of stuff we don’t need. This is a recent phenomenon. NOBODY lived like this until post-war, mass production became the norm a scant 60 years ago. For most of our collective history we’ve lived quite differently. How can we rein in our super-sized desire to consume? Where to begin? Become aware of your appetite and what is driving it. What do you want? Need? Crave? Why? Sit with what you learn.

B is for Becoming-Aware of What’s Really Bought & Sold: William Wordsworth: “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers…” Buying stuff is fun. Temporary happiness. Selling stuff creates income. Income is the blood in the body of business, the water in the community well. But, what happens when our blood carries carcinogens or is clogged with cholesterol? What happens when there’s poison in the well? Or, nothing at all? Often it’s not the stuff itself-it’s the stuff in the stuff we’re buying, the stuff that went into the process of making the stuff we’re buying, the place & people affected by the stuff we’re buying and the fundamental finiteness of the stuff we’re buying that counts. Traditionally these concerns were “externalized” which is basically a fancy way to say “ignored.” Not any more. There are an awful lot of us and we are growing. It may not seem to matter for you, “now” but what about the “now” of your children or grandchildren? Feel like gambling with the future of your children? Not me.

C is for Community and the Richness Therein: Chrissie Hynde: “I went back to Ohio, but my city was gone.” There are a slew of good reasons to buy local and they all point to the same thing: community. Consuming locally produced goods and buying from local merchants create a powerful positive value generating loop that supports and sustains a key aspect of what supports and sustains us: Say it with me: “community.” Strong Community also creates alternatives to simple monetary transactions. Consumption is essentially exchange of value and there are many ways to do this, including bartering, the creation of “local currencies”, and sharing the abundance of our collective efforts and wealth (the bounty of backyard and community gardens, extra profit and time, knowledge, experience and expertise, excess production, tools, leftover food). The opposite of investing in the health of community are intriguing phenomena like burning rivers and dancing cats. The choice, as always, is ours.

Tags: abundance, burning river, Chrissie Hynde, Community, consumerism, consumption, dancing cats, externalized costs, local currencies, Michael Stipe, Ohio, William Wordsworth