I was faced with a stark juxtaposition during my recent trip to Kansas. I was there for a week-long ceramics workshop, part of an engaged group of people steeping in creative energy and tucked away in an oasis of oak trees and wildlife. Then, each day on my drive back to my hotel I passed distribution center after distribution center. Giant, flat, gray buildings with no windows, no markings, just bay after bay for semi-trucks to pull up and collect merchandise. I saw countless of these centers during my short trip, plus many new ones being constructed. These massive logistics centers and product warehouses cover many hundreds of millions of square feet in the Kansas City area and are a major economic driver locally. But when leaving a carefully curated and hand built art studio, passing small family farms growing food under big open skies, then being confronted with a soulless building spanning a quarter mile, it made me stop and consider the system that produces such a contrast and what I’d like to support.
Much of our modern life is extractive and consumptive rather than creative. And the impact of how we spend our time and money has effects that stretch far and wide. We have to look beyond the merchandise shelf in front of us to see that there are thousands of stores holding the same product. Hundreds of warehouses that distribute to them, countless vehicles to transport them, and factories to make them. Each of those locations took the clearing of land and habitat, consumption of natural resources to build, and human’s precious time traded for money. Whether you like it or not, most things you buy make their way through one of these centers, and when any of us consume a product, our money goes toward more semi-trucks on the road, more warehouses in the Midwest, more factories overseas, and less room for people to build a creative life. Our actions shape the future of our economic and ecological systems, either positively or negatively
To make things worse, our current era of shopping online aims to make this system completely invisible. We don’t see any of the extractive infrastructure behind our consumption. All we see is a box on our doorstep, isolated from the resources and logistics it takes to put it there. We live in a society that wants to extract economic value from us rather than encourage us to create things ourselves. The more we are blind to our complicity in this system, the more the system can extract from us. The more we can create, trade, share, and minimize, the more we can push back on this system that would prefer us to depend on corporations for all of our needs and wants and self-worth.
This is the system and era we’ve been born into, and our existence as a consumptive member of it is inevitable, but the degree which we participate is up to us. We can decide how much we create versus how much we consume. I am holding these two truths at once, that we are both creative and consumptive, active in both systems of reciprocity and exploitation. My desire is to tip the scale to the side of creativity and reciprocity.
To do this, I must unlearn the ease of one click purchasing. Shop secondhand. Learn to fix things. Enjoy living with less. Make things from scratch. Prioritize time on hobbies and being outside. Spend time in community. Build skills and knowledge for my own benefit, rather than to benefit an employer. Shop at the farmer’s market, share my garden abundance with a neighbor, plant a fruit tree. I must embrace creativity at every turn, choosing it over consumption as often as possible.
At the workshop, I felt the power of the reciprocal nature of a group of people learning together. We all had varied experiences to bring to the conversation and unique skills to pass on. We all left more inspired to lean into our creative lives than when we arrived. The ripple effect follows each of us home, rubbing off on our communities.
In this same way, each action we take that is outside our economic system has an impact greater than its face value. Take the example of asking a neighbor to borrow a tool for a quick project rather than buying one. You would not only save money, reduce resource consumption and save a trip to the store, but you’d also create a new relationship with a neighbor. You could open the two-way channel of communication which might encourage them to borrow your ladder next time they need one. And next thing you know you may be sharing the burden of drop off and pick up at your kids’ school, organizing neighbors to get together for a block party, and on and on and on.
To choose a creative life is an act of tipping the scale toward the world we would like to live in. Personally, I would rather see more open space, food production, wildlife, studios and community spaces. Less logistics centers, big box stores, and construction sites. Our impact goes beyond minimizing our resource consumption. Our creativity grows our self-sufficiency, empowers us to keep learning, and builds community resilience. It resists a system of extraction and oppression. It inspires others to do the same. I know how I want to press on the scales, won’t you join me?
Reflection:
Where did my clothes/furniture/electronics/tools/food come from? How did they get here?
What is something that I made instead of purchasing? Fixed instead of buying new? Got secondhand?
Do I know my neighbor? Would they feel comfortable asking me for a favor?
What resources do I have in abundance that I can share?
