What people get from polluting and depleting less:

I used to tell people that they’d save money and time because they will. Nobody believes me. Nobody.

They see buying coffee at Starbucks to go and ordering takeout as saving time, missing that those who do those things have the least time. Knowing your values so you can prioritize them and dismiss less valuable things (like takeout coffee and takeout) restores time and money.

I first thought stopping things that cause pollution and depletion—particularly those that fund extraction of fossil fuels, uranium, and other nonrenewable resources—would bring deprivation and sacrifice.

Now I see that many things I once thought necessary or unavoidable are unnecessary. In time and with hands-on practical experience they become repugnant and disgusting, as do people who take my workshops. These low-value things hold us back from what we value. The result: liberty, freedom, equality, health, safety, and security.

How much time? About as long as it takes to wean yourself off opiates or other dependencies. The process is like what I imagine it’s like to wake up from an opiate dream forced on you. It’s easier when you overcome the dependence with someone or a community, especially people who overcame it before.

To manage expectations, the process isn’t easy. You will feel anger at those you thought were helping you, like those peddling low-value things like disposable coffee, doof, and so on. They were actually addicting and stupefying us, taking us from what and whom we love, to sell back to access what now is free. What is free that we value? Community, mutual support, love, self-awareness, having fun together, time.

After you overcome the dependence, when you look back at what you do today, you will feel shame at having participated. You’ll feel even more shame for acting as if you hadn’t seen and known what you were doing when you did.

You aren’t alone and won’t be when you overcome. You’ll find it hard to express the liberty and freedom at first because, like all of us, you’ll feel shame and guilt until you see, again like all of us, that it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t choose to be born into a system that induced us to act against our values—that is, that corrupted us from our values.

My goal is to learn this system and explain it so we all see the cause of our cultural beliefs and practices and therefore the solution to stop their pull.

• ← This week’s selected media, April 26, 2026: The Great Divorce and How to Know Your Self
• More of what you gain from stopping polluting and depleting →