There is no need to run to the shops, whether online or brick-and-mortar, every time we think we need something.

We are being told that we need things, that the more we buy the more we are worth, and that people who use what they already have and up-cycle and reuse and repair stuff are trash.

This just makes the likes of Jeff Bezos richer. It does not serve us in any way and it makes us parasites on the ecosystem, the planet.

When I moved into my current place, some stuff had been left behind by previous occupants. I was told to just throw it in the skip outside if I didn’t want it. I was shocked. (Okay, disappointed.)

I haven’t thrown out anything. I’ve been able to repurpose it all. The biggest and most expensive item I donated so that someone else wouldn’t have to spend a small fortune on purchasing it new. It was scooped up in no time.

We really need to start listening to the nature that we are all part of, not separate from. Most of the green-washing disgusts me. It’s just a marketing approach, essentially, and it serves to generate new consulting sectors for dealing with legislation and so on. What does it really accomplish if we don’t change our ways?

We are switching from a carbon-based world to a lithium-based world, without a thought for how the latter will affect us. There is very little true innovation.

Mines, mines, more mines, more open-cast mines! More transport of lithium and batteries over the world. No more oil tankers.Are we switching to lithium tankers now? (you know what I mean. We’re just shifting the problems, not resolving them.)

Granted, lithium-based transport reduces the noise level in the world. Electric engines are far quieter. So at least there’s that.

I have central air that even remains on when the glass sliding door to the balcony is wide open. The system was blowing a lot of fine dust and fibers into my place, until I purchased and applied filters. The filters also turned out to reduce the noise level substantially. I don’t complain, but I see the relative insanity of it. Maybe there is a purpose that still escapes me, but I doubt it.

I often seem to be gripped by the same despair that a lot of very young people have nowadays. When I was a teenager, the environment was a hot topic too, but we weren’t feeling desperate. We were determined. We all swore that we would never drive a car, my friends and I. I got my driving license at age 24, but I’ve only briefly owned a car when I needed to go to Sweden to fulfill a degree requirement. In some countries, not owing a car is far easier to do than in others, but it also depends on how you construct or (re)arrange your life.

Other than that, I too am far too wasteful. I am part of the plastic that ends up on a beach in Africa.

In the meantime, lots of people are savagely killing each other all over the world, savagely causing loads and loads of wasteful destruction.

I have no words for that.

I feel like an idiot. Powerless.

For every item I purchase, and every item I up-cycle or repair and reuse, and for any animal I rescue and rehab, and for anything else I want to accomplish, there is an army of bigger idiots waiting to destroy it.

The destruction of capital (resources) is one of the biggest forces in the world and the human drive to destroy seems unstoppable.

That’s because we don’t see it for what it is. It’s so hard to break free from this dogma that the creation and purchase of more stuff contributes anything to the world and to our wellbeing or even our safety. It rarely does.

I purchased a bunch of safety alarms at my previous place, but they got destroyed shortly after I started using them. So did my crockpot and the organic beans that I bought in bulk and used to cook in them.

I’m constantly being tempted to go buy a nice new pair of fleece pajamas because I am so indoctrinated by the idea that we need stuff, stuff and more stuff.

So far I have kept myself from doing that. Because I really don’t need it. I just think that I do because that is what I have been taught to believe.

A few years ago, I made a perfect standing desk from random stuff that others had thrown away, and packaging materials (which you’re also supposed to throw out). That just gets you mocked. You’re supposed to buy buy buy more stuff and more stuf and more stuff. Resist the urge, please. It’s so destructive.

At the moment, I’m pretty much sick of humans, frankly.

(Yeah, I am starting to see more and more where Julian Savulescu is coming from, but I wish that we wouldn’t need that cynicism and hopelessness.)

(By the way, I should add that some of my hopelessness comes from the Dutch National Science Foundation. The shortsightedness at the forefronts of the physical and natural sciences does not give me much hope either.) (I’m still chewing on this, I suppose.)

We need a completely new framework for living. For our lives.