Every conscious thing we do begins with imagination, imag-i-nation, to animate an image, a vision. We must have imagination to make the transformation we are called to. Imagination and the vision it creates can be extremely powerful, as demonstrated with the vision of consumerism.

Consumerism as Spirit and Ego

Read the article A Brief History of Consumer Culture

What's so bad about consumerism?

The article above quotes retail analyst Victor Lebow as remarking in 1955:

Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.… We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.

We're there. That vision became reality. 

Buying and selling are our rituals through which "...we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction." But as a people our spiritual satisfaction is on a rapid decline as shown in diminishing religious participation. Our ego satisfaction focuses on a never ending and dehumanizing competition to have the newest and best.

"We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate." It would be impossible to devise a better formula to insure the ultimate destruction of our Earth.

In your journal, reflect on your lifetime of living in an ever-expanding culture of consumerism. How strongly were you affected by advertising? Did consumption become your way of life? Did we "convert the buying and use of goods into rituals?" (what about Christmas shopping?) Is it too far a stretch to say "we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction" from the things we buy?"

The next sections describe a wide variety of visions. Consider each of them as they might relate to your problem/opportunity.  

After studying these visions, write in your journal about one (or more) that caught your attention. Why did it attract you? What might you do with that vision?