I’ve been a frustrated anticonsumerist since my late teens, ever since I read the Truth about The System, man.
Some holiday seasons I shirked participating in gift buying and giving. Some seasons I compromised by buying charity donations. Some seasons I avoided the issue altogether by hiding out in a winter redoubt like a resentful hermit.
The problem with anticonsumerism is that you’ve got the problem statement memorized, but you haven’t yet progressed to knowing what to actually, like, do about it. There’s nothing more annoying than That Guy who smugly points out all the flaws in things but never has any suggestions for how to resolve them.
I’d come to see Christmas as a festive symbol of the shallow consumer take-over of American culture. All I could see was the oceans of plastic junk being moved around at great expense, most of it destined for a landfill within a month. It sickened me, but I was stuck far enough in the system to not see any ways out of it. So I mostly just stewed about it and made snide comments, like a jerk.
For the past two years, however, I’ve been working on an actual system designed to transform my lifestyle into that of a nonconsumer. Anticonsumers loudly whine about consumerism while agonizing over the stark reality that they are in fact the thing they hate. Nonconsumers quietly go about their abundant lives, with the sense of peace that attends having actions aligned with beliefs and values. That’s the ideal, anyway.
Until very recently, the source of abundance in my life was financial. I had a decent paying job and could afford to be generous with money. I bought nice gifts, spent money on holiday travel and accommodations, the normal bit.
Now, however, I can’t afford financial-based generosity. Not for very long, anyway. I have to supply generosity with an abundance based on my ecosystem of skills.
If you don’t have very many skills, but a lot of money, you can have an abundant life. If you don’t have very much money, but a lot of skills, you can still figure out how to have an abundant life.
And if you have any abundance in your life, you can afford to be generous with it.
This Christmas season I realized that I’d had my head stuck up my ass all those angsty anti-consumerist years previous. I want to be generous. I was hung up on the source of my abundance, what fueled my foundation for generosity. I just didn’t know that there were other options, and I was too busy at work to put in the time to develop the skills necessary to deliver on an alternatively-sourced generosity.
The dynamics seem clear to me now. A season of traditional generosity like Christmas is an excellent litmus test for one’s skills and ability to generate abundance. It’s all well and good to be satisfied with a certain standard of living when one is biased towards the simple and rustic. It’s another thing entirely to contemplate giving of those skills to other people who may not share your ideals of rough living.
The season of generosity is a healthy test of my skill ecosystem. This season certainly has been. My ability to deliver abundance for others felt… lean.
I spent, arguably, fifteen years developing a financially powered abundance. I’m now less than two years into developing a skill-ecosystem powered abundance. It’s to be expected that my level of abundance I can offer to others is still a bit thin. I’m still working out the basics, still figuring out how to meet my own needs and desires with a tiny input of money. I’m already looking forward to and planning for next year when my skill ecosystem will be twelve months richer.
Until now I’ve been thinking about my skill ecosystem in terms of what it can provide for me. With the reflection and test of this Christmas season, my attitude is shifting towards what my skill ecosystem can provide for others.
If that comes across as holier than thou or moralistic, pump the brakes. This outwards focus comes in large part from not wanting to be seen as a cheapskate or a loser. It’s still coming from a place of ego preservation, a deep seated desire to not be kicked out of the tribe even though my actions out me as a bit of a weirdo.
It’s funny. When I was an angsty teenage anti consumer, all I wanted was to Get Out, and I didn’t care who I pissed off as long as everyone knew it. Now that I’m actually on my way towards the fringes of society, the angst is melted away and I feel that the only real wealth in life is having people to be In with. To have family, friends, some kind of community that I care about and that cares about me.