Listen instead of reading
I was driving back from dropping the boys at school today when my most recent moment occurred. Music is a common instigator…melody and prose are a powerful combination.

“Said, said, said I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown
And then Georgie would make the fire light
Log wood burnin’ through the night
Then we would cook corn meal porridge
Of which I’ll share with you

My feet is my only carriage
So I’ve got to push on through
But while I’m gone…

Everything’s gonna be alright…”

I don’t know how it works for everyone…how it works for you. But for me, it rushes in all at once. Hair stands on end, my eyes tear up, I get an overwhelming feeling of indignation, followed by both certainty and resolve.

Certainty that I’m capable of so much more. Resolve to ‘push on through’…to find my way there. To my better self

I’m alone in these moments, and I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. I’m unique. The combination of experience and circumstance, memory and desire, it all lines up in such a way that it only works on one lock. Opens just one door. Reveals one potential. One moment.

And only in solitude do we get a true measure of our courage. When there’s nobody else there to build us up or break us down, there’s only you. Only me. And the opportunity to act.

So many times I’ve let this moment pass, left that potential unrealized. These brief glimpses of what’s possible are so easily dismissed, like a vivid dream that is forgotten by breakfast.

Yet still they come. Sporadically, but often enough to keep me believing in their message. In the opportunity they represent. Each is a clean slate, harboring no resentment for our past missteps. Eager to offer us another chance to become our best, and to offer the world something only we can.

Conformity such as it is, it’s our individuality that is crying out in these moments

That which is only achievable by us. I like to think about a world in which every one of us is answering that call, tapping that potential, honoring that individuality.

A life extraordinary requires it. Care not for the thousand times you’ve squandered the opportunity, there’s another one coming. Will you be ready?

We call it the beach, and the name itself hints at our condition. Singular. But what would anybody expect from a people intent on sorting, grouping, labeling and then dismissing? Our institutions teach us to gloss over – nay, to downright ignore our differences. Distinctions fall away and we’re neither extraordinary nor reprehensible. We’re just acceptable facsimiles of one another, rushed out the door and into the funnel.

“Dude!”

I woke with a start at the decidedly Californian exclamation. But my stiff back – a dependable consequence of belly-sleeping – kept me from moving much. Which was alright…fitting, in fact, as it left my right eye a few centimeters from the sand. The beach.

I couldn’t get it out of my head, this notion that once something reaches a certain magnitude, or more accurately, once that magnitude enters our awareness, we stop thinking about it with any real contrast. Sure, we know that the billion people in China are still people. Individuals. But we don’t think about them that way anymore.

We’ve stopped appreciating the individuality of our experience. And so news of a fatal traffic accident registers just long enough for us to calculate whether we need to consider an alternate route to work. A couple hundred thousand people perish in an earthquake and we think about the cost of relief and reconstruction.

There must have been a time when we cared. When we marveled at the details of each moment. Or even mourned them. As an infant on the beach sticks fistfuls of sand into his mouth just to experience it fully, so too must we, as a people, have once relished novelty. Celebrated differences. Looked forward to the enjoyment that can only come from committing to our experience and observing the minutia.

Every step as I amble to the low tide line impacts millions of grains of sand. And along the short path from millions to billions, our willingness to discern is lost. And with it goes one of the more important qualities of the human condition.

Humility.

Maybe this is too much to think about on a lazy day at the beach. Maybe I ought to rewind this journey and sleep the rest of the day away.

Nah…think I’ll build a sand castle instead.

There was a time in the not too distant past when production was a much more important part of our daily lives than it is today. What do I mean by production? I’m referring simply to ‘making something’.

It’s obvious enough why that was, right? Until quite recently (by historical standards), farming was essential for survival. People had to produce the food they ate. And it didn’t stop there – they had to make their clothing, their tools, their houses. You name it…if they wanted or needed it, they had to make it themselves.

Today life is very different. If we want food for dinner, we go to the supermarket and buy it. If we need new shoes, we go to the mall. We don’t make these things for ourselves because our society and economy are so arranged that these things are produced for us – we merely need to go the store and buy them. That is, we consume them, rather than produce them for ourselves.

The problem is that our ‘consumption’, such as it is, doesn’t stop with our core needs. It has spilled over into nearly every other aspect of life. We pay someone to wash our car, we pay someone to clean our house, we pay someone to train our dog and cut our lawn and make our dinner. And that’s just for starters.

And then there’s the other Consumption.

All of the above, if you stretch, could be considered ‘needs’. And to the extent that we have enough money to pay others to provide for them, I guess even that’s okay. Not ideal in my book, but okay. Though immediately three questions arise.

What happens if you run out of money?

Where does it stop? What makes something part of the ‘pay others to do that’ category, and what is worthy of our own personal effort?

And finally, to what end? What will we use our time for now that we are paying other people to provide for so many of our needs?

All super questions in my mind, but I need to leave them unanswered for now…bigger fish to fry.

The real problem, as I see it, is the ‘other’ consumption. The less tangible definition. Of course we all understand when we go to a store and buy something, we are consumers. But we’re also consuming when we sit in front of the television, and when we play video games, and when we read magazines and, for that matter, surf the internet.

We are giving our attention to things other people have produced.

But there is a double whammy in this type of consumption that makes it even more problematic. Advertising. Yes, the fuel that feeds the consumption machine is ever present on TV, in video games, on the computer, in print. The insidious force that works over time to ensure you’re always questioning if you’re good enough, or pretty enough, or smart enough, or cool enough, or whether you have enough toys, or gadgets, or skateboards, or whatever.

And what do we do when we doubt our value? We go buy something to try and make ourselves feel better.

All by itself, that single event, that one action, is harmless. But the thing is, it doesn’t stop there. Never does. But like most things, it happens slowly, imperceptibly. What started out as a reward for a job well done, or a bribe by our parents to get us to do something they needed us to do, developed into a full tilt reliance on ‘things’ to make us feel better. Its not our fault, or our parent’s fault. It’s just one of the many ways life gets away from us while we’re not paying attention.

Responsibility and power

And that brings us to my purpose. To the driving force behind everything I hope to do here at How To Matter.

It’s probably pretty obvious that I have some strong, negative opinions about commercial television, and our culture of consumerism. But you know, I don’t blame big corporations for that, and I don’t blame the media. In fact, I’m not interested in blaming anyone.

The way forward, for me, is about responsibility. I’m passionate about this issue precisely because I’ve personally felt the pain that comes from buying into this idea that more stuff is the answer to every problem. I’ve personally experienced the down side of pursuing the idyllic ‘American Dream’ at the expense of that which, ultimately, is far more important to me.

So yes, responsibility. Taking responsibility for our lives, for the paths we choose to travel, and the happiness we achieve. That’s a goal of HTM for sure.

Just as critical, though, is the introduction and advancement of ideas that change the way we think about the world, about the way our economy is organized, about the raising, and educating, of our young people.

And finally, How To Matter is where I hope to help others recognize, as early in life as possible, the power they have to create the life they want, the life they picture. But this power isn’t found on the cheap, or at the mall. It’s found by digging deep, by questioning the things right in front of our noses, the things that we take for granted, or assume are inherently good or right, just because they’re so damn prevalent.

This power, your power, my power, is found by rejecting the idea that others (where others = politicians, corporations, religious leaders, parents, peers, the popular kids, coworkers, celebrities…the list goes on) know what’s best for us.

Our power is found by reconnecting with our natural strengths, and leveraging them to redefine the paradigm underlying nearly every facet of this society in which we live that suggests conformity is the ultimate goal.

It isn’t. I feel sure about that much. And I’m thinking that celebrating those things that distinguish us from one another is a worthy goal.