consume

This month’s issue of Toronto Life covers a portrait of a mortgage-enslaved generation.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Who says we need a home that large or that fine?

I just recently realized that Bono closes off the song “beautiful day” with the statement “what you don’t have you don’t need it now”… which I flesh out as – the things you don’t already have today, you probably don’t need tomorrow. What would it look like to live with that type of freedom?

Sometimes I flip through catalogs or take another pass around a store, with no other intention than seeing what else I don’t have, that I might be able to purchase.

What is going on with the world when six-percent of it’s population, consumes half of it’s resources?

There’s even a site called allconsuming.net that allows you to list out all the books, entertainment, and restaurants you’ve consumed like a trophy case.

Fulfilling perceived needs costs so much more than meeting actual needs. Why do we do it?

Our enslavement goes beyond material consumption as well. I’m wrapping up a book by Marva Dawn right now, “Is it a lost cause”, and she quotes what Neil Postman calls Low Information-Action Ratio (l.i.a.r. is the cheesy acronym they use). The point is that more than ever we spend time consuming information that we can’t/don’t do anything about.

We’re a generation enslaved – to products, to comfort, to amusement, to information.

And somewhere in all of this, Jesus has something to say.