Back in the old days of comedy there was a routine that employed the line “remember darling it is more important to look good than to feel good”.  Somehow this parody got laughs then, but no more. Greed thrives on the perception that money and luxury look good and too often the good looking surface suffices while the rest can take care of itself.  Unfortunately, the rest cannot take care of itself.

No doubt forms of greed exists in larger or smaller doses in all of us.  But that said, hunger and need often fuel the behaviors of greed. The Dali Lama apparently loves beautiful watches, but no one would call him greedy.  We seem to hunger for and need certain fundamentals that if we are deprived we become depressed, sad and often desperate. The display of conspicuous wealth is often an act of desperation disguised as confidence.  I would propose that deeper core need is to express ourselves in our vocations and work motivated by our version of good. That motivation needs to follow in part our own sense of language, art, spirit, and beauty.  Navaho spirituality revolves around the ‘Beauty Way’ and relationship balance and we may have something to learn there. 

The compulsive branding, packaging, and selling of an externalized beauty/power standard in our culture has done us immeasurable harm, particularly for the young and the old.  Imagine a world where you had to buy the oxygen you breath.  The air for the wealthy would be oxygen rich, but everyone else would have to live with what they could afford in an oxygen mix.  Most of the people on this planet would be gasping and depressed; incapable of rallying to effective expression much less accomplishing something they held as beautiful.  That our society has so much loneliness and depression in this time should be no mystery.  Structuring our lives around the core values of the aesthetics of personal efficacy and beauty that only we as individuals and local communities can create may be one road out of this malaise.  That restructuring won’t take care if itself, but just might fill some hard pressed needs in us that currently play out as a greed that shapes our lives .