anchor.diff:  
   No matter what was Goethe primary reason for writing the phrase mentioned above I think we should try to take his advice to heart. 
   Let us see if we can limit ourselves in our world driven by consumption. 
  -Are we even able anymore to listen to one song per day, do one physical exercise, read one story/essay, eat one nutritional (and tasty) meal?
  +Are we even able anymore to listen to one song per day, do one physical exercise, read one story/essay, 
  +eat one nutritional (and tasty) meal?
   
   How would such change reshape our personalities and tastes? 
   What skills would we acquire? 
   Would we be less anxious or more? What would we do with our newly acquired free time? 
   How would we spend it? Learn a new language, meet our friends, walk more and think more, do some community work, learn to play some instrument, invent a new game? 
  -I don't know, but it definitely puts you in control, it makes you to design your life and. Are we up to the challenge, are we capable of doing this?
  +I don't know, but it definitely puts you in control, it makes you design your life. 
  +Are we up to the challenge, are we capable of doing this?
   
   It's clear nowadays that abundance of food leads to obesity, diabetes and other health issues. 
   Those changes are physical and easy to see. But what about the abundance of media, technology, entertainment? 
  
positive.code: What is interesting here to me is that Goethe didn't advice us on reading several poems per day, he didn't advise us on listening to the whole music album or talking a lot.
  
  Almost every major world religion I know has the concept of self-restraint. 
  That is restricting ourselves during some periods for food consumption, sex, sleep and other sources of physical pleasure.
  
  There are also a lot of proverbs on this topic in each culture. In my country, we have a saying that "what is a lot is not good." 
  Neil Postman also said "if we eat too much food ... we turn a means of survival into its opposite." This wisdom existed for thousand of years. 
  Are we forgetting it now? If we are, why is that?
  
  Why do we need to restrict ourselves? Why can't we have it all and at once?
  
  Maybe because we should be able to control our wishes and our vices. 
  Otherwise they will become our masters and drive our decisions, actions, thoughts, identity, and destiny at the end?
  
  Or maybe moderation allows us to enjoy something better? If we have unlimited access to some resource can we truly be able to fully appreciate it? 
  Isn't the abundance of something destroys its value? This sounds very similar to the law of open markets. 
  
negative.code: 
  = On abundance and moderation
  Anton Podviaznikov <anton@podviaznikov.com>
  :revdate: 2018-01-09
  :docdate: 2018-01-09
  :nofooter:
  :document_type: writing
  :tags: "abundance, moderation, consumption, consumerism"
  