enough.

at the moment, we have a society that disconnects us from our inconvenient realities. we are disconnected from our forebears, the people who got us here through their striving and yearning for just-enough. If we could hear them, they would say to us, 'you lucky gits, i hope you're having a fantastic time standing on our shoulders, on the peak of all that we sacrificed and achieved'. instead of appreciating this, instead of being grateful, we carry on grumpily chasing more. we ignore the wisdom of our ancestors because the world of more reviles yesterday, disdains today and preaches an obsession with some mythic perfect tomorrow.

we are also disconnected from the people who struggle to live in the poor four-fifths of the world. if we listened to them, they might say, 'you lucky gits, aren't you having a fantastic time on the back of our cheap resources and labour?' instead of wondering at our own actions or even being grateful, we grumpily continue chasing more. we ignore their voices because the world of more tells us to obsess about ourselves. and in our wealthy developed world, we are disconnected from each other, because our culture emphasizes our tiny differences rather than our huge commonalities, in the interests of fostering unlimited material competition.

it is time for us to disconnect ourselves from the world of more. it is time to say 'thanks very much' to it, and to continue onwards with the wider progress of our species. our more-more- culture has done it's job fantastically well; it has brought us to the point where we can begin to develop a world based on enoughism. we now have all that we materially need to revisit and explore anew our old, nourishing and truly sustainable natural human resources - qualities such as gratitude, generosity and the urge for human connection. and we have all of the eternal now in which to explore these bounties (unless the planet catches fire first). in the western world, material life is pretty much as good as it can get. there is no point in chasing more. from here on in, we will just be bringing our own wasps to the picnic. it is time to be grateful - and to say 'enough'.

excerpted from 'enough' by john naish

pages 251-252