Despite the common perception that religion seeks to answer mankind's questions about life and death, in reality, religion is the practice of engaging with the ineffable, with a mystery that has no solution. This is a fundamentally different function than that of political ideology.
The confusion comes from the fact that a lot of what passes for "religion" in contemporary consumerist societies operates in exactly the same transactional mode as the rest of life. It's a kind of consumer capitalist degeneration of religion, where the original religious function (reconnecting) has become overwhelmed by the consumerist dynamic of making payment (financial or by performing supposedly "moral" or "godly" acts) for some reward (salvation, heaven, prosperity or just membership of the club).
This is a timely article. I have been pondering this very topic for a while. What leads some people to attempting to endlessly accumulate more, bigger, and costlier things? I don't have much desire for expensive items, nor filling my home with junk (it still gets too much), but when meeting others they're often continually desiring new things. A new car, a bigger boat, a new stereo system, a larger house with more whirligigs.
When does it stop and how do people reach a place of contentment?
I like having systems and resources that are sufficient, not endlessly bigger. I have no idea why I'm this way, but my neighbors seem to have an ever burning desire for a truck that's bigger with more dashboard features.
It's known as the "Hedonic Treadmill," and I have posted about it here. People get a small rush when they acquire something new, and mistakenly believe that larger/better acquisitions will result in better/longer good feelings. Really, it's the novelty of the thing that makes us feel that way, and novelty inevitably fades. The thing is, many people never realize this and end up chasing that feeling for their entire lives, hence: eternally walking on the Hedonic Treadmill that takes them nowhere.
Some people are less susceptible to this than others. If you don't have a particularly addictive personality, or if you are not in the fog of consumerism as a positive thing, you will probably not struggle with this as much as someone who has one or both of those traits.
As inasaba has said, Stoic philosophy is very helpful for simple living, but a book from a different school of thought that I really found quite a bit of value in is How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell. It discusses a variety of ways to resist the attention economy of social media while also not becoming a hermit, by building small, local, and intentional communities, and setting aside part of your day to just mindfully doing something that brings you joy (The titular 'doing nothing') Plus, it's popular enough that there are usually a few copies at your local library. If that's not simple living, I don't know what is!
It is less important that our hobbies are something that we are "not obliged to do" than that we are actively engaged in them.
Many people spend their free time in activities of passive consumption - watching TV, shopping and doing packaged, purchased "activities". The only active component is searching for the next thing to consume.
An actively engaging hobby is very different, it involves growth and learning. Many hobbies can be engaged in either passively or actively - think of the difference between a photographer who goes out every weekend to take photos and improve their technique, compared to one who spends hours researching and purchasing equipment but rarely "finds" the time to actually take photos.
The real difference between them is the mindset, and that can be applied to things you are obliged to do as well. My hobbies tend to be extensions of things that are necessary - cooking, gardening, sewing. All can be approached as necessary chores, but an approach of active engagement turns them into hobbies. Even scrolling the internet can be turned into a hobby - although I'm not sure if moderating a group and trying to learn enough javascript to automate things will make me a better person or lead to madness at this point!
I guess my argument is that it is not doing things outside of what we are obliged to that is important, it is doing more than we are obliged to do. It does not matter whether that "more" is different things, or things we need to do done in a different way.
Simple Living
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