What we are attached to says a lot about us and how we live. As Trey Anastasio sings in his song “Shine,” “You are what you lean on.” We are what we identify with, what we put our emotions into.
The things most people lean on have changed because of the role economics play in our lives. The fact that our lives are very different from those of earlier people may be part of our modern difficulties. If going green is about respecting the nature of ourselves and cultivating circumstances in which we can flourish and take care of the nature around us, then insight into our past may help us “go green” in a larger sense.
Instant gratification and day-to-day predictability are fairly new in human life. For tens of thousands of years, getting what we wanted, exactly as we wanted it, was probably not an option very often; we could not lean on these things even if we wanted. What satisfaction we could find probably depended on cooperating with one other to achieve shared goals. There is a reason why most people have lived in groups throughout our history rather than as hermits.
In modern societies, we have the opportunity to become attached to material things, to make our personal environment exactly how we want it, and to “enjoy” these things while interacting little with other people. This is unnatural; it is contrary to how human beings evolved to live. The preponderance of mental illness in developed societies suggests that we do not function best in this way.
Attempts to develop a complete science are problematic because their technological applications make waiting and flexibility unnecessary. Our understanding of how everything works is continuously improving and allows us to control our lives and environments with greater precision. However, this may not be progress. It might be a terrible thing for our humanity, our connections to one other and our ability to experience life creatively and spiritually.
For our own thriving, we sometimes need to wait and be flexible. We are losing these capacities because our economy makes everything available all the time. It is also making human interactions increasingly scheduled, structured and less creative.
We are already seeing initial signs of the toll conveniences such as consumer products and digital devices are taking on our well-being. I do not expect that increasing dependence on these things will lead to a way of life that is worth leaning on, or which meets the needs of our nature effectively.
There is a line in Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild that I have always loved and not always lived: “Happiness is only real when shared.” Living in ways that bring us together in person is what we really need, even when we do not realize it. We must learn to lean more on our values and other people and less on our ability to make things the way we want.
Zach Wilson is a senior studying philosophy. Do you think instant gratification is a problem? Email him at cw299210@ohiou.edu.
