On consumerism and pausing

On my way to my weekly teaching in Copenhagen.

This woman comes up to me on the Scandlines Ferry and asks me questions about my ferryshopping habits for a survey. I rarely shop on board. The odd cup of coffee, maybe a juice... 
"What could we do to make you shop on board," she asks, and my honest answer, I'm happy to say, is: "Nothing. I am happy for the break, the pause, not constantly ingesting something, whether it is food or information or entertainment." 
She looks uncomfortable, but nods politely and goes on to the next victim. 

But really if we as a culture are constantly putting something in our mouths literally and figuratively speaking, then we set up the conditions for discontent, never satisfied, always hungry for more. Always restless. A moments pause, a silence, and we tend to fill it with something.

And we can not just pin that down as being a search for happiness. This is a culture, that we are raised with and immersed in, and we are cultured to continue the madness. Therefore it is so important to practice resisting the pull of addiction, any addiction, so we can give back something else to our culture. 
We can practice pausing, adding a bit of silence. Of contentment ... of gratitude ... of generosity ... of patience.
Because we belong to a field, we are a field, and everything we do for ourselves, we do for the field.