+On Consumption
As I came here to write, I rediscovered an entry from December 15th, 2024, one that speaks directly to what's unfolding now. I've republished it because the questions haven't changed. Perhaps they've only grown louder.
Our perspectives must be calibrated to match the interior world we wish to inhabit. Not optimism, ..architecture. William James wrote that our experience is simply what we agree to attend to. We become what we think. We become what we consume. And right now, consumption is the disease dressed as the cure.
The Trinity series was completed in July 2024. Since then: two large commissions, then a triptych I left as a final offering to the cabin in New Mexico that held my solitude and self-enquiry while I painted. I mention this as evidence of having kept myself active, creatively. Staying put, investing in home, in work that holds meaning for me, has done something to my inner world. Clarified it. I can see more clearly when I am still. I can hear more when I stop broadcasting. And there is so much right now that needs to be seen and heard.
But let's begin with ourselves before we start needling at one another.
Mind, body, spirit: what is being consumed?
There's a reason they call it the feed. We crowd the trough, elbows out, feasting steadily on whatever rolls into view; the images, the outrages, the algorithms designed to keep us chewing. The rot begins in the mind. Then the body takes its cues: stiff joints, shallow breath, a nervous system locked in low-grade alarm. We expect so much from these bodies while investing so poorly in them. And then we turn to the spirit, asking it for meaning, wondering why it feels bankrupt.
The Buddhists have a word—āhāra—that names four kinds of nutriment: physical food, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness itself. We are fed by everything we let in. The question is whether we're nourishing ourselves or being slowly poisoned by what we consume without choosing.
So: a full-body scan. Without judgment. Just an honest look.
What do you find?
I could confess my own failings here but they shouldn't comfort you. They're not the point. The point is the question: What inside you is screaming to be seen? How has it manifested in your body, your choices, your silences? The Stoics called this practice prosoche, attention to oneself. Clarity. The willingness to look without flinching.
Right now is always the time to take that look. Though the world does not demand your healing, you deserve to know what's actually there. Will you see it? Will you listen? Is there anything more worth your attention?
𓆦
