I was talking to Ron last night about consumerism. We watch a lot of movies and Netflix but not a lot of TV, so when we do watch TV, we’re weirded out by the commercials. We’re no longer desensitized to them, as we were when we were younger. Now they look over-the-top—seductively entertaining, each one a little eye-catching story.
And the consumerism! We feel grossed out by it. Our culture encourages us to own far more things than any human being truly needs.
Over the last couple years, we’ve done a purge of our possessions. Inspired by the movie Minimalism and websites like www.myplasticfreelife.com, and heartbroken by the movie A Plastic Ocean (both movies are on Netflix), we’ve recognized that a simpler life is both richer personally and kinder to the earth.
We’ve gotten rid of perhaps half our things. I’ve digitized most of our papers and old photos, taken countless loads to Goodwill, sold things on Craigslist and eBay, and joined our local Buy Nothing group.
It occurred to me, at some point, that there are two pieces to simplifying. There’s the getting rid of stuff, but there’s also the preventing of new stuff from accumulating.
I realized this when I remembered that this was far from the first purge I had done in my life. It was probably more like the fifth.
Beginning in middle school, I would do a big purge once every several years…only to find, years later, that I was again buried in possessions. It’s like I’ve been trying to clamber out of a pile that keeps growing faster than I can claw my way to sunlight.
The problem is, I’ve always wavered back and forth between desires. Often, the desire for simplicity has competed with the desire for a feeling of normalcy.
The latter might come, for example, with having the right clothes for all possible occasions, or with happily accepting mugs and bags and other swag I’ve received at conferences and events. There was also a certain shiftlessness in my young identity, as I’ve written about before. At alternating times, I would think I wanted to be a Buddhist yogi or an outdoorsy gearhead or maybe even a conventional American woman—a mysterious “me” who I’d never really been, but who I secretly longed to be.
With each shift, I would let go of simplifying and let new possessions accumulate.
I think that pattern will change now. I know myself better these days. Living with my chronic illness has taught me to pay more attention to my body’s sensations, which are key to knowing my authentic self.
My authentic self does want it simple.
My loose goal is for this point in my life, my early forties, to be the peak from which I descend off the mountain of possessions. I hope to have less and less stuff each year for the rest of my life. Ron agrees.
That goal means stemming the flow of new things. We’ve started a couple policies between ourselves. If either of us buys something new, such as an appliance or article of clothing or book, we try to get rid of its equivalent—an old appliance or article of clothing or book.
And once a year, we do a big purge, going through the whole house and looking for more to get rid of. Invariably, a few unwanted books and clothes have accumulated. Into the Goodwill pile they go!
We’ve also asked our immediate families not to give us “things” as presents, unless they’re things we’ve specifically asked for. If they do give us surprise “things” as gifts, we’ve cautioned that there’s a very real chance we will give those gifts away.
Instead, we’ve made a list of experiences that would make great gifts for us: tickets to movies and improv shows, passes to museums and gardens, gift cards for massages or ice skating or paint nights.
Our families are still getting used to this. There’s something satisfying about giving a person an object, wrapped up in gift wrapping, and witnessing them open it.
Habit expert Charles Duhigg says that to change a habit, we must first learn to recognize three things: the cue that triggers the habit, the routine we follow in response to the cue, and the reward we get for following that routine. The trick is to keep the reward, but change the routine.
With gift-giving in my family, the cue is a birthday or Christmas, the routine is buying objects and wrapping them, and the reward is the pleasure of seeing each other unwrap them. So my solution, in striving to simplify, is to “wrap” experiences in a way that can be physically unwrapped.
If I’m giving Ron an experience gift, I physically give him a gift card or a little hand-drawn coupon I’ve made. These can be wrapped, just like a present! (I’m happy to report that my family wraps most gifts in bags and tissue paper, which we reuse among us to avoid waste.) I’m hoping that, over time, our loved ones will get used to this new routine, too.
At some point, when Ron’s and my house began feeling significantly simpler and emptier than it had before, I noticed myself feeling a bit empty, too. I wondered if we’d overdone it.
Isn’t there comfort to a certain amount of fullness and chaos? I thought. Isn’t there a feeling of perfectionism, of uptightness, in having a lot of clean, empty shelves and tabletops?
Our house still felt warm, but it did feel emptier. We both dislike clutter, but at the same time, I thought: Isn’t a certain amount of clutter a bit comforting?
Then I realized that my sense of emptiness wasn’t really coming from my lack of possessions. Instead, this was an emptiness that had already been inside me, but had been exposed by my things’ absence.
Without quite so much stuff to distract me, it was easier to notice my own emotions. Now I was in better touch with my own boredom, loneliness, and melancholy. I had lost touch with many friends since getting sick. What I really needed wasn’t more stuff—it was stronger bonds with friends and family, more time with loved ones, more community in my life.
Instead of buying new things, I could reach out for tea and Skype dates. I could organize board game nights and potlucks. These were what I was really craving.
The simpler our life is, and the fewer possessions there are to clean, sort through, repair, and track, the more space there is for what really matters: relationships.
Then there are the broader benefits of simplifying, the ways it contributes to a better world.
Last night at dinner, when Ron brought up the commercials we’d seen, I got out my journal and read him something I’d written about consumerism just that morning. He said it was worth sharing with others.
Because I post in this writing blog so seldom, I thought this might be a good thought to share here.
12/8/2019
This morning we awoke to misty fog, damp fog after yesterday’s steady gray drizzle. It was the first significant rain we’ve had in weeks, a relief. The fall has been beautiful, cool and crisp and dry, often sunny, but there’s always the knowledge that this isn’t normal, and when we were at the coast the Sitka spruces had many dead branches. A guy I met down the road, Paul, said it was all the dry winters. Climate change will slowly kill many of the Northwest forests.
Last night, watching football with Ron (his birthday evening—I let him choose whatever he wanted, Friday and yesterday), and seeing all the commercials for things to buy, it struck me that only one hundred years ago, people did not yet have the ability to destroy the whole world and all its life.
Only beginning in the 1950s did children start growing up with the recognition that we might wipe out whole countries, whole continents, beyond recognition.
I looked at the Ohio State and Wisconsin football players and thought what children they are, these young men—so young, and having grown up in such a different world from the one I grew up in. They grew up with smart phones, active shooter drills, no memory of 9/11 but its wars everywhere, political polarization, police shootings, gender fluidity, the internet, social media. They grew up with the creeping reality of climate change, humanity now doubly able to destroy the world, first with nuclear war and now with every tiny decision we each make every day: to turn on a light, eat a hamburger, drive a car, have a child, vote for a politician.
But only a hundred years ago, that all would have been unfathomable. What would it be like not to grow up with these burdens?
This journal excerpt is melancholy, I know. These are sobering thoughts to walk away with after watching what was supposed to be an enjoyable sporting event! I did have a good time watching football with Ron.
But this is what it left me with, too: the lingering images of the young men’s faces, and the commercials.
In this world we’ve created, lightheartedness requires denial. We must push aside the reality of the ways in which our everyday activities are destroying the world.
I worry about the world because I love it. I love the earth, and life, and humanity so much. In this holiday season of consumerism and also of togetherness, I offer these thoughts with an open heart, a sense of reverence for the earth, and a feeling of love for all of us.
We’re all doing the best we can. We just need to keep trying and trying to do better.
