We no longer live life; we consume it

Hyper-individualism, consumption, and the denial of our interdependence.

Noriely Fernandez on Unsplash

“[W]e now meet most of our needs, wants, and desires through money. We buy everything from hope to happiness. We no longer live life. We consume it.” –Vicki Robin, Your Money Or Your Life.¹ Emphasis mine.  

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The two major topics constantly circling my brain at the moment, topics that colour everything I consider with broad brushstrokes of meaning, are community (or our lack thereof) and consumption. 

Community because, as we learned in my last post, I am lonely and trying to find a village of my own. Consumption, for so many reasons, but primarily because 1. I am attempting a no-buy year, and 2. I’ve been dealing with lots of internal turmoil around money these past few months. 

But a third concept on my mind, consistently bridging the gap between these two topics is individualism. 

You know, the idea of looking out for yourself as #1, solving all problems on your own, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, hyper-independence, wealth gaining, prestige building, etc. 

And I bloody hate individualism.

Especially hyper-individualism, which is on the side of extreme self-centredness. Tema Okun, a  diversity, equity and inclusion consultant, explains it perfectly; individualism is “a toxic denial of our essential interdependence and the reality that we are all in this, literally, together.”

There’s a prevailing myth within our capitalist society, a myth we are doing our darndest to export to other cultures, which tells us that if we simply make enough money, (what constitutes enough, I’m not sure) buy everything we’ve ever wanted, and continue to upgrade these items, we will be eternally fulfilled for the rest of our lives. Simple. Life completed. 

If you clicked on this article, you probably know that this is not nor has ever been true. 

Especially in a late-stage capitalist society like the one we find ourselves in the Western world. A time where even our most basic needs are packaged up as commodities and sold back to us with the promises of ‘efficiency’ and ‘time-saving’ properties. 

And as my last post discussed how our desire for less friction is ruining our relationships, then our desire for less friction in our lives is ruining a whole lot more,² because the problem is that this is true, these things are incredibly efficient and time-saving. 

Life is easier when you can order anything you want from Amazon and have it delivered within 24 hours, when you can order any food you’re craving and have it brought freshly cooked right to your door, when you can be dropped off at whatever location you desire without even exchanging one word with your driver. 

If living this way is easier, then what’s the problem? Aren’t we lucky to live a life of such luxury, of such privilege? 

If we can all get exactly what we need, at any time, at the tap of a button on a glowing screen, why would we want to live in reciprocity with anyone? Experiencing need prompts us to reach out to others, build relationships with real people, and allow ourselves the vulnerability of relying on each other. ³

Webs of supportive relationships with other humans actively improve our lives, yet we’re being funnelled to live in a way that is the opposite of this. We have an epidemic of loneliness and we’re just digging ourselves in further. 

As Joanna Macy argues, the notion that we can be completely independent or self-made denies the reality of our interdependence with other people and our natural world.⁴ Ignoring our interdependence with the larger web of life makes it easier to pollute our rivers and fell a forest because we have been made to believe that they’re simply commodities, unessential to our lives. 

Is this individualist independence really worth it if it’s killing the planet we call home?

We’ve all come across certain people who have embodied this hyper-individual philosophy into some aspects of their lives. Friends and family members who throw money at issues rather than getting to the root of the problem, or parents who work countless hours to provide for their children’s preconceived material needs yet never spend quality one-on-one time with them. Those who have commodified their own immaterial dimensions, such as love or care, and believe money can be used as a sufficient replacement. 

Hyper-individualism has made us live in a way where we believe life has to be catered just for us. It tells us as long as we as an individual are comfortable and safe nothing and no one else matters

I actually believe our obsession with individualism is a big driver for the child-free movement. Don’t get me wrong, I strongly agree that if you don’t want kids, don’t have kids. But, you can get a message often carried across these child-free spaces that as the existence of children in public spaces is an inconvenience to *you* then the children shouldn’t be there at all. Such as a crying child on a plane or school children making noise when playing out on the street. 

(I could extrapolate on this, but instead, I’d recommend a very well-thought-out video⁵ around this topic.)

I feel this sort of individualist ethos has carried over into the sustainability space as well. The popular desire to buy an off-grid cabin on our own land, grow our vegetables, and look after ourselves and those closest to us. Sure, I’d also love to live off my land someday, but I also feel like this is a way for the lucky ones to abandon society, whilst the rest of the world still burns. 

Pollution and suffering exist whether we live in a hut eating roots and berries, or in an apartment in the city centre. Wouldn’t it be better if we put our efforts into building resilience in our local communities, entering reciprocal relationships, and letting ourselves rely on others? 

I think people have the wrong idea of individualism and independence. Gun-toting-truck-lovers believe governmental climate action will mean we have fewer rights, and that we need to be more individual, and look after ourselves(!). But I see with the way we are going, we are becoming less and less able to look after ourselves.

Leaning into this individualistic society means we are becoming more separated from those around us, more separated from our ability to look after ourselves without the input of a gig economy-based app. 

I mean, if you let me don my tinfoil hat for a moment, surely it would be the other way around? If we have become so un-resilient that we can no longer look after ourselves as a community (which we have) or feed ourselves without the reliance on imports from other countries (which we can’t), then a society like this is more likely to end in food-prescribing, carbon-counting, nanny state than one in which a community lives in cohabitation, grows their own food, and makes their own decisions?

Okay, the tinfoil hat is off now. 

I don’t believe individualism is natural. Sure, maybe when we were savage cave people we would look out for our own, but that type of individualism, and the hyper-individualism we see today are completely different things.

Putting ourselves first isn't a preset feature of human behaviour, it’s the product of a particular way of understanding our world, developed from centuries of hyper-individualism in Western culture.⁶ 

For so many of us, what we want as individuals comes over what’s best for the group. People may still look out for those closest to them–their kids, their partners–but we don’t make decisions with the consideration of how it will affect our wider community or our earth.

We used to place our identity and find our belonging within community structures, now we’re finding these relationships instead in the things we buy, or the associated identity we gain from the things we buy. 

And for younger people, the ‘aesthetic’ or ‘core’ you fit into now is more important than ever. You know, are you into the Clean Girl aesthetic, or are you Coquette? Do you prefer Cottage Core or Dark Academica? 

Our most pressing needs aren’t material, they’re spiritual; Donella Meadows, in the book Beyond the Limits, sums this up perfectly: 

“People don’t need enormous cars; they need respect. They don’t need closets full of clothes; they need to feel attractive and they need excitement and variety and beauty. People don’t need electronic equipment; they need something worthwhile to do with their lives. People need community, challenge, acknowledgement, love, joy. To try to fill these needs with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to real and never-satisfied problems. The resulting psychological emptiness is one of the major forces behind the desire for material growth.”⁷

We don’t want stuff, we don’t want new clothes or food delivered to us instantly. We want love, community, belonging and joy; but we’ve been taught the only way we achieve these essential components of life is to buy them. 

Take it from a recovering ‘art hoe’ or 'VSCO girl’, who attempted to find some sort of community belonging in HydroFlasks, Van Gogh socks and Kanken backpacks, and failed miserably.

P.S. If you enjoy my writing, you can buy me a coffee to fuel my work.

1. Your Money Or Your Life Vicki Robin

2. I’d like to note in all my criticisms of people within a society, I am including myself. Sometimes I want an easy, frictionless life, too. I’m tired as well.

3. Thoughts from Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone.

4. Thoughts from Active Hope again.

5. I didn’t enjoy Cheyenne Lin's criticisms of homeschooling in this video. I understand where she was going with issues around fundamentalist homeschooling and keeping your children away from other’s perspectives, but there are major issues within the current schooling system that we have and I feel it's wrong to criticise parents for trying to do the best for their children.

6. Active Hope again. Read this bloody book.

7. This quote is originally from Beyond the Limits by Donella Meadows but I read it in Your Money Or Your Life.