On Consumption

This semester i have been studying a lot to do with Eastern philosophy and Religion. Where as in the West we emphasize 'the individual' the East emphasizes the community. in the West we praise success that move up and advances to something better. The East generally thinks it better to live in simplicity. for them the corollary is: the more stuff and attachments one has, the more anxious and miserable that person is likely to be. In the West we praise the good ingenious ideas but for the East: thoughts and beliefs are useless unless they are lived out. My biggest two role models comes out of Eastern Society: Jesus and Gandhi. Since i agree so much with the side of the world in which i do not live, i often start off many things by having a philosophical collision from the very foundation with most folks. i believe that many of our underlining ideas about how things are and the way they could or should operate is top-side down. that is why i absolutely love how people like Jesus can in so many words turn an etire mentality on its nose. the truth is often otherworldly and for us the East is that other world. imagine what it would be like to try to live like Eastern folks in America. If we truly lived it out i would straight up confuse and bring curiosity to folks. The truth, i am finding, is almost always subversive/counter-cultural like this. 2.4.08

In hindsight this has a lot to do with consumption. Really the east holds the mentality that the west lacks to solve the problem of over-consumption. however, the east is getting smaller and smaller. china, india and other formally eastern societies are more western like now. Really the struggle is between Globalization and Traditionalism. Globalization spreads the so called virtues of the west to the four corners of the globe. While traditional or eastern societies, who are often impoverished, take the new ideas as gospel because perhaps it provides a better way to survive. who knows, they may think. but there very often is a call to go back once trying out a new technology, economy style, ect. to save the earth from many of ecological problems, it would do us well to re-examine ancient wisdoms, provided usually from the eastern, ancient, cultures