The Hypocrisy of Me

I can’t think of one person who lives a life of absolute integrity. It is impossible. Some try, some wouldn’t know the meaning of the word, and most, like me, are caught in the middle. The problem is, when you are caught in the middle, and you know it, you are living the life of a hypocrite. That is my ‘conundrum’ as David Owen would put it.

Ultimately, through a process of self reflection we get to know what it is that makes us tick on a personal level. It becomes an intuitive and a gut level understanding of what we believe in and in contrast what we think is complete rubbish. Self reflection and self awareness are the two things that really bring out the hypocrite in us all.

I would like nothing more than to live a simpler life, not constantly paying for things I don’t really want or need, not bogged down by the mundane everyday fight against the machine. But I don’t do anything about it really. I don’t think many do. I complain and moan, I pay my bills and get up early on cold dark rainy days for the privilege of going to sit in an office and stare at a computer, doing things that don’t really mean a great deal in the scheme of things – at least not in my scheme of things at any rate. I suspect many feel the same, regardless of occupation.

Because at the end of the day, what is actually important is to live a life of personal meaning and fulfilment if you can. Surely, given that we all end up in the ground one way or another, and that we are actually alive on the earth for an incredibly short period of time that should be the only real goal? The fact that we take the absolute incredible event of our planet even containing life in what seems to date to be a pretty sterile universe, and that our birth and existence is both an amazing privilege and an incredible fluke, not a right and a destiny as so many seem to believe, it is beyond belief that we put up with the boredom and inanity of it all on a day in day out basis and call it normal!

I would like to live a life of integrity that will leave the planet in good shape for future generations and I don’t. My social circle discusses climate change, planetary degradation, soil fertility loss, species loss and all of these things ad nauseum. But we discuss them in fossil fuel powered meetings, over fossil fuel powered intensively farmed food, in fossil fuel powered homes, in our cars, in offices that have the lights on 24/7, in aeroplanes, with our feet resting on rainforest hardwood coffee tables, while scraping tonnes and tonnes of leftover food into bins destined for landfill.

The hypocrisy of it all.

What would a life well lived minus the hyperbole and hypocrisy look like? Would we recognise it? Would it inspire us or scare us? Would we want it if it was really an option?

Research has shown us that over a certain level of material wealth our net happiness plateaus out. Who would be game to test that theory coming from the western pattern of massive over-consumption and capitalisation?

Anyone game to lose the debt and credit cards, and latest gadgets for a simpler conscious life?

Pariah status rather than futurist leader I suspect…