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Still just one purchase away from happiness?

I have requently looked for things to buy when I had extra money, and I would love each one, for about "a minute", or so it almost always seemed.

Then I read a quotation from Leonard Peltier and have thought long and hard about it, unintentionally, each time I "fall in love" with some new thing I could buy.

He said, "I could be like you. I could shop at the mall, and you would say, 'what a good Indian.', but

I don't want to live always thinking I'm just one purchase away from happiness."

Then I thought more and realized that we are as a species about 30% over sustainability in our consumption, those of us in the earth's North much more than those in the Southern Hemisphere.

If that is the case, our continued trajectory will only mean the further impoverishment of the poorer world who provide our raw materials.

(We pay about 10% of what they are worth; so they are very cheap for us to use to make things to buy and own.)

If someone in that world starves to death every 1.7 seconds, then

 consuming is like murder to the exagerated and unfair degree that our culture does it.

I don't believe we can have a discussion about consumption and not dwell on this rarely spoken truth.

And it all started for me with an Indian who refused to play my tired old game.

Thank you.

posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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