RE: Q U A L I T Y of life. A post-Newtonian view.
Very good publication. I must thank for the mention, and for the reestem that you have also done to my post. Although you made a slight mistake when typing my username :)
I share an extract to which I had access thanks to @vimukthi (here), which may be useful to some points of which you speak in the publication.
While objects appear to exist as separate things, this sensory-cognitive appearance is illusory. Phenomena are neither self-created nor self-enduring, but arise in dependence upon conditions without a nature or essence of their own. The example of fire is classic in illustrating what it means to depend upon conditions, one of the key types of dependencies in emptiness teachings.
Fire, which is seen to fundamentally exist, depends upon oxygen, fuel, heat, friction, and other innumerable conditions to appear, and does not exist intrinsically, as a thing in itself. If the conditions for fire are removed, there will be no fire. Fire cannot ignite itself or burn itself. The characteristic of fire depends upon conditions that are not considered to be fire and that are also dependently arisen. For instance, air is not considered to be fire because fire is not found in air. Nor is fuel such as wood, that also depends upon sun, rain, soil, etc., considered to be fire either. Fire, like all phenomena, is unfindable because it has no separate nature. Because fire does not independently exist, it appears under certain conditions and no longer appears when conditions change.
The assumption that objects inherently exist does not hold up upon deeper examination. This does not mean that fire does not exist at all, but that there is no independent nature or essence that is fire. If things existed in and of themselves rather than dependently, everything would be isolated and unchanging and nothing would relate to anything.
Of the same form of interdependence between men, and dependence of these with nature, should develop a relationship of mutual goodwill between both parts, if man takes and takes from nature he will find that the conditions that were necessary for his existence will cease to exist, and as such, he too.
In the same way, when a study is made about anything, it can not be isolated in a specific field, since in doing so, you separate a single reality in different fields of study, which is not only incorrect, but also makes that there is a false conception of separation, and that many of the conditions will be unintelligible when modified by external factors.
I explain myself better, if you study a field like that of economics, you can not separate it at all from other fields such as politics, culture, human action, etc., and if you want to understand it in a deeper way, even fields as the scientists or philosophers become necessary. This is because the world is a whole, and can not be analyzed in a truly profound way by isolation, hence the true wisdom comes from polymathy.
Thank you for adding to the topic and your engagement.
Oh, and I corrected your user-name, thanks for telling me.
I would like to ask you: do you think that the problem of separating and dividing things can be solved? ... maybe not solved but what kind of approach would you suggest?
For example: I work in the field of consulting people. I take on a systemic approach and use an ethical view and the available education from all fields I can get hold on, mostly actually from Buddhism as they have a very sophisticated philosophy & psychology available.
... So when I think about consumerism and I relate it to greed and can support people in becoming more confident and less needy in terms of having and wanting material things - as this is also psychologically known as "compensation" - I somewhat think to contribute to quality. --- I don't though give advice when not being asked by my clients. It's more of a "questioning & irritating the client" setting.
... I know I simplified things now but otherwise it would become another long text:)
I think that the conceptualization that the human makes in all things is quite difficult or impossible to eliminate, the human being is accustomed by nature and culture to conceptualize things so that, maybe saving energy or time, and to understand more easily each of these things. In the example of the fire that I placed in the first comment, it was and still is necessary to conceptualize it for practical methods, even though in reality there is no such thing as fire independently.
The problem in itself is not to conceptualize, but to believe that this conceptualization is an independent entity, that is, to be deceived by false divisive appearances that only have a merely educational/practical utility.
You can even conceptualize more, that would not be a problem at all, in fact, I think it can be beneficial, as long as you can still maintain a general overview of the field to study, and don't forget therefore, the purpose of the conceptualization.
So the methodological approach that I personally adopt tends to be holistic.
In the case that you raised about consumerism, the problem can not be consumerism itself, because this is an action, and as such it has a logical basis.That is, nobody is a consumerist without any reason. The problem is the premises that he adopted to take that action, and to know those premises would have to analyze what is the purpose of his action, which may or may not seem material, the purpose is always something immaterial. After the purpose has been established, the premises that are wrong in the first place will be clarified, in such a way that the behavior changes.
What could be summarized as follows: X is consumerist, X is consumerist because it brings some benefit (logical basis), the benefit is some feeling (purpose), the feeling is not fulfilled so the action becomes a problem. The wrong premise that X would be taking is that it is giving immaterial qualities (feelings), to material objects. It changes that premise and therefore the logical basis of the action will be lost, ending in turn with it.