You don't create, therefore, you consume.

"We are what we consume. For many of us around the world, we are our televisions, our ipods, our movies, our billboards, and commercials, we are affectively a corporate identity tailored by corporate entities. We reflect a culture of pure consumerism. What I find so challenging to my people, my people, being you, the listener, whoever you are, is that we are not a culture balanced between creativity and consumption. When you have an imbalance such as this, we become entropic. We pick off more than we can eat, and harvest more than we can replace. This ethos creates a megalomaniacle society. A society that will liquidate the forests, poison the water, and wage incalculable wars in the name of consumption. This consumer identity is so perverse because mass media is prolific, and its content is consolidated into only one culture. And that culture is created and provided not by us, it has very little to do with us, in fact, i will be as bold to say, that what you are accustomed to seeing in pop culture, has absolutely nothing to do with you. It is, and has always been, created by the advertising industry, which ultimately is a product of your sensational desires, and lack of creative energy. You, my people, my friends, you don't create, therefore, you consume." ...Trip

Read Trip's entire post here...

I appreciate the connection made here between creativity and consumption... Of course even in our fullest manifestation of our creative energy we are still consumers, but our consumerism would be a more conscious, tasteful expression of our wants and needs. I do see it is lack of creativity that we not only lose our dollars to the financial abyss, we lose our sense of connection to the products and services we mindlessly buy, and turn our backs to consequences of our choices.

Every time we spend money its a choice. With our choices we make our world. When we are creative we create a culture based on an expression of our own values.

In an interview for Communities Magazine last week, I was asked some questions regarding community living and its financial implications. I was reminded of what I learned from the concepts of financial permaculture as well as 2 years of living intentionally in community.

When we spend our money at a local store (or for the services of a friend), we not only support our neighbor, we are also reinvesting that money into our local economy, increasing the economic activity in our area. Hopefully that money is then recirculated within the community, creating a multiplier effect, achieving greater overall economic impact each time it is used. "The multiplier effect is when incomes from one person are passed to another within the same community. The multiplication effect stops when the money leaves the community." financialpermaculture.org. When we spend our money at a chain store, that money goes out the window, it does not invigorate our local economy.

When creativity and consumption balance evenly on the pendulum, the People in their Power turn their backs to the manipulation of the advertising industry, and create the goods and services they deem important and necessary, aligning their business models with principles of Earth Care, People Care, and Equitable Distribution of Resources, honoring art, history, cultures, Gaia, family, civil rights.... the list goes on....

In what ways does your spending choices support, create, contribute to, or even diminish positive cultural change in your area and the world?