Unconscious consumption
Wednesday, December 06, 2017Over the summer I will watch a lot of cricket.
But there is something about sitting down on the couch that instantly makes me hungry. I'll go looking for a quick fix or an easy option and then sit back down.
So when you combine the long days of test cricket and the readily available food, I end up mindlessly eating throughout the day.
Sit. Watch. Eat. Repeat.
Also known as the snaccident:But there is something about sitting down on the couch that instantly makes me hungry. I'll go looking for a quick fix or an easy option and then sit back down.
So when you combine the long days of test cricket and the readily available food, I end up mindlessly eating throughout the day.
Sit. Watch. Eat. Repeat.
It's a form of unconscious consumption.
And that's a dangerous thing.
The danger at Christmas is that this kind of consumption is even more culturally acceptable than the rest of the year - eat more food, throw away more food;
buy more stuff, throw away more stuff.
Then you add our physical and psychological distance from agriculture and industry and we become mindless consumers. Scott Higgins writes:
"Living in a modern industrial market economy I am blissfully disengaged from the stages by which products come to me... Such disengagement means it is easy to forget that the stuff I consume represents the end stage of a long process."
affecting our physical and mental health,
primary producers and workers.
and even our view of God and his creation.
Unconscious consumption is
a personal issue,
a humanitarian issue, and
a theological issue.
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| Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash |
How good are the materials?
And how much were the workers paid?
We've all got to take some time to stop and think.
For our own sake, for the sake of the workers and for the sake of the world.
As you eat and shop this Christmas, remember that the stakes are high.
And for me, I need to switch off the cricket, be mindful of what I'm eating, and be thankful for all that I have.
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