“Free people doing stuff they love don't need much to be happy. So much of the waste of modern society has to do with the coping mechanisms for living meaningless, unfulfilling lives. We're programmed to buy stuff and experiences to try to fill the void in our hearts, the yearning to go deep on things we love to do and to be connected to other beings. We buy big houses, fast cars, flights to the other side of the world for a long weekend, and cheap entertainment as a way of coping with the unsatisfying, meaningless role we all play in modern society. When we free ourselves and explore our heart’s desire, the need to do all that stuff drops away. We don't even need a philosophy of conservation or eco-guilt or anything else. We just need to get free and find what makes us come alive.
“Plus,” I add, “The fastest and easiest way to achieve freedom is to learn how to live well on less money. The less money you need to live your ideal lifestyle, the less time you need to spend getting it. People are trapped because they're programmed to always think they need more, so they're never able to carve out any freedom for themselves. When people figure this out, that the claim of advertising that we can buy happiness and a better life is nothing more than an odious lie, their contributions to the project of converting resources into waste heat and pollution will decrease.”
“You really think this is the answer?” he says. “Get people to chase stoke and we'll magically save the world?”
“No, man. There is no saving the world. Remember that what we are in right now is not a problem, it is a predicament. Problems have solutions. Predicaments have responses. At least one viable response to the predicament we're in is to free ourselves rapidly via post-consumer praxis and pursue our stoke. A side effect of people doing this is the emergence of groups of humans who create tech stacks and cultural practices that are more well adapted to the unfolding environment than the current arrangement. I have some guesses as to what those groups will look like, but I could be wrong. So I want people to be as free as possible to pursue their stoke and let real interaction with environment point towards the best adaptations.”
“Free them all and let Gaia sort them out, huh?” he says.
I tilt my head at him. “Yes, actually. That's a great way of putting it.”
From Chapter 4, Stoke is a Strategic Imperative, of my book Deep Response.
"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." — Emerson