“MORE!” How deep is the dysfunction?

 

 

 

 

“MORE!” How deep is the dysfunction?

In the February, 2013 issue of Wired Magazine there is an article discussing product design, The Simplex Complex, by Mat Honan. In it he writes -

“…Travel back in time to use your parents’ first microwave and you’ll likely see a box with three buttons (High, Medium, Low) and a timer dial. By contrast, one of LG’s current models boasts 33 buttons… None of these make my popcorn pop faster or taste better. Why do products become more complex as they evolve?…”

He then quotes Mike Monteiro, author of Design Is A Job -

“…We live in a culture of consumption, where quality is associated with more.”

So the driving force behind much product design isn’t making the product better, it’s to make the product look like it has “MORE.”

That our culture is fundamentally based on and motivated by the concept of “MORE” is indisputable. That that most of the planet is now infected with that dysfunctional concept is equally beyond question.

 

 

Rewarding greed, using MORE as the standard for determining success, has had a debilitating effect on every aspect of our personal lives as well as our social, political, economic, and spiritual institutions. And now, if we look closely and heed Mr. Honan and Mr. Monteiro, we can see how this dysfunction even affects the products we use.

 

 

How deep is the dysfunction of “MORE?” Deeper than we have imagined.

But perhaps more important - How has this happened?

And ultimately - What can we do about it?

First -

How Did This Happen?

To understand how we could become so addicted to a concept that brings us frustration, physical and emotional dis-ease, and lack of fulfillment we have to look first not at our institutions, but into our own hearts.

Stay with me here.

Often when you read about opening your heart, finding your bliss, reaching a state of perpetual happiness there follows a series of steps that have no real basis, at least to you, in the real world.

This, however is real. And rather than “Pie In The Sky” this relates to REALITY.

It starts with Death. It starts with loss.

Here’s the pared down version - because to fully understand and begin to open to REALITY takes longer than a few minutes reading a blog post.

1. All loss triggers a grief response.

2. Everyone experiences loss throughout life.

3. Birth is a loss. (Actually conception may be the first loss, but that’s a topic for another day.)

4. Since at birth we have no words to explain our loss or to hear a way through the grief, that loss remains unresolved.

5. From birth we look outward trying to understand what the **** is going on out here.

6. As we develop words, and continue to experience loss we begin to understand what loss brings.

7. We don’t understand why it comes, we don’t understand how to stop it, it hurts, and it’s scary.

8. At the same time we begin to recognize something else. LOVE.

9. Like Loss and grief, we don’t understand it, but it feels good.

10. One of our first rationalizations, and a completely understandable one, is that since loss and grief are hurtful we should push it away, ignore it, DENY it - as soon as possible.

11. And since Love makes us feel good we should hold on to it.

12. Loss and grief continue to come to us.

13. We recognize it and, as best we can, set it aside. We hold it beyond our conscious moment.

14. Grief can be denied. Grief symptoms cannot.

15. When enough grief is denied the symptoms begin to leak out around our very best efforts to DENY.

16. But because we are no longer aware of our unresolved grief we assign those symptoms, wrongly, to what is happening in our moment.

17. Dysfunction follows.

18. As this happens we are searching for LOVE.

19. We learn about it.

20. One of the lessons it that it leaves. Always. Leaves. Sometimes it is through death.

21. Because we need it we try to hold on to it. Own it. Do whatever we need to have it. But still it leaves.

22. It’s hard not to believe there’s something wrong with us.

23. As time passes and more losses come and are denied it takes more and more energy to hold back the grief.

24. For many of us all we have time and energy to do is to hold back the grief.

25. We learned another lesson waaay back when this whole process was just beginning - Once the denial took hold and the love was inconsistent, nothing around us was meaningful.

26. Then we discovered that Ice Cream was good. More Ice Cream was better. MORE.

27. The satisfaction of more was so temporary. But we had the answer.

28. MORE. MORE!

29. Etc.

30. Etc.

31. The key to whatever kind of more we opted for, food, drink, relationships, education, money, power - each on its own a normal, natural part of life - ultimately could not fulfill us.

32. And as we looked and lived outward, we created a world that fit with our DENIAL.

Each of us can look to where we are individually on this Denial scale.

It’s the foundation upon which our lives and institutions are based.

You are a part of it. Only you can determine where on that scale you live.

　

Second -

What can we do about this?

When we started to work with dying folks and their families thirty-five plus years ago we were looking for a way to more humanely, more lovingly share that last loss of the human life cycle. We weren’t looking to deal with global cultural issues, issues that would profoundly affect the way we live and the world community in which we live.

What we discovered about Loss and Grief in a human life cycle grew out of our own need to understand the lessons dying folks were teaching us.

We did learn. And today, while the path forward is defined, it is far from complete. We can’t, well at least I can’t, see where it will lead, but we definitely know how to begin.

What can we do?

We can come together and speak to our losses, help each other heal, recognize the incredible power which - at this amazing moment in human history - is there for us to exercise.

What can we do?

This too is a pared down version. What we can do can’t be defined in one blog post.

But Quicksilver Times at

www.quicksilvertimes.org, the Discussion Forum at the net site, Quicksilver Times Facebook page, the upcoming Quicksilver Times OnAir broadcasts, and this blog, are a place to start.

There are practical things to be done. Come. Ask questions. Help.


love,

bill