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- Lauren Shaw, PhD
- Feb 15, 2016
- 3 min read
Last weekend we ran some errands as a family, and celebrated successfully completing these errands by going out for frozen yogurt. My youngest, who just turned two, had yet to fully experience the joys of frozen yogurt, and she was delighted. She used her spoon to get as much as she could, then abandoned the spoon and tipped her bowl back, drinking the last melted drops. As soon as it was all gone, her face crumpled in dismay, and she let out the sort of howl that only a toddler can. It was gone, and she wanted more.
Oh man, could I relate. We live in a world obsessed with consumption. We binge-watch, binge-read, binge-eat. We obsessively scroll our phones for news and weather updates, social media notifications, email alerts. We learn to consume at multiple levels at once, watching tv while we eat and scan our phones at the same time. We are always wanting more. It’s become so ingrained, so automatic, that we don’t even know we are doing it. It has become our way of being in the world.
I’ve started to wonder what this does to our souls. The constant taking in, the stimulation, the wanting and needing more. It leaves us both anxious and empty, sluggish and agitated. It seems to create a kind of emotional bloat. We consume as a way to relax and unwind, but consumption at this levels leads us to restlessness and dissatisfaction.
I see this in myself and in the world around me. And it makes me uncomfortable, but I don’t always know what to do with it. We are not talking about bad things; tv, the internet, food, drink, validation. They aren’t bad things, and there is a place for them in our lives. But they are bad masters. They can be good in moderation and dangerous in excess.
I used to think that if the opposite of feasting was fasting, then the opposite of consumption was complete self-denial. I believed that if we were too caught up with social media, then a fast of social media was the appropriate action. If we were convicted about binge-watching, then we should turn off the tv for a month or so. If we were consumed by wanting sweets, we should stop consuming sweets. I still see wisdom in this, and I think it can be very beneficial to participate in these intentional acts of denial. Doing so can help us change our habits, and become aware of consumption, greed, and selfishness at a level that can be so easy to miss.
But recently it struck me that the opposite of consumption isn’t denial. I think the opposite of consumption is creation. The dictionary definition for consume is “to do away with completely.” The dictionary definition for create is “to make or produce something new, to cause something new to exist.” When we create, we mirror something deeply fundamental and good about our human nature. I think the opposite of consumption is creation and connection. When we create and share, we are engaging in something completely different, and I believe we will get completely different results.
A lot of people say that they aren’t creative, so this won’t work for them. But we are all creative. You may not be artistic, but I believe that inherent in human nature is the ability and desire to create. There are so, so many ways we can create. We can bake, garden, fix a chainsaw, paint a room, make a meal, color a picture, write a letter, write a blog, play a game, tell a joke, cross stitch, take pictures, tell a story, build a shed. There are so many ways we can engage ourselves creatively, and I believe that creative engagement provides an antidote for the emotional bloat of consumption. As is so often the case, we need disciplines of engagement in addition to disciplines of denial.
There is still room in a balanced life for the occasional binge-watch, for tipping back the bowl and draining the last drops of frozen yogurt. But I don’t want to be consumed by consumption. I don’t want to always be looking for more. I want a life the brims with creativity and connection. I want more than wanting more.
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