The Cost of Our Desires and Aspirations

We all have desires and aspirations, things we want to acquire and achieve, but at what cost?

The cost of our desires and aspirations is usually not addressed, nor considered in our pursuit of them. We want something, it might not be good, but its not really that bad, right? there are worse things, and we are providing more good anyway, right? We will do something good in the future that will outweigh the negative cost to our achievements, that will tip the scales towards overall good, right?

We can simply not consider the cost, or justify it, rarely will we out-rightly change our desires and aspirations due to the cost. We will rather find more ways to justify them.

There is a saying that all magic has a cost and someone has to pay it to keep the balance. Well it is exactly the same with life, life has a cost and a balance will be maintained. For every life that comes into being there is a direct cost to the planet. It makes no difference which planet, or in which time. When the cost may vary in certain aspects, it remains.

Let’s say I would like a billion dollars, something that would have the least cost is for someone who has a billion dollars to just give it to me, because that would mean there is no additional cost to getting that billion dollars. There would still be the initial cost in that person having acquired it, but there would be no additional cost in them giving it to me. Sadly people do not accept the idea of just giving it to me because I want it, and if they did they would quickly give all they have away and be left with nothing themselves, and having nothing is again something not many people aspire to.

What about if I just have more common, ordinary aspirations, live life, start a family, support them and help them to get an education so they can go on to do the same, nothing extravagant, just an ordinary life not lived to any extremes. Surely then there is no cost. Unfortunately that is not the case, it is these ordinary families that cause the largest cost to the planet as there are more ordinary families than extravagant ones.

The cost for an ordinary life starts before birth, but going forward from birth there is medical requirements, clothes are needed, then food, then entertainment, then education, then more entertainment, then a breakaway from parents brings about more needs, and then the process starts again.

Medical requirements require machinery. Clothing requires cotton, transport of the cotton, machinery to manufacture, electricity to operate the machines, labor, more transport, buildings to store and display them, more labor, advertising to tell people about them, and then you get them. Education requires classrooms, paper, ink, computers, labor, electricity, and so the lists go on.

It is easy to blame the overall outcome that our desires and aspirations have had on the planet, it is easy to target the source of the greatest destruction such as power plants or huge manufacturing plants, but the reality is that it is our existence that is to blame, and we are not alone in the blame.

All life has a cost to the planet, it is just that ours is more unbalanced than other life.

Ants destroy plants, as do locusts and birds, elephants consume huge quantities of vegetation, knocking down trees regularly, and if you look into any living creature you will see their cost to the planet. But then that brings about the question, what is the purpose of the planet?

I think the purpose of the planet is for us to live on it, we should not condemn ourselves because we have a cost to the planet for our very existence.

Machines breakdown from use, the more you use something the shorter its lifespan becomes, so should we then buy equipment, machines, clothes, everything and simply never use them so they last forever? Well surprisingly things breakdown from not being used too. If you buy a brand new car, a new wardrobe of clothes, and various other items, lock them away for a few hundred years, when you return you will find they are broken, destroyed, unusable, and that is not from being used badly, it is because things should be used too.

Life on this planet is the same, it is here, we are here, we need things from it and we can choose to not give much back, but that is like using things badly, it will shorten the lifespan of the planet, we should consider the costs of our actions and find ways to offset them the best we can do extend the life of the planet.

Its not simply, nor logical to try and ascertain the cost of every action, you can’t say “this cup of tea cost the plant a 2 meter oak tree branch.” So there is no need to be silly about it, but when you are using your aircon or heater to rid yourself of a mild discomfort, that is costing the planet, these are the things we should consider more and try to reduce.

Attacking power companies for the methods they use to produce electricity is futile if there are not adequate alternatives. It is rather hilarious to see people complaining about the cost of electricity while at the same time saying cleaner more costly electricity needs to be generated. The two are not separate. Everyone might like clean, sustainable electricity, but most people do not want to pay the price for it. If people used less electricity, less would be produced, and the cost to the planet would in turn be reduced, cleaner energy could be produced and everyone can be happy, but in turn you can only use your heater 3 days a hear, aircon for 3 days, TV for 2 hours a day, computer for 2 hours a day, telephones only charged once per month, no electric blankets, only 3 litres of boiled water per person per day, only 100km travel allowed per person per month, and so the list can go on.

So before deciding things must be changed, maybe we need to be clear on what should be changed. Producing solar energy is not free, neither is storing it, and using it will not just power every device, appliance and all the equipment you want. So Solar is not a viable alternative without a change to our lifestyles, and it is not cheap.

Finding a solution for around 8 billion people is not a simple task.

So basically like everything in life there needs to be a balance, between what we do and what we protest for. I like having normal sugar in juice, I do not like the taste of false sugar and I am happy to manage my intake with my own health in consideration, I do not like the fact that there is an obesity problem and in order to try and resolve it the drinks I like with normal sugar and being changed to cater to the people who cannot manage their own intake.

Just like with many other things, why is a solution to problems usually worse than the problems they are trying to solve or at least just as bad. With sugar you risk obesity and diabetes, with some substitutes, usually the cheaper ones that are used most frequently you risk cancer and that is not simply by managing the quantity of your intake but simply by any intake.

Rather spend the money and time helping to educate people and help them to make better choices than trying to control what is produced as there will always be production as long as there is demand.