The First Habit of Separation – Scarcity

The first of the three habits of separation described by Charles Eisenstein is scarcity. This in no way echoes the New Age concept expressed in “The Secret”: ‘If you visualize hard enough and arrange your mind correctly, you can manifest anything and enjoy unlimited material abundance.’ On the contrary, this approach drives me crazy – because we already live in a society of insanely excessive material abundance that encourages destructive and predatory consumerism, and if we don’t recognize the massive privilege most of us have on the material level, there is nothing to talk about at all. I write “most of us” just in case someone who reads these lines lives in real material deprivation despite their access to a computer. It’s possible; after all we are also a society of shocking inequality. But as a whole, we have material abundance that generations before us could not even dream of. We are literally drowning in it. So what’s the deal with scarcity?

The accepted story of our culture is that progress and capitalism are what create abundance and will eradicate the shortage of basic necessities such as food, water, and housing. But it is extremely rare that indigenous societies suffered from a lack of these. It is us who have to pay for clean water and who have homeless among us, it is our food that is largely unhealthy, and half of it is wasted when people in other places are dying of hunger. What is homelessness if not evidence of inhumane privatization of the basic needs of existence? A society based on competition and accumulation of private capital and property cannot but produce scarcity.

But the most egregious scarcities in our society are different – less tangible, but no less serious. What cannot be quantified and calculated as an economic value is pushed aside, and what can be traded dominates our collective and – against our will – personal priority as well. Thus we suffer from a painful lack of time, of closeness, of a sense of meaning, of belonging, of sleep, of quiet, of self-esteem, of adventure, of serenity, of common spaces, of exercise, of intimacy with nature, and on and on. How do we claim that we are a culture of abundance when one of the prevalent afflictions is loneliness?

As Eisenstein explains, instead of these essentials, our society offers substitutes that do not fill the real need; instead they mask it and soothe the pain of their lack for a while. However, they are marketable. This is how addiction is created, because we need ever-increasing portions of what is not really satisfying. This is also how the economic growth that society is addicted to is created, economic growth that means turning our living world into inanimate resources and commodities.

“How much of the ugly does it take to substitute for a lack of the beautiful? How many adventure films does it take to compensate for a lack of adventure? How many superhero movies must one watch, to compensate for the atrophied expression of one’s greatness? How much pornography to meet the need for intimacy? How much entertainment to substitute for missing play? It takes an infinite amount. That’s good news for economic growth, but bad news for the planet. …

“From our immersion in scarcity arise the habits of scarcity. From the scarcity of time arises the habit of hurrying. From the scarcity of money comes the habit of greed. From the scarcity of attention comes the habit of showing off. From the scarcity of meaningful labor comes the habit of laziness. From the scarcity of unconditional acceptance comes the habit of manipulation.” (from The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible – Scarcity)

The things we actually need do not cost money and do not depend on material resources. Their scarcity is a cultural artifact. Addressing them requires us to slow down, to observe and allow ourselves to move differently. It requires us to change the story we tell about what is important and what is not, what is possible and what is not. The things we need do not behave according to our cultural logic. They multiply when we share them and shrink when we keep them to ourselves or condition them on payment. (This does not mean that paid relations, for example between a teacher and a student, cannot be full of love and meaning, only that those are additional, beyond what can be conditioned on payment.)

Like any habit, changing habits of scarcity begins with mindfulness. When we feel a contraction, we can stop for a moment and check what lack we are assuming. How are we operating from this assumption of scarcity, and what types of scarcity do we tend to believe in? (Time is one of my big ones.) This means reminding ourselves that the perception of scarcity is a cultural creation, that the more we hoard, the less we will have, and the more we manage to share, the more everyone will have.

This might sound simplistic. It is not. It takes time and patience and perseverance and support to change the cultural stories and the habits they give birth to. This is what this blog – and all my teachings, actually – are about.