I realized this past week how unhappy we are in this consumerist culture. As I wrote my first two blogs and went hiking and filming and taking pictures for content and memories I realized how much I enjoyed it. Even when rushed I thoroughly enjoyed what I was doing, before editing, posting, or feedback, I was enjoying it. I've been stewing on why I enjoyed it all week. I realized it was because I was creating.
We were made to create. In Genesis 1:26 God says to Himself "let us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness…" I believe that being made in the likeness of God is more than just to bear physical features like His, but to have a mind and spirit like He has. That means He created us with the propensity to create.
It's natural, it's who we are, part of our design. To use a term I love to borrow from a well known kids sci-fi space odyssey movie, it is our "directive." We find it in our desires, to create life with children, to create habitat with homes and apartments, to create commerce with our own business, to make delicious and beautiful food, to create art with the many various arts, and much more. We are creative, and should embrace that.
In society today we want to divide and identify every single person by sets of titles of groups they align with. In media, both old media and "social" media people are distinguished as "consumers" and "creators" or "publishers". Most of us are consumers, and it's natural. Without someone consuming something there would be no reason to create, even if only ourselves being both creator and consumer. The problems seem to arise when we become solely consumers or creators.
Like most things, moderation and balance is key. However, Americans are terrible at moderation. We have been since at least World War 2. We feel like we must do everything bigger, and better than everyone else. Not necessarily literally “bigger,” but more extreme. If we diet, we insist on following it strictly and exactly, if we drive a more economic car it’s going to be the most economic car in the office, if we conserve something, we conserve everything, if we’re liberal with something, we must be liberal with everything. It’s insanity! Now I’ll be the first to tell you to embrace a moderate level of crazy (it helps prevent insanity), and that some things should be done to the fullest if they’re worth doing at all. There are positives to doing a lot of things turned up to “11”, but not everything. If you only consume, you bloat, become desensitized to whatever you’re consuming, and have to consume more and more to incur the feeling that thing gives you. Whether something as simple as a chocolate peanut butter cup (one of my personal favorite vices), or religion, or hard drugs, as long as we’re consuming and chasing the feelings something gave us we become engorged gluttons of that thing to a point that is unhealthy.
So do we starve ourselves? Do we continue the American tradition of all or nothing? Heavens no. The occasional peanut butter cup is delicious, and can even bring down stress a little. Generally speaking if religion (even better, faith) is followed to better yourself as a person and to inspire you to love others better, then that’s a great thing. If a “hard” drug is used in a capacity that does no harm to others, doesn’t cause addiction, and does no more hard to you than most over-the-counter painkillers (which can cause serious issues when used extensively). The biggest takeaway is moderation and common sense is the key.
Creating can be just as bad. I’ve read about authors, a few of my favorites, who, upon getting to the climax of a book or in an attempt to break writer’s block, or just to write a certain quota of writing, will lock themselves in a room for days on end. We hear about entrepreneurs, pastors, artists, and others, hitting burnout, writer’s block, or have total breakdowns. It seems like every young pop star in the last 30 years will have a very public nervous breakdown and throw their life, image, and career down the tubes, at least temporarily, and leave the tabloids a buzz, and people shaking their heads “another life lost to drugs and rock and roll.” Is it possible that they had simply been creating and hadn’t consumed anything real until their brain basically shorted out like a thirsty muscle getting cramps?
Obviously what we consume and create, just like food, matters. If we only take in junk, we tend to put out junk. The old phrase “you are what you eat,” could probably be applied beyond just food. We’re living in a time where more people consume more artificial food, more artificial relaxation, more artificial sex, and more artificial stimulants than ever before. It comes as no surprise when it seems like everyone around us is fake, and that we have to be fake for them to enjoy us. If a person or thing doesn’t give us the dopamine fix we need then we distance ourselves from them, or worse, want to ban them or “cancel” them. It’s not one group of people over another either, cancel culture of the millennials and Gen Z is the new version of the lawsuit culture of the baby boomers and gen x, but at least then you got heard out by a theoretically impartial judge and jury. I say all this with four fingers pointed back at me, because who hasn’t been frustrated and wanted to look at someone of dissenting opinion and say “would you just shutup man”?
So what of it? What can we do? We have to start creating and consuming natural, real, organic material. How do we stop over consuming? How do we stop over creating? First, slow improvement and moderation I’ve found to be the key, at least for me. We love the artificial, it’s dopamine boosting and we love that, I mean, that’s the whole point of dopamine. But when we love everything like that, we find it hard to love anything genuinely. I read an article on the blog “The Art of Manliness” about the now Japanese concept called “Kaizen.” It’s a great piece and you can read it here: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/get-1-better-every-day-the-kaizen-way-to-self-improvement/
Transitioning from fake to real and over or under consumption or creation should probably be taken on with the kaizen philosophy. This prevents a sort of culture shock or detox. I know some people do better with the “cold turkey” or repentance (a full 180 degree turn) approach to change, but I know a lot of people, including myself, do better when the change is a gradual and consistent in improvement. So try to skip the fast food (my struggle lately). Try to experience things first hand, look your loved ones in the eyes and tell them you love them, or better write them a note telling them how much you love them and the things you love about them, or even better, show your love to them. 1st Corinthians 13 in the Bible talks briefly about what love in action should and shouldn’t look like, and the whole Bible breaks it down quite a few different ways throughout. Try to form real relationships with those around you with real conversation and concern for them and their concerns. Even those who have dissenting opinions to your own and take issue with what you have to say. Not every relationship has to be completely wholesome and endearing, but even if barely cordial, the realness of it will help you and them grow and will stimulate your mind far more than the shallow small talk of the water cooler.
I believe we were created to have a relationship with the Creator, the real Creator, of the Bible. New age religions talk about "the source" getting back to "source" and creating a from "source." Philosophers of old sought for "truth," the absolute or ultimate "truth," and desired to create knowledge from thus "truth." Asian religions and philosophies of old sought the "way," or Tao that made everything, and to create from it, and desired to find the "way" to enlightenment or union with the energy that created the universe. God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. The God who showed us how impossible the way is by our own strength, and then made Himself "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) to create relationship with Him, which is what we were ultimately created for, our "directive," that deep desire we're all chasing and we all try to fill it with every vice and pleasure we can put our hands on, but are never satisfied with because only in His presence are we satisfied. It's from His creativity we create, from His genius we philosophize and invent, and from His love and desire and love others. We're flawed though, and so like small children poorly imitating their father and often influenced a little by the bad kids next door we tend to make a wreck of our attempts to imitate His works in Creation.
The best, most authentic work comes from God and those closely imitating Him and the works He's given to inspire us (like the many examples of the Golden Ratio). Outside of that, work that seeks to honor Him and glorify Him, create nearness to Him, is almost always moderately satisfying to take part in. This comes with hard work and practice, but I've known no more satisfied people, than those who were creating to the glory of Jesus Christ, the Creator and living out Paul's instruction in Colossians 3:23-24.
So we need to create, and to create we must also consume, all in moderation. There are levels of creating and consuming, the highest form being holy and consecrated to God, made for Him. The second being natural, authentic, made for each other, made to lift up other people and to lift up creation. Lastly there's artificial creation, it imitates real creation, but has no meaning, no real sustenance, tends to be purely selfish in motive, and leaves us only feeling empty. There's so many layers to this that it's been a struggle making it all connect and make sense. This probably goes without saying but we should eliminate the most harmful artificial things we consume or create first, and then also try to moderate the rest. I need to do this. I need to strive for authenticity, to communicate in truth and love. It won't be easy, but with prayer, meditation, and intention, it's doable. I'll open a board in the forum for discussion because this is something we can build on and lift each other up and encourage each other as we strive to become more balanced people and become more as we were created to be-creators that make the world better, more natural, more as it was designed to be. Remember that I love you, and you can do this.
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