Free July
Freedom lies outside of your identity as a consumer
I am neither an avid nor frequent consumer of current events or economics, but it so happens that in the last few weeks these two subjects have collided in my consciousness. Not surprisingly, I immediately drew connections to Ayurveda and yoga that have inspired some provocative self-inquiry. In the vein of our self-study summer, I thought I’d share them here.
The announcements that flooded my email newsletters early this month were full of interesting contradictions. July, the month that my country celebrates its historic freedom from colonial British rule (with a fair dose of irony of late), has become the congregation point for many other freedoms. Plastic Free July has been on my radar for years since I’ve adopted a planet-friendly lifestyle, where participants vow to not consume any of this pervasive material that’s slowly taking over our oceans, our food, and our bodies. I tried this a few times in the past and have come close to a zero-plastic month. But somehow I always found myself in unusual situations where I needed some convenience item or forgot, which I almost never do, my fabric grocery bags. It was a lesson in humility and preparedness—but also a reminder that absolutes and extremes are never supportive of vata dosha.
Adding to this was a next level of restriction: “No Buy July.” While the origins and general intention of this movement are unclear, it seems to be an evolution of things like Dry January and its roots in religious practices of fasting and sacrifice like Lent. Purification—and budget saving during a time when everything seems just more and more expensive—is the idea. Pausing before buying something is something I can get behind, but when it comes to discretionary spending, such “fasts” can result in a binge on the other side. Compulsive buying of the things you tucked away in a mental drawer, the things you really needed and now really really need, and, well, just anything you can get your hands on or catches your eye. When I’ve imposed these budget diets in the past for personal reasons, I’ve felt great satisfaction of having a smaller “expense” number on my spreadsheet. But within the first few days of the following month, I’d spend just as much as the entire last month, catching up and satisfying my consumption cravings. Which created the equivalent of a Thanksgiving food hangover—an unpleasant, guilt-inducing indigestion that created further restriction for the other 25 days of the month. (The comparisons to food-diets aren’t just poetic or Ayurvedic; the neurochemistry is very similar when it comes to the “high” of restriction and how easy it is to crash after a certain amount of deprivation. After being strong and disciplined for a really long time, the self-control muscles reach failure and you get tempted by things you might not even really want or like! Dopamine, people!)
This year, I was tempted to commit to a moderate version of this experiment for July—until I realized that putting off unnecessary purchases is my default mode. Especially in the summer. In my corner of the solopreneur world, summer is the least lucrative season, and combined with my own desires to participate in some low-key summer travel (basically work-study-type trips), I’m doubling down on work wherever I can to “afford” time off. I’ve done the energetic calculus on this more times than I’d like to admit, and somehow I always argue that it’s worth it, qualitatively, to submit to weeks of work binges to make up for time away. But the travel itself, and basics of life getting more and more expensive, all inflate the expense column during summer, too. I draw the line at sacrificing my health and diet for finances, so I make it work. And I know that my immense privilege as an educated white woman gives me two strong legs up in this game, even the ability to choose the kind of work I do (and complain about it). My situation is not the worst by far, but I felt triggered by the prospect of No Buy July—even without discretionary spending, financial freedom (not even abundance or prosperity) seems elusive.
Beside these two invitations to withhold purchasing was the “extended” Amazon Prime Day(s?). This four-day mega sale was apparently the best yet (though real stats are elusive), but the data show that this wasn’t the shopping spree of yore, where you waited for the coupon to buy the purse/jewelry/fancy-splurge-item you’ve been eyeing for months. People bought necessities—and needed a mega sale for them.
Was this a cruel joke by someone in marketing to coordinate these events—a purchase and plastic palooza? Did people give themselves a cheat day(s?) to take advantage of these epic deals? Are the audiences of these two events so different that there was no risk of cognitive dissonance (though clearly I fall in the overlap of the Venn diagram)?
I’m not writing this post to comment on the nature or viability of any of these campaigns. (Though if you participate I’d love to hear your experiences!) Rather, I’m interested in how they both speak to an irresistible urge for freedom, but from opposite ends of the spectrum. Freedom from the guilt of unnecessary consumption and its waste products, and freedom from the trap of inflation that’s made satisfying basic needs and desires so difficult. Inside this spectrum is an even more interesting construct that perked my yogic ears: the whole circus act binds our identity to consumption. We can reject our consumer status by not buying, or amplify it by one-upping The Man and buying cheap stuff, and lots of it.
The planet is shaped by the sheer amazing force of human want, which has changed everything, the forests, the poles, the reservoirs, the glaciers, the rivers, the seas, the mountain, the coastlines, the skies, a planet contoured and landscaped by want. —Samantha Harvey, Orbital
There is no freedom inside this spectrum, though. The freedom lies outside of consumption. Period. We require consumption for our survival—edible and sensory foods that keep our bodies alive and keep us in harmonious, clear relationship with our environment and those in it. But those are only two layers (what we call koshas in yoga) of our existence. Beyond and inside the consumption vessel is one who is eternally satisfied. We call this being the soul, or Atman. It is a space illuminated—brightly, softly— by its own consciousness.
Freeing ourselves of the needs, the veils, the illusions and delusions that shroud the light of the True Self isn’t the work of a month. Not even a lifetime. For most of us, it’s a multi-lifetime deal that we chip away at slowly, and if we’re lucky we get glimpses of along the way.
As long as we’re in this form, we’ll have to deal with economics and consumption. It’s even included in Vedic philosophy’s four aims of life—artha, or material wealth, sits alongside dharma (purpose), kama (pleasure), and moksha (freedom). Seeing freedom clearly separated from the category of economics here, we might consider if we’re looking for freedom in the right place. It may not be in spirituality or meditating or Nature for you; those practices, even when done with discipline and devotion, don’t erase the needs of our material reality. But our power clearly isn’t in the purse. Freedom isn’t in buying or not buying.
While I go between here and there, work and travel, body and soul this month, I’m making space to hold that question in my heart-mind. Where is freedom? What does it feel like? I am not putting pressure on July to deliver an answer (the cosmos might make it pretty hard to glean any kind of truth, actually), but hopefully it will hold me in my uncertainty and longing. And maybe in that very state of discomfort, I’ll glimpse a freedom I didn’t know I wanted this summer.