I have a theory about material possessions and our connection to spirituality. When we feel connected to spirituality, we feel the interconnectedness of all things; but, there’s usually a focus on all living things. Instead, I believe this connection extends to material possessions as well. Let me give an example to explain what I mean.
I’ve been fairly minimalistic and anti-consumerist my entire life, but I’ve never formally articulated the connection I feel between non-consumerism and spirituality.
For some time now, I believe our society has been in a state of rampant consumerism, peaking with its addiction to next day Amazon delivery. When Covid-19 hit, and people began sheltering in place, I had hope that this drastic lifestyle shift would cause people to reflect on living habits, namely the connection between spending most of waking life in less than optimal jobs to make enough money to fuel unnecessary and addictive spending habits. However, after a few months, it became clear that online spending was only briefly curtailed, with a powerful resurgence once fears of financial scarcity abated, and people turned to familiar shopping habits to distract from the boredom and isolation.
Just like with any addiction, we shop to momentarily fill the emptiness we feel inside. Like a child receiving a new toy, we purchase unnecessary things to feel that fleeting burst of dopamine (n.b. I’m not referring to necessary purchases we make, only to things we know we don’t need). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not immune to the addictive dopamine reward system, and I love getting new things as much as anyone does; however, I notice that when I buy something new, I can’t help but also think about the labor that went into creating it (which is often under inhumane conditions, eg. sweatshops), the resources being stripped from our planet (often unsustainably, echoing the finite resources we actually have), the very idea that the planet has ‘resources’ as if it is there solely for human consumption, and the corporate monopolies currently dominating our shopping choices (do I really want to buy that book from Amazon, knowing it’s just putting more money in Jeff Bezos’s wallet?).
When choosing between next day or next week delivery, I think about the warehouse workers and delivery truck drivers forced to work brutal and often unsafe working conditions (Amazon uses mostly team drivers, with each driver driving an 11hr shift, then sleeping in the back of the truck for 8hrs + 3hrs in the passenger seat while their teammate is driving. We have enough data now to verify that every fleet using team drivers in the US is violating OSHA/ISO whole body vibration exposure limits (ISO 2631-1)).
People often talk about how our modern disconnection from each other and from nature and spirituality fuels many of our problems. I absolutely preach this, but for those who are less comfortable with the spiritual talk, I speak to the problem from a systems theory approach. We don’t have to think spiritually about these problems to find solutions - we can think systemically. We don’t need to think about the spiritual interconnectedness of all beings and things; we can think about the economic and material interconnectedness: if I want to lessen deforestation, I can reduce the demand for resources that require the stripping of the earth.
For a miraculous and true story exemplifying the interconnectedness of material possessions and spirituality, read Part II.