We all need new ideas, images, and experiences far more than we need new stoves or cars or computers. [Bill Holm]
A new year is nearly upon us. This means something unique for everyone – for some it’s the start of tax season, for others it’s resolutions and increased attention paid to junk food intake and nail biting, and for many it’s the renewal of hope, the optimistic giddiness of pressing the reset button to a new year.
For me, it’s taking a full inventory of my material footprint. Recently I’ve been struck by the visible excess so rampant around us. Even while avoiding the throngs of mall shoppers and the online deal assaults I feel overwhelmed. Our society has simply outdone themselves. Many companies seek to beat their sales year over year, as if it’s an unwritten assumption that all people need increasingly more. We have so much, too much: more plates than we will ever set for a gathering, more candles than we will ever burn, more swimsuits than we will ever pack for a tropical vacation, more luggage than we will ever use.
What would it look like if we stopped acquiring more each time we felt bored or dissatisfied with our lives? What if our response to feelings of inadequacy was instead to invest in our thoughts and our dormant creative minds? Instead of buying more we could check out a book from the library or learn a coding program or create a recipe. Rather than browsing Amazon and online retailers for things that will only clutter our homes, we could browse Brain Pickings or the newspaper or a book of poetry for fresh insights. Our longing for possessions could instead be channeled into creative endeavors. Imagine if we opened our eyes and realized the wealth of people and landscape around us.
We are lucky to be alive in this time and place, here and now. Yes, there are hard and painful things, and yes, the nation is entering a season of dark unknown, but here we are alive. As Mary Oliver says in Long Life,
“And that is just the point: how the world, moist and bountiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. ‘Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?’” [Mary Oliver]
This year, perhaps we can all strive to make a comment about our lives using our creative minds rather than our wallets.
The late Bill Holm, a poet and essayist who split his days between southwest Minnesota and Hofsós, Iceland, mentioned this idea of too much in his book, The Windows of Brimnes: An American in Iceland. Here’s an excerpt from his book:
“After a while, the United States is simply too much: too much religion and not enough gods, too much news and not enough wisdom… too much entertainment and not enough beauty, too much electricity and not enough light, too much lumber and not enough forests, too much real estate and not enough earth, too many books and not enough readers, too many runners and not enough strollers, too many freeways, too many cars, too many malls, too many prisons, too much security but not enough civility, too many humans but not enough eagles. And the worst excess of all: too many wars, too much misery and brutality – reflected as much in our own eyes as in those of our enemies. So I come here to this spare place. A little thinning and pruning is a good anodyne for the soul. We see more clearly when the noise is less, the objects fewer.” [Bill Holm]
My hope for the new year is that we can acknowledge the excess around us and move forward with a heightened awareness that compels us to plan a trip to a foreign country, form new ideas, leave our comfort zone, take a break from shopping, reconnect with an old friend through voices instead of screens, and go on a walk to rediscover our neighborhood. As this new year emerges, may we be open to seeing the world differently. May we stop seeking happiness in our material possessions. And may we ponder anew what we can do this month, this season, this year to build our experiences and expand the limits of our creative minds.
Elisabeth A. Fondell is a writer, potter, and food enthusiast living in the rural Midwest. She is currently working on Food Stories From Houston County, a project documenting stories of culinary resilience in Minnesota’s southeastern-most county through the Crystal Creek Citizen-Artist Residency.
Elisabeth began focusing on place-based food writing after receiving a grant from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council to create a body of work celebrating the intersection of food and culture. See that exhibit here.
