An average human’s full stomach weights five kilograms. How much heavier must the full stomach of the average consumer be today? That person who has grown up in our age of limitless fulfillment as symbiote to the infinitely productive worker, whose stomach can only be filled by a feast lasting every spare second of every day, who carries that organ on their back as a burden… that person who makes me think perhaps we spoke too soon of a disease called consumption.
And like all diseases, it has symptoms, causes, and perhaps even a cure…
This new mode of human, this “consumer,” is an upright and normal person who sinks low under the demands of their overdeveloped stomach. The one they sling over their shoulder to accommodate its yawning girth, into whose gaping maw they toss with grubby hands clod upon clod of earth—as much of the world as they can reach. Under this stomach not even connected to their intestines—this miniature weight of the world—, they first stoop, then kneel, then crawl; and finally slither along like a snake.
And as the stomach empties, “content” evaporating as memory forgets or distills it to a drop, they begin to straighten up again. There is a chance to do something else, whatever maintenance is necessary, to put aside the habit, to make resolutions… And then the stomach growls again, shaking the whole body, and it is time to feed it again and sink low as consumption crowds out other activity, time, and thought. For it is not just bite-sized clumps of the world that makes this stomach so heavy, but the weight of the time and effort that has been lost by the carrier. Unrealized potential and misspent time make the limbs and mind weak, amplifying the weight and making it all the easier to fall into the constantly expanding pits that consumption is digging all around.
And the cycle runs again and again at every resonant grumble or fine-looking patch of earth.
A whole life of stumbling along in a field of self-dug pits—every consumption creating a new attachment to consuming, a new pitfall, a new opportunity to fall again into the cycle; every cycle creating new consumptions, sapping time from other pursuits; every sapping creating a wearier person more susceptible to pitfalls, every pitfall creating a new cycle… And amidst these, leaving the plane of consumption becomes a daunting task. Every moment of life begins to burgeon with the potential of falling into a spree of consumption; into a pit where only more content can be seen. And what is the diggers response to all this? To stay the course, of course, to do the easiest and most obvious thing. To dig!
That is the essence of the consumer: to constantly make way for the continuation of consumption—this parasitic stomach, this nipping maw of the appetite—until it becomes strong enough to crush them. And when they are weakened, crushed by the weight of “content” that gums their limbs and synapses, they take a moment to protest; then fall into the cycle again… and as consumption takes their time and their potential, what is there left to be done? And how does all this come about?
This accidental disciple of atlas, who takes on the weight of whatever bits of the world they can reach, is not themselves greedy, gluttonous, or intent. They have merely developed a condition—a disease—over years of unhindered consumption that has stretched their stomach; so much so that it has wormed its way from the body and now must be carried on the back. And it is this condition, that optimizes the stomach for as much as can be stuffed in a day, that demands their continual consumption. With all barriers to consumption removed except time, the stomach and appetite have grown as well until they are often more powerful than the person; and are now not so much organs as diseases…
The stomach does not become truly full; rather the day becomes full and there is no more time for consumption. A three-dimensional problem becomes four-dimensional until it is not the stomach being stuffed, but the life. Where every second wavers between can-consumer and must-consume. So by unchecked consumption—that functions like an invasive species of activity, unstoppable without its natural predators—the appetite grows and grows until it becomes a weight on the person; and that is the cause of consumption. Its only remaining true predator is also its symbiote: the work that creates the things to be consumed. What else is there to human life? No, never mind, even I have forgotten.
But perhaps in this metaphor we have found our cure: namely that this stomach can be put down. And when we put it down and refused to feed it, it will shrink. Then we can start to reclaim our time and effort for other things. Yet we will still for a long time feel its hunger—the momentum of human feelings cannot be so easily overcome—and so need an alternative pursuit or a steadfast resolution in our fasting to make sure we do not slide backwards. For always consumption threatens to grow again and forcing it to shrink is not mentally easy. Sustaining its diminished size will be even harder, unless we can again cultivate some kind of predator for it.
Atlas would not be proud
The noble bearer of the sky, who maintains the world through incredible struggle—whose suffering has an absolutely cosmic effect—would look with disdain at these petty stomach-carriers.
“For what do you struggle little one?”
The answer, after a moment of silence: “for joy, fulfillment, and entertainment”
“And do you find these? I see you entertained for a fleeting time, joyous for the brief moment between finding a piece of dirt and stuffing it into your stomach. Fulfilled only when the stomach is full, and even then it is so large that it is already emptying again.”
“Is that so bad? The world is not a happy place, and this task makes it brighter; gives a brief time after petty work to engage in a task greater and more wonderful.”
“I simply pity the great weight that this stomach has on your life; on your time. To always be devoted to a fruitless task… it is no great work, you know. It is the same as eating without nutrients or rich flavors; a facsimile of a fulfilment that is really just going through the motions. I think I have some words you do not wish to hear…”
“Well out with them, lecturing titan. You know none of this is sweet to my ears. How you lord your burden over mine…”
“Ah, there is that spirit again: where no stone can be left unturned for a morsel of consumption. All within your reach to be grabbed… But what I would say is this: that if the world is so unhappy and lacking, why do you prefer to abandon it for such a fruitless task as consumption? Why not improve it? why not fix it?”
“Oh, come now, I am nothing compared to the whole world”
“Yes, nothing to the whole world. You live in such a small corner, no wonder you feel powerless in the face of the world. Quite fortunate that you do not need to live in the whole world, then. Only in the corner in which you exist. and perhaps if you took a moment to fast, you could find what that corner has to offer.”
