"Happiness" by Steve Cutts

Steve Cutts is one of my favourite illustrator/animators, and not only because of his artwork. Mostly, I like him because his artwork focuses on the excesses of modern society. And there is so much excess to excoriate.

He used to work for the dark side, doing animations for evil corporations like a certain sugary water beverage maker, a high tech firm making semi-disposable electronics, and one of the biggest car makers in the world.

Then he broke free of all that, and became a freelancer doing his own thing. Since then he has been stripping the curtain back from our sick system to show the reality of our madness.

One of his first short film was "MAN", in which Cutts says he explores our relationship with the natural world. It is not a pretty picture, but should be a wake up call.

In 2016/2017 he did two music videos for the singer Moby. Both, he says, highlight "consumerism, greed, corruption and ultimately our self-destructiveness". Readers of this blog will have an awareness of all those things.

Of his new animation (the short film above), Cutts states, "The story is of a rodent's unrelenting quest for happiness and fulfillment."

Warning - some scenes are disturbingly similar to humans' pursuit of the same, and may elicit a sense of the uncanny in certain viewers.

The Satirical Art of Steve Cutts

Warning: viewing these images may cause discomfort, ennui, and a deep desire to live simply.

Some people are able to highlight uncomfortable truths more effectively via visual art. Artist/illustrator/animator Steve Cutts is one such individual.

Steve's art doesn't hold anything back in his assessment of the state of the world infected by consumerism. Psychopathic billionaires, getting trapped in the rat race, phone zombies, office escapees, conspicuous consumers - they are all addressed in this painful portfolio.

The artist describes himself as a "self taught hermit who occasionally likes to make animation, illustration, sculpture and cake - mainly cake". You can see his short animated piece about the destructiveness of consumer culture here.

Choose Simplicity - Choose Adventure

I came upon these lupins while on a recent cycling adventure.

There is a genre of kids books called "choose your own adventure" that allow the reader to follow different threads and outcomes according to their choices at critical junctures. They are interesting in that they allow kids to feel like they have control over the narrative.

In reality, the control kids have with these books is as deep as the control they have over the rest of their lives. In other words, very little. The choices are all given by someone else. You must choose one. But what if you don't like any of the choices?

I like write-your-own-adventure. We should encourage people to create their own stories. Then they  become someone that can create their own adventure in the grand story we call life.

How do we become the author, the artist of our own life?

“I would rather die on the street as a street performer than try to create some sort of life that satisfies someone else.”

- Ricky Syers

Choosing voluntary simplicity is a good way to respond to the sad story of environmental degradation, but that is not all. Just as important is discovering that life is an adventure, and we can be the teller of our own tale.

I have never accepted the mainstream mythical story - go to school, get married, buy a house, have kids, work hard, buy your way to success and be happy. Like a choose-your-own-adventure novel, in this scenario you are restricted to a limited number of choices that someone else is making for you.

No thank you, not for me. I want other choices. I want infinite choices.

A life of simplicity allows us to write our own adventure. It frees time and resources to enjoy life not in a hurried rush, but to live it as an ongoing, slowly unfurling work of art. That is hard to do while frantically running the rat race.

When we choose simplicity, we choose adventure. Our adventure.

"Life is pure adventure and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art."

- Maya Angelou

Not Buying Any Upgrades

Is new better? Better for what? Mostly for increasing the profits of the scammers trying to sell us things we don't need. But things are changing and people are quitting the "new and improved" race.

We reached peak technology some time ago, and now upgrades no longer give us the bang for our buck that they used to. To fight this, there is a movement beginning that is turning back the clock on technology.

"Last year over 1 million PCs were dumped by British businesses. Most of this equipment ended up in landfill."

People are foisting their FB account, eschewing email, and lovingly handwriting letters. Many are moving the microwave out, parking the car and taking up biking again. On single speed bikes.

To help neo-Luddites along are low tech magazines spreading the word about leaving the upgrade game and going back to tried and true tools that never should have been left behind. Like a clothes line rather than an energy sucking dryer.

As one magazine says, "Every problem has a low tech solution".

People who live simply are often proponents of low tech living. The Amish are an excellent example of a group that refuses newer technologies to avoid undesirable effects on their communities. How do you use power tools and appliances when the power goes out?

"The average American spends almost $1400.00 annually on electronics."

Going low tech saves money. It prevents waste. Low tech is accessible to those that want to do it themselves, either building or repairing items. High tech is often fragile, while low tech is usually more robust and long-lasting. Low tech is low energy.

Counter to popular thinking, a small group of proponents feel that there will be no technological saves in our future. It is becoming increasingly obvious that our high tech is what has lead us to the brink of disaster.

While low tech has never gone away, it is about to become a lot more popular in our low energy future. It is time to say goodbye to high tech upgrades, and hello to a sustainable hand made, people powered future.

"Every year the world tosses 20 to 50 million metric tons of electronics. Only 10 - 18% is recycled."

The Problem With The Consumer Rat Race

Happiness is always just around the corner in the consumer rat race maze

In the consumer rat race, happiness is always just out of reach. The next purchase, vacation, gift, or dollar earned, all promise happiness, but they never quite deliver. After a transitory sensation of fulfillment, we launch the pursuit of the next conduit to bliss. We are stuck in the maze.

Benjamin Hoff, in the "Tao of Pooh", describes the situation many will experience during the holidays.

"The Christmas presents once opened are Not So Much Fun as they were while we were in the process of examining, lifting, shaking, thinking about, and opening them. Three hundred sixty-five days later, we try again and find that the same thing has happened. Each time the goal is reached, it becomes Not So Much Fun, and we're off to reach the next one, then the next one, then the next."

To escape the trap of the consumer lifestyle, we can choose the door that leads out of the maze, and into a more simple life. Ahh, instant relief.

I would rather sleep on the ground and be free, than sleep in a comfortable bed in captivity in an economic lab experiment. When we escape the maze we can stop chasing.

It is when we stop chasing that we start finding. We start finding ourselves. We start finding people that we love, and that love us. We start finding community, and a revitalized relationship with nature.

We start finding happiness.

No Rat Race Monday

Click to enlarge

"Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heros and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those that need it that the tyranny of "the rat race" is not yet final."

- Hunter S. Thompson

Change In Money Consciousness Required

We have grown use to abundance in the developed world. An abundance that has failed to make us any happier. All our big pile of cash has got us is record levels of depression and an environment falling apart at the seams. So why are so many people continuing to spend?

We need a radical change in how we make and spend our money. If more is not working, we should try less and see what happens. It seems counter intuitive, but it may be that the best thing that could happen to us is having less money to spend.

My favourite financial guy, Garth Turner, recently posted on his blog The Greater Fool: "The recession we thought was behind us is actually reappearing, and it will take a serious attitude adjustment on the part of many to survive." Ouch.

In 2008/09 household wealth was evaporating faster than a puddle of alcohol in a heat wave, and people were thinking about changing their financial attitudes and habits. Some actually did. For example, there are groups dedicated to not buying anything new for a period of time. Most members find they get hooked on their new simple life and never go back to shopping. But they are a rarity.

John Michael Greer, author and cultural critic, noted that changing our relationship with money is not that popular, despite the proven dividends it would pay:

"The problem is that the changes in consciousness that would actually do some good are changes that next to nobody in the industrial world is willing to make: for example, a shift in priorities that deliberately embraces poverty, accepting a rich personal, intellectual, and social life as a substitute for, or even an improvement on, the material extravagance that the industrial nations currently offer their more favored inmates."

We are our own worst enemies when it comes to cash. In our pursuit of more we open ourselves to the 'Wealth Effect'. It states that people will increase spending as household net worth increases. And this in spite of 88% of us thinking that life is overly materialistic. Net gain? Zero.

Other people are shifting the way they think about work and money. The ship is slowly turning back toward our frugal roots. The wealth effect works in reverse, too - the less wealthy we feel, the less we will spend. Perhaps being less wealthy is the answer then. Make less, spend less, live more. This is the new money consciousness, and it just may save our sanity and our environment.

Greer gives hope by reminding people that the "change in consciousness is certainly accessible to each and every one of us". However, "it requires a rare willingness to step outside of the approved habits and ideas of modern industrial cultures."

We can be brave, and step away from habits we know to be harmful. We can quit spending. We can stop the futile attempt to prove that money can buy happiness. A better, more simple, sustainable life lies ahead, and we will be happier for it. But it will require a change in money consciousness, and for some of us, a radical change.

This Just In - The Rat Race Has Been Cancelled

For longer than I have been alive the pace of life in the west has been ramping up dramatically. "The Rat Race", it came to be known. We have been running faster and faster for fewer returns in terms of personal happiness.

At the same time Big Corp. took over, using enticing messages in the new media of radio and TV to lure us into their trap. Soon we were moving to the city in record numbers, giving up our self-sufficient, simple lives for massively complicated, dependent ones. We all willingly stepped onto the treadmill, and haven't looked back since.

We sold out to Big Corp. We work for them longer and harder than ever before. We buy their stuff, and sacrifice our lives for the privilege . The Rat Race is a pressure cooker of stress as shown by our collective ill health. After 50 or so years of work most of us, if we even live long enough to retire, are too tired and unhealthy to enjoy our freedom.

Surrounded by all our neat stuff, we have become sick and unhappy. At the same time Big Corp. has been paying CEO's thousands of times what the average worker made.

What if we limited ourselves to our fair share of the world's resources? How much would that cost in western countries? Would it let us gain our freedom sooner?

I figure that our fair share (whatever scary, tiny amount that may be) would cost in Canada roughly 8 - 18 thousand dollars per year. How long would the average person have to work to make that much? Assuming a wage of 20 dollars an hour (average for Canadian workers in 2008), it would take approximately 10 to 23 weeks per year to earn the small pile of the earth's resources allocated to you.

You would not have much stuff, but think of all the time off you would have. Think of how uncomplicated your life might be. How much time you would have to reconnect with friends and family. To get healthy. To eat better. To help out in your community. To do things that benefit you and those around you, such as healing the environment.

Besides, when we have passed laws to limit consumption what use will we have for huge amounts of extra money? Conspicuous consumption is on the way out. On a planet where 27 000 children die every day due to preventable diseases, it seems a crime for us to be living the lives of luxury and excess that we do.

Thinking only about "Me, and All My Great Stuff" will soon be as socially unacceptable as smoking in public places is becoming. Think Gandhi and his little box of simple possessions, not Imelda Marcos, the world's best known shoe-collector.

Since The Great Recession began in 2007 the Rat Race Treadmill has been slowing. Our rickety system has been grinding to a halt. My recommendation is that you bail while you can, because everyone is trying to crank it all up again, even though we know that if we continue business as usual we will kill ourselves and everything else on the planet.

We can all become winners once again by abandoning this doomed race and taking back our lives for ourselves, our local community, and the environment.

Jump! jump! jump! before they get this damned treadmill cranked again.