Defining consumption

(The compulsion, not the disease that killed Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge ☠️)

(This voiceover is an audio version of the newsletter below. As always, it’s unedited and today, I am *rusty*. If you prefer to listen to these posts, I hope you enjoy it anyway.)

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From the archives, when the kids were little 💚

Hello mates!

It is so, so nice to be back. I spent a couple of hours yesterday reading through and replying to as many of your comments as I could, and can I just say: from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Taking in your stories, your kind words, your reflections on rebellion and self-care and rest and pushing back against people-pleasing has been beyond inspiring.

I feel so buoyed by this community and incredibly grateful that not only do you allow me to write to the schedule that works for me, but actively encourage me to stick to it. I don’t take that for granted.

My break was full and happy and over really quickly. I think that’s partly just a reflection of where we’re at in parenting (our kids are 13 and 15 and both have the friends, full schedules, hobbies, jobs and sports that entails — which is both busy and lovely) and partly because I felt strangely and delightfully well for much of the time. I found I really had to balance the desire to take that well-ness and run with it, with the need to keep an eye on my energy level. It’s a skill I’m still learning.

Being the middle of winter, the days are short and the nights are cosy, and I went to bed super early most nights, which felt luxurious. We caught up with friends and family, spent a day in Canberra, went out for pizza and I got my first curl-by-curl haircut and discovered just how wild my hair has gotten. I painted a bedroom, cooked and crocheted and watched a few movies (the new Twisters is super entertaining if, like me, you love a 90s-style action movie). I finished the most recent season of Bridgerton, re-read a couple of books just because I loved them and spent a lot of time in the car, listening to big-feelings music. I didn’t do any gardening or bushwalking, and I took a full ten days away from my manuscript — all of which felt fine. Good, even.

I also intentionally switched off many of my tech inputs, which has had a huge flow-on effect. Even though I didn’t do it on purpose, I now realise that ties nicely into this term’s topic of consumption.

I’ll be writing about reducing tech inputs over the next couple of weeks, as I know so many of you are in a similar position of wanting to be informed but feeling constantly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available, not to mention the way it messes with our heads and hearts. But what I will say now is that I’ve never decided to reduce a tech input and regretted it.

Which brings me to this term’s topic.

Mid-winter sunset at the end of our street

When I start a new topic, I like to define it somehow. Just so I know how far I can push the edges and how much I can stretch the idea of slow living to fit. And I figured, out of all the topics I’ve chosen over the past couple of years, consumption would be one of the easier ones to define.

Looking at the things, information, stories, expectations, stuff, trends and foods we consume, how they shape us and how they impact the world goes hand-in-hand with slow living and is as closely aligned with mindfulness, intention and sustainability as you can get.

Consumption is what we do when we buy things, use things, when we eat and drink and take them into ourselves in some way. We consume time and energy. We consume food, we consume TV shows, we consume Instagram reels and Substack newsletters, electricity, news articles and the stuff we own.

And sometimes, by consuming things, we’re also being consumed. When we spend an hour consuming social media posts, for example, not only are we consuming time and information, but our headspace, our well-being and our attention are also being consumed.

And at first glance, there’s a lot of good stuff there. Definitely enough to sink our teeth into for the next ten weeks. But to consume can have further meaning too.

If something is consumed, it is completely destroyed, like a building consumed by fire.

To be consumed by something is to feel so much of a particular emotion that it affects everything we do. For example, we can be consumed by thoughts of love, fear or anxiety.

Consume can also mean to squander, to use up entirely, to waste, to devour or to be fully engrossed in something, often to the detriment of other things.

And as I looked at these expanded definitions, it struck me that consumption is often used to refer to the complete using up of things, rather than just the using.

Sure, we can say we consumed dinner, we consumed the news, we consumed two hours at the movies, but no one really does. It feels more aggressive and all-encompassing than eating, watching or spending.

To consume is more likely to refer to eating or drinking in great quantity, engaging in something totally, complete destruction, absolute squandering. So while consumption is defined as using up or ingesting, I would argue that it really means doing these things to an excessive degree.

And I like that distinction. I think I want to adopt it before we dive into this term because there is a tendency (or at least I have a tendency) to be very all or nothing when it comes to my thinking on consumption.

I spent years exploring and experimenting first with simple living and then minimalism, a decade-long practice that taught me a lot of positive lessons about the value of contentment and enoughness, of letting go and living with less. But it also left me afraid. Afraid of making a mistake. Afraid of not being good enough to fit a very binary application of a complex idea. I wholly adopted the message of less stuff = moral goodness and, to put it bluntly, it messed me up for years.

I couldn’t buy anything (no matter how necessary) without feeling like I single-handedly was destroying the planet. Every piece of plastic that came into our house felt like a moral failure. Every gift the kids received, every piece of clothing that needed to be replaced, every item I decluttered that could go nowhere but the bin, every time I didn’t reach the frankly absurd levels of idealism in some area of life (which happened a lot given the fact that I’m human and we exist in a very non-ideal system), I would berate myself for not trying hard enough. For not thinking creatively enough. For not being good enough.

And while I really do believe that consuming less is an important part of changing the way we live, the state of our consumption-mad world is not an individual problem with an individual solution. We can’t berate ourselves into a better system.

Plus, the all-or-nothing mentality isn’t gentle, it’s not kind, it’s not flexible or adaptable or particularly accessible. And if slow living is about anything, it’s about finding ways to live that are sustainable — both externally and internally. And going hardcore anti-consumption overnight is definitely not sustainable internally. (I know, I tried.)

So, this term, I’m starting with that definition. When we talk consumption, I’m talking about the over-consumption, the excess consumption, the all-in consumption that we’re so often pushed to take part in.

Because news, social media, podcasts, TV shows, food, drink, stuff, trends — all the things we consume — are actually designed to get us to want more. Whether it’s a cliffhanger or a shorter period between the end of an episode and the beginning of the next, a marketing campaign that makes you feel like you’re missing out or the very texture and taste of the food you’re eating being manipulated to maximise your desire for just another bite… Very clever people are tapping into our brains and influencing our thoughts, leading us to want more, consume more, get more, only to want more again.

I’m interested in exploring the territory between enough and too much, as well as the ground between enough and too little. And I’m interested in how we can spend more time in that enoughness, without overthinking our every choice.

If we’re able to start by right-sizing our consumption, if we’re able to run our choices through a lens of our values, if we’re able to find the middle ground that works for us, for now, I think we’ll be in a much better place than if I came out, all guns blazing, trying to convince myself and you that we can all get by living out of a backpack.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll look back and realise this letter is all about trying to rationalise my own shortcomings. But I suspect not. I’ve done the all-in thing. It’s time for a different, more honest, more realistic way.

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I’m excited to dig into this, especially now that I’ve got a starting place, but I’m curious what you think? When you think about over-consumption, what parts of life spring to mind? Do you think of stuff, or information, or food, or opinions? Are there parts of life you’ve tried to cut back on what you consume already? Or parts you’d like to work on?

As always, this term I’ll be dropping a letter in your inbox each Thursday that will look at this topic from different (sometimes obscure, not gonna lie) angles, and I’d love to know if there’s anything in particular you’d like me to dig into. There will also be a monthly episode of The Tortoise plodcast delivered on the third Thursday of the month. (Next month’s episode is all about STUFF.)

In addition, paying supporters get a letter most Sundays, which are a combination of monthly mini-workshops, 1% experiment updates, and more personal letters. If you’d like to join as a paying supporter, you can do so here. It currently costs AU$5/month or $50/year (the price will increase in September as my back catalogue of workshops and retreats grows) and is a really helpful way to support my writing.

That’s it for me for today. I’m so happy to be back with you and hope the rest of your week holds lots of little moments of peace. Also! The Olympics start tonight! I’m looking forward to many early morning starts (The Matildas play Germany at 3am tomorrow morning, for anyone as obsessed with women’s soccer as I am.)

Until next time, take very good care.
Brooke xx