wayneholland.org

 

WHAT DO YOU REALLY NEED?

September 17, 2005

 

Have you ever given much thought to what you need? I mean, really need? You might be surprised, when you sincerely put your mind to it, at how little you actually require. It is important to point out here that what I am talking about is not coming from any kind of sour-grapes attitude either, the one that would prompt you to just say you don't need stuff because you don't have any. No, it's not about that at all. I'm talking about what you truly need.

This of course is not a new idea. The American philosopher/poet Thoreau is well known (if for nothing else) for his famous line, "Simplify, simplify, simplify." And everybody (at least occasionally) seems to give lip service to it, but very few - in America, by god - actually adhere to it, or live by it. It seems at times that we are actually going in the opposite direction in the West, with our cute little slogans assuring us that "he who dies with the most toys wins." It is no wonder that so much of the rest of the world hates us. We are like a bunch of spoiled rich kids who have so much money we don't know what to do with it. And not knowing what to do with it usually means we abuse it.

This strong-sell, fast marketing culture of ours has a way of overwhelming us, deluding us into thinking that we need things that we, in fact, do not need at all.

About 50 years before Christ a Roman poet by the name of Lucretius had some pithy observations on the subject:

We do not need so much
For bodily comfort, only loss of pain.
So, since our bodies find in wealth no profit,
And none in rank or power, it must be mind
Is no more profited.

Lucretius plays on the connection of body and mind, in much the same way that Morpheus (in The Matrix) assured Neo that "the body cannot live without the mind." Lucretius maintains that since the body has no need of luxuries, then surely the mind doesn't either.

Yes, they can be nice, but definitely not necessary. In some cases they can actually be encumbrances. I no sooner say this than I am reminded of Buckminster Fuller's caution that we are responsible for everything we own. I don't know about you, but to me, responsibility feels like a burden. It is difficult to imagine that any one would truly want more burdens. In the interest of peace of mind, the fewer burdens we have the better off we are.

Which brings me to the real point of this little tirade: empowerment. You can sense a positive injection of it when you rise to the full realization of (and offer your complete acceptance to) what you do not need.