Gazing in the Mirror

November 23 - The Violence Of Over-Consumption

The most important human endeavor
is the striving for morality in our
actions. Our inner balance and even
our very existence depend on it. Only
morality in our actions can give beauty
and dignity to life.
~ Albert Einstein

The thing to do is to unify ourselves
with the biggest ideas that we can
compass; and realizing that our ideas
govern our ... at-one-ment with All
Power ... know that our word will bring
it to pass.
~ Ernest Holmes

The year is 2012 when I first wrote this essay and in the United States it was a Friday commonly known as Black Friday. This is always considered the day after Thanksgiving. It is the kick-off, the beginning of the season of consumption. I had never thought of over-consuming resources as a kind of violence but I read about this concept in an article by Arun Gandhi. He is the grandson of the famous Mahatma Gandhi who taught a concept of non-violence. He was blessed to study for a couple of years directly under his grandfather. He tells the story of the pencil. I share that with you now.

One day he chanced to throw away a small nub of a pencil, throwing it down into the grass along his pathway, thinking to receive from his grandfather a new one that evening. When he asked for one, his grandfather said to him "Why do you need a new pencil ? You had a perfectly good one this morning." When he told his grandfather what he had done, he was sent out with a flashlight to retrieve it. When he finally returned, his grandfather used that nub of pencil to teach his grandson about the violence of over-consuming resources.

Mahatma said "The first lesson is that even in the making of a simple thing like a pencil, we use a lot of the world's natural resources. When we throw them away, we are throwing away the resources, and that is violence against nature. The second lesson is that even though we live in an affluent society, where we can afford to buy all these things in bulk, we over-consume the resources of the world. Because we over-consume them, we deprive other people in the world of these resources, and they have to do without and live in poverty — that is violence against humanity."

My husband and I share a business in which we take cast off, post-consumer materials and make something new from them. These are minor objects like milk jugs, detergent bottles and the stoppers of cork from wine bottles. I believe I am aware about resources but I know that I do not achieve the level of awareness expressed by Gandhi in this story. I try to use leftover food efficiently but if I fail to do so, I have a compost pile that feeds wild critters or returns the organic matter to the earth. Each Christmas we would give away the toys our children had outgrown to a local toy drive.  During the year we sometimes give similar objects to the women's and children's shelters in our region.

One year at Christmas, we were experiencing a severe shortage of funds.  We had to reduce by over half what we could spend on our children. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that over the years, they had toys we had bought for them that they had not even explored when the next holiday came around.  So that hard year, I found the practice of seeking less volume with more value to be a satisfying one. I did not feel that my children suffered any lack and I do recognize that they are fortunate to be growing up within a degree of affluence. Even today, the inequality of wealth points us towards yet another limited year of financial resources.

It takes effort and a willingness to develop the eyes to recognize our own "violent" choices and behaviors. The Occupy Movement of 2011 exposed some of our illusions and renewed in some minds a desire to wake up and change behaviors.  This always begins with our own. Our actions reveal minor levels of "violence" if we become more attentive. The very foundations of our affluent existence are those people at the bottom living on the margins of our willing lack of awareness. The resources of the earth are not ours to be dominated, exploited or over-consumed. The environment of our planet is actually integral to our Life Force and we would do well to respect that truth. We should evaluate our truest "need" for basics like good food or even the objects that give us beauty or entertain us. Let us at least have more awareness and consider their cost/value when we make our choices. And let us be grateful that we are fortunate enough to afford them at all.

~ perspective

I discipline my self to be aware
of how much I really need and
I attempt to have a balanced
consumption and a respectful
awe for all that I use in living
my life.
I evaluate cost vs value in
making selections of seasonal
and birthday gifts.
I am aware of the role that
public media plays in encouraging
the over-consumption of goods.
I consider passive actions to
counter the violence of over-
consumption such as Buy Nothing
Day in response to a post-
Thanksgiving Black Friday.
I seek to live in balance with Life,
taking only what I need and
understanding my reasons and
the larger global cost of whatever
I do consume.

#affluence #compost #exploitation #giving #recycling #resources #sharing #truth #values #violence