Self Exploration (day 23) – Consumption

Greed and consumption. I feel consumption is the ignorant child of greed. Without greed, consumption would not exist. A chicken and an egg situation.

Holidays, vacations… it’s funny how during a holiday all of our effort and attention to eating healthy, exercising, and restraint are let into the wind.

At my parents place for this holiday season I’ve been drinking rum X coke almost every day. I stuff myself full of anything anywhere, from chocolates to nuts and bolts to leftovers in the fridge.

I think I enjoy it…

I don’t do much exercise. I don’t eat healthy. I consume. Why?!

The rest of the year I eat healthy! I exercise! I don’t like to have greed!

I am not oblivious to this fact as I sit and wonder what gifts under the tree are mine and what they are. I am not free from this affliction. I frequently want, not just now but all times. I’ve had my lifetime to be trained and conditioned to participate in this.

I have been learning to recognize this consumption as it comes up inside of me, and try to curb it. I battle this by thinking about the thing I’m wanting to consume and try to understand what I want it for.

I guess this is visualization.

An example for me is photography gear. I read an article about a new device that can trigger my lights up to 100m away. Great. Only $100 too! Ok. This is perfect since I want to use lights for shooting photography. Wait a minute, I have lights already that I don’t really use because that’s just not my style of shooting. Let’s pull them out right now and see if I can use them without this new trigger. They still work as I expected them to! I wonder what unique photographs I can take no! Can I push their limits?

This is the point I want to get to. Not the new gear place, that’s just consumption. I want to use tools.

Here is where the real learning begins. By using the tools I explore their capacity. I either realize that I hate lugging so much weight around and I feel like I’m fiddling with the lights, or I realize that I really do need to the triggers because this helps me make my magic.

Tools help me do the magic I must do, help me experiment. Buying these tools is in fact consumption. I cannot deny this.

Do you ever think about consumption?

ps. I apologize if this has made you question your holiday rituals.