A New Life

Is it possible for humans to continue to exist when our entire existence is based upon violence towards others and our planet? What would happen if those that supply us with what we need to sustain our economy decided not to do business with us, wouldn’t we attack them and take what we require? Isn’t that the entire point of our military, and haven’t we done this a hundred times in the past? Our lives are not sustainable because we waste energy and resources at such an extreme level? We justify the waste by believing it is our right, and that without waste the economy cannot continue to function. Our economy is based upon waste. We are encouraged to waste, encouraged to buy what we do not need, encouraged to throw away what is still useful to buy the new thing. We are all part of system that is destroying the lives of millions so we can have cheap computers, TVs, and the rest of the detritus to which we have become accustomed. How did it come to this level of waste? We have sacrificed our lives to the accumulation of things. We define our existences by the things we have around us, but then who are we when these superficialities are what define us. We have become consumers? We define ourselves by our ability to consume the right things so we appear to be “successful” compared to those around us. Our only value is in how much we are able to stimulate the economy. I don’t want to be an economic entity whose only measure of value is his ability to turn his time, his flesh, his existence into money? But how to check out? How to stop? How to learn and understand what it means to live a meaningful life that is not based upon my participation in this empty consumer economy, and how to do that while maintaining the extravagant lifestyle to which I am accustomed?