World of more

St. Basil the Great is doing fine, requires more water now, it seems.

I've been reading a book by John Nash called "Enough - Breaking Free from the World of More" (in Finnish: "Riittää jo - irti maailmasta jossa kaikkea on ihan liikaa", Atena). The main idea is that due to the relatively quickly developed culture of humans, our brains have parts in them which are still pretty much from the Stone Age and haven't evolved that much - therefore we are programmed to think that all this food, stuff, success and happiness that we have accumulated can be taken away from us any minute, and we must always get more, more, more, to feel more secure.

Back in the good ol' days when a few hunter-gatherers roamed the woods and fought for life and death, it was important to be the most clever one and have most food stacked in your cave for the bad, rainy days - the survival of the fittest, you know..

Now, we are still stacking our closets and garages and cupboards with stuff we don't need, stuffing ourselves with more food than we actually need to stay alive and well, work our asses off because it's supposed to be somehow cool to always say to people that "I'm soooo busy at work", and aim for Bigger Happiness even though we should be quite content with what we've got now. And, by doing this, we all know what we are doing to the natural resources of this planet.

All of this in order to keep up with the Joneses, with the needs that are instilled into our minds. It's no use blaming The Society or Advertising or the Modern Culture (the famous Them, root of all evil) for this problem - it's just that our brains are programmed to act like this, and marketing people have found out where to strike with most power. You are nothing if you don't own this or that gadget, if you don't care about which shampoo you use, or if, god forbid, you want to drop out of the rat race and don't want more money, more power, more of everything.

The message is very simple: it's way past the Stone Age, dudes, we have enough of everything and consuming more or shopping for more will not make us any happier - and we should somehow de-program our minds to settle for less, be content with what we have. And in this context, the terms 'to settle' and 'to be content with' should not have any negative connotations.

Well, I guess I'm somehow carrying these ideas out in my own little way, now finally implementing into reality what I have been feeling over the past years in my private thoughts - by letting go of my 'safe' job (and just who's job is safe anyway, these days...) I'm also happy to renounce the mentality where nothing is never enough and more-more-more is always required.

It was fun while it lasted, sure, and brought along with it many good experiences, but in the end I'm happy to let go.

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To end this posting with higher note after the Thursday Sermon, here's a May 1st joke for you:

Two cannibals were eating a clown. One said to the other: "I don't know about you but this sure tastes funny to me".

Yeah, I know. It's so last season :)