corimagua

We have to break free from consumerism. We are literally consuming ourselves to death.  The fact that we live in a finite planet at the peak of environmental collapse seems to elude the large majority of the human population. The planet has limits and we are reaching them. We can no longer consume as if these limits do not exist. As a species, we cannot keep our current consumption patterns and except to survive.  i’m not talking about consumption in general here. Everyone consumes, it’s a requirement of life to consume things in order to survive. All living beings need to consume food in order to survive, we need to consume water etc. That’s consumption at its elemental level and i’m not referring to that consumption here.. I’m talking about the consumption by consumers, not the consumption by human beings.  I’m talking about over consumption

 This drive to consume more and more, to keep mounting piles and piles of un-needed crap, this consumeristic mindset that has been hammered into our brains by advertisement and marketing. By corporations who have made vast amounts of wealth selling us shitty products. The constant onslaught of commercials and ads that invade every inch of our lives have blurred the line between needs and wants, almost as if consumption was imbedded into our DNA. We go through life accumulating more and more things, the majority of which we don’t truly need. Think about it, do you really need that 14th pair of sneakers? or that brand new edition piece of technology?, or that 40th shirt ?. We need to become responsible consumers, responsible human beings.

 There are two sides to the coin. While we over consume, there are millions who don’t have the essential necessities of life. Over TWENTY THOUSAND children die every day due to poverty, and they die quietly in some of the poorest village on earth, far removed from the conscience of the world. This is a crime and given the amount of resources and technologies we as a species posses there is no reason why atrocities like this should occur. I don’t have the solution for poverty but i know that we can all do all part. We can all live simpler lives so that others can simply live.

 It’s the rich countries who do the large majority of the consumption. If all the developing countries consumed the same we do in the wealthy countries we would need 20 planets to supply all that demand, not only is this not sustainable, it’s impossible. We all have to learn to live with less. Living with less doesn’t meant we have to degrade the quality of life, on the contrary we are going to live much better lives once the whole world stops this consumption madness and worries about the essentials of life, the real truths, the simple things which truly make us happy.