Beyond Abundance

[chelidon]

It's great to talk about getting away from Scarcity Mentalities, and looking at situations as inherently abundant, and not as zero-sum games where someone has to lose in order for someone else to win. And in many, many realms that is a valuable and useful mental shift to make. But. In the realm of physical resources, there is a relative scarcity coming. That's relative scarcity -- not that there won't be any (of anything), just that there will be less, and what there is will cost more and be more valuable. There's certainly good to this. Consumption of, well, everything, in this country, and much of the industrialized world, is simply, physically unsustainable, both in terms of the raw materials and energy needed to continue as we are, and in the pollution and other waste products we create. It can't continue, and it won't.

A great brief high-level summary of this shift, and some of the likely global consequences, is here: The Post-Abundance Era. Well worth a quick read, and not a doom-and-gloom or moralistic perspective, just a clear, well thought-out, practical look at what's ahead.

A much greater degree of simplicity, and basing personal consumption on what we need, instead of what we want, will become more necessary for most of us. It's a good time to learn to live simply. It always was, but each day onward it makes ever more sense, and is ever more needful.