More is Better, the unexamined cultural assumption that drives our economy and makes me feel special in a new pair of boots. But I am also afraid. I am afraid of energy descension (Peak Oil). I am afraid of climate change. Of higher and higher food prices. Of health care insurance and health care costs. I am afraid of what I am hearing and reading (Depletion and Abundance by Sharon Astyk, Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn) and I am afraid that so few of us are listening, including myself much of the time.

Consuming stuff makes me feel part of the world and it dulls my senses. Some experts are talking about the fact that the response loop to our actions is delayed in the earth’s response. So we can’t see it. Sitting still and listening, reading what the experts are actually saying, is frightening. At the moment I am strung between scarcity and abundance, fear and yearning. Sufficiency is the way out, the exit off the continuum of scarcity and abundance. If I could just get by the boots…