"In my experience, everything we do is predicated on one of two other things: greed or fear. Oh, sometimes they get mixed up, just like my brandy and milk, but mostly you can keep them separated. We feel greed for what we don't have, and fear because of what we might lose." from A Song of Shadows by John Connolly.
I read this book a few years ago. I can't fully remember the story, but I never forgot this bit. It came back the other day while I was reading this article from The Guardian. We are so greedy that we are eating ourselves to extinction. The article talks about food and diversity in agriculture, but I feel it talks about just everything.
In my head, I call this society in which most of us live the Collecting Society. It is one driven by the need to collect as much material and immaterial stuff as we can. We amass money, things, lands as much as knowledge or power. With this mindset, everything relationship becomes transactional; between people, but also with Earth. It is measured by how much we can increase our collection from the transaction.
It is so deep in our way of being that we apply it also to love and friendship. How much love do you give me in exchange for mine? Because at the end of the day, I have to keep my reserve growing.
With such a mindset, as the bad guy in that book said, "we feel greed for what we don't have, and fear because of what we might lose."
Can we shift this paradigm and embrace a new way of being that isn't transactional? Or am I just too naive? I believe we can, but it takes a long process of subtraction.