Stop buying shit.

Toward the end of my 2-week stay in the Málaga-Axarquía region of Spain, I realized I had spent hardly any money. My days were mostly carved up between hikes, investigating real estate, and setting up logistics for my relocation. The money I did spend was on nourishing meals in Canillas de Aceituno, at Bar Andalucía or El Refugio, and cafés con leche in Sedella. Each provided tasty and comforting nourishment to supplement the morning breakfast board at Olive & Ivy. While this wasn’t a vacation to escape from the life I was living, I suddenly became acutely aware of how complicated and burdened I was back home by my own consumption. The next unavoidable question was ‘why?’ So I started to look at my shopping habits to understand the motive behind my consumption. I looked at a recent purchase of a smokeless fire pit and all the accoutrements: the roasting sticks, the storage rack, the protective surround structure and cover, the heat deflector, the spark shield, the protective gloves. I even bought a grill. I didn’t need any of it. I didn’t need it the way my body needed the ensalada mixta or patatas bravas or pizza Serranita after a long day’s hike. I bought it because I was trying to make the life I’ve been living feel a little less miserable. I bought it so I didn’t have to feel my loneliness of living in a community I never really connected with, in a climate I’ve come to loathe for the biting winter cold and snow, and an economy where I keep paying more to get less just to exist because a few obscenely rich people and companies have an insatiable need for “more”. Almost everything that I have purchased in my life, almost every artifact, adornment, and convenience, has been to deflect against feeling the uncomfortable feelings of my own emptiness and lack of direction. Until now. I’ve spent way too much money numbing myself with crap I don’t need, $50 here, $100 there and the relief is always temporary. My new motto is “feel the feelings and stop buying shit.”