October/November 2003
The
Yearly Round
Richard Moeschl
Making
Sense of North Korea
Eric Sirotkin
A
Loophole So Big
Tom Engelhardt
The
Joseph Strategy
David Ehrenfeld
Thieves
in High Places
Jim Hightower
Strangely
Like War
Derrick Jensen & George Draffan
Bush's
Inferno
Pepper Trail
Their
Arms Outstretched Into The Night
Martin Prechtel
On
Slowing Down
Pride S. Wright
Living
As A Free Human Being
Alan Clements
Achieving
Balance Through Passive Movement
Kayla M. Starr, MPH
Yoga
for the Young at Heart
Susan Winter Ward
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
On Slowing Down
By Pride S. Wright
So here we are, at the point just before the point of no return. Economic exploitation, cultural homogenization and environmental degradation without end. If we accept for a moment that it is the highest aspiration of the individual to abandon an egocentric world view in favor of a vision of oneness and “humanhood,” it would seem our three most powerful cultural “systems”—the market, government, and the mainstream media—are actively and purposefully (if not intentionally) steering us away from that aspiration.
We find ourselves in desperate need of a new and better way of living, a simple response to rampant consumerism and the gargantuan scale and frenetic pace of contemporary American life. Speed and greed, if you will. These are the nemeses of our global environment and the developing world, and even a threat to our humanity, such as it is.
Here’s a good place to start: slow down. As author and teacher Hugh Prather is fond of pointing out, we have not yet come nearly as far as we think. Even those folks engaged in meditation, prayer, yoga, and the like, could multiply their benefits by taking the foot off the accelerator. (Don’t brake suddenly; you might get rear-ended by the masses, all blindly barreling along on their way to bigger and lesser things.) The discipline that any serious spiritual practice requires cannot even begin until we have taken this essential first step of quieting the mind. But there’s another compelling argument for Slow—it is also an excellent first step to addressing many of the aforementioned unintended consequences of the frenetic pace of modern life. And while Slowism might not transport us instantly to a place of enlightenment, it may take us to a spot considerably closer to that place than the one most of us are currently inhabiting.
This is a rebellion after all, and you might like to know that we’re rallying on behalf of cultural and economic regionalism and diversity, the decentralization of economic power, and community. We’re also fighting (light-heartedly, of course) for an awakening to true riches—much of it free, the rest of it cheap, all of it slow. The art of friendship (itself an endangered species), cold mountain lakes, the hole-in-the-wall, lunchtime barbecues, afternoon love-making, first tracks, independent art and artists of all kinds, a kayak and a full moon, meditation, and long meals with family and friends, to name a few. I know of no one who feels they are doing enough of these, and yet these things are inevitably the first casualties when it comes time to choose amongst all of those overblown obligations to commerce and society. Call me reckless, but I’ve gradually begun to get re-acquainted with at least a few of these items over the past year. Happily, there’s more “work” to be done.
Having Slowed, the next step is to reevaluate this nearly universally held corporate-sponsored assumption that a high level of consumption makes some sort of direct contribution to well-being. Is more inherently better? Since our culture has staked its entire way of life to this alleged cause/effect relationship, perhaps we owe it to ourselves to examine it more closely.
Several years ago I published a series of articles on the Wal-Mart phenomenon in the Harbinger. One of the things that really stood out to me about the box retailer juggernaut is the ease with which they are able to articulate their benefits through the mass media: More for less. What else is there to know? What other consideration could possibly matter? Those concerned about the health of rural communities, the working conditions in third world sweatshops, and the litany of other problems associated with the Big Box phenomenon have a problem: while the purported benefits of giantism (cheap goods) seem concrete to the consumer, the socially and environmentally devastating consequences are largely invisible. That is to say they appear to be happening somewhere else, to someone else. Generally speaking, most of us have not yet developed an interest in “things unseen,” nor are most of us particularly interested in anything that smacks of “Less.”
Here’s an interesting thought from a recent article by George Monbiot: “It is impossible not to notice that, in some of the poorest parts of the world, most people, most of the time, appear to be happier than we are. In southern Ethiopia, for example, the poorest half of the poorest nation on earth, the streets and fields crackle with laughter. In homes constructed from packing cases and palm leaves, people engage more freely, smile more often, express more affection than we do behind our double glazing, surrounded by remote controls.”
This is not to suggest that poverty causes happiness, but after centuries of trying, it should also be apparent to us that we can’t pick spiritual fruit from the material tree. Maybe it’s time to reassess.
Pride S. Wright
is founder of the Brushwood Institute, publisher of both The Harbinger and
the Brushwood Chronicle, and organizer of The Brushwood Rebellion, a touring
series of events featuring the music of Austin, Texas singer/songwriter Patrice
Pike and the spoken word of Ashland, Oregon’s Eric Alan, author of the
book Wild Grace: Nature as a Spiritual Path. The Brushwood Rebellion comes
to Ashland, Oregon’s Mobius Media Center for two shows, October 16 &
17. For info and tickets visit www.brushwoodinstitute.com. Pride can be reached
at pride@brushwood
institute.com.
