“The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.”- John Burroughs
Our current society is set up in such a way that it encourages passive living and mindless consumption rather than active living, making and doing.
Especially the white collar jobs (office jobs), which for the most part represent today the equivalent of the factory jobs of the past, but this is a theme for at least another article, mould such individuals that are par excellence passive consumers of goods, services and entertainment.
They lose the knowledge and the drive to make things, to create, to actively contribute outside the boundaries of their respective jobs.
Moreover, they are used to having a narrow specialization and don’t know or are interested, or for that matter, consider having the time to learn to do much else. This is a major excuse “I don’t have time” to learn and practice new skills, do, make, create something.
But they do dedicate a fair amount of time to passive consumption-type activities such as: shopping on-line and off-line, going to the cinema, watching TV at home, surfing endlessly and quite passively the internet on a host of devices created for them for this purpose, listening to music, reading, going on holidays and spending their time visiting new places or lying on the beach, staying in hotels and eating at restaurants, etc.
All these activities we just mentioned are provided for them by other people, created and delivered by organized, or we could say “regimented,” work in companies and institutions. And they are the consumers of these services and products brought to them by these organizations. They are encouraged to stay in this situation by the set-up of the society and because it is profitable for the elites who lead and/or own the said organizations to have a large base of passive and mindless consumers. In this way, the elites make more money, gain more control, and the ordinary people help them in at least two ways: by working for them in their organizations in exchange for money and by turning around and spending the same money when buying their products and services. The owners and leaders of these organizations profit twice, at least, and the ordinary consumers lose every time.
If more people would acknowledge this trap of life for what it really is and make an effort to conquer the passivity ingrained in them throughout their school years and their professional adulthood, we dare to say that many positive changes would occur in our society. There would be quite an upheaval. Many of the sins of this passive life of ours would be righted or on the way there. Just think of the implications.
Examine your everyday life. Think of all the ways in which you are a consumer and also of the instances, if any, when you are a creator. Which one of the two situations makes you feel more accomplished and more in control? We would dare to say that the high brought about by consumption-type activities does not last, it does not bring lasting fulfilment, or make you grow in wonderful ways every time. Think in exchange of the times when you made something with your own mind and/or your own hands, at your own initiative and by your own specifications. It may not have been perfect, but it was satisfying and helped you grow and gain control of some small aspect of your existence on this planet. Obviously you may have made that something by using a tool, materials, in other words resources, already created for you by someone else. And that is alright. As long as you don’t fall again in the trap of consumption by using your new found appreciation for creating things as an excuse to consume even more things to the point that you will not focus anymore on what you can contribute but on what you can acquire from the others. There is a delicate balance to achieve. But if you focus every time on what you can contribute to this life, to this world, on what value you can add, then you will naturally back off from consuming too much.
It is good and necessary to acknowledge and improve our own capacities and resources as individuals and use them to create something in this world during the short span of our human existence, rather than expect to get or buy everything from the others. Only creators can leave some trace of their lives for some time longer than their actual existence on the face of the earth. And people know this in their guts. This is why they feel like they need to give birth to new generations. But we dare to say that reproducing should not be our only contribution to this world. Otherwise we risk creating a renewable army of mindless consumers. We need also to strive to improve ourselves and our lives in such a way that we are a good example for our children and give them the necessary tools to live a fulfilling life of creators, not make them into fodder for the system.