Earlier I posted some images of my attempts to make sense of all the reading and thinking I had been doing. At the time the connections and links were unclear to me. I tried to solidify the thoughts I had about these different areas by writing them down.
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The question I have framed is - what makes for a fulfilling life?
In the foreground of this question is my personal quest to understand and practice a sustainable lifestyle. This is a complex subject, that many designers, engineers and others are addressing.
As an entry point, I was drawn to what I call “the kick of shopping”. This is the impulsive shopping for non-essentials that provides instant gratification people crave.
This stood out to me because of my experiences in India as a young working professional, one of many, with what is somewhat derisively called a substantial “disposable” salary. The only social experiences and spaces available are commercial ones — you can go shopping, you can go out for a meal or a coffee, you can go to the theater for a movie.
Consumption and waste are major themes in sustainability. I am curious about what makes people buy something and then keep something?
Around this space, some interesting ideas I have come across are “Affluenza” a portmanteau of the words affluence and influenza. Some definitions offered are:
affluenza, n. a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more. (de Graaf [1])
affluenza, n. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by the pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth. (PBS [1])
{from Wikipedia}
Another interesting phenomenon is ‘choice fatigue’ — it claims that the over-abundance of choices and options, creates dissatisfaction, stress, paralysis in decision-making and unhappiness. “The more options we’re given, the poorer our decision-making abilities become.”
{from World Changing}
I can safely say that I am afflicted with choice fatigue. I would as far as to say that I have choice anxiety. I hate going to huge super markets or stores. I find I just cannot function! Wherever I go I tend to locate a smallish store which I get familiar with and then stick with.
Sheena Iyengar talks about this phenomenon in her book ‘The Art of Choosing’ as well as more fundamental questions such as what do people perceive as choices and decisions etc.
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How people go about making choices and decisions is fascinating business that psychologists and market researchers have been trying to understand for a long time.
Attempts are being made to enable people to make more informed choices; to help them not be overwhelmed by the complexity and un-intuitiveness of the process of making ecological and sustainable choices. Books like ‘World Changing - A user’s guide for the 21st century’ are a good attempt at breaking the complex realm down into comprehensible pieces.
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Lifestyles can be imagined as landscapes with boundaries drawn by society, culture, ethics and other forces. For some the boundaries are fuzzy. Others choose to consciously define or redefine their boundaries.
People choose to only eat organic products.
People choose to buy fair-trade and products that have been made in sweat-shop free manufacturing processes.
People buy only products that have not been tested on animals.
Vegetarians choose to exclude all meat from their diet.
Vegans choose to exclude all products of animal origin.
D-I-Yers choose to make what they need rather than buy it.
Cultures of repair choose to question the life of products and choose to repair and prolong them.
Dumpster divers choose to salvage food that has been discarded by others.
There are many many examples of lifestyle choices that people make. A phrase which describes them very well for me is ‘Intentional Lifestyles’ — to live with intent. (I do not associate this term with the Chrisitan movement in the USA and other countries of the same name.)
