They left and I sat alone in my apartment. “My computer’s important to me,” I muttered to myself, aware of my selfishness and insincerity, but not wanting to feel guilty. “I’m heading back to the States next year, and it will be an integral part of my life once I’m there.” Paranoid somebody would discover my lack of charity, I collected excuses in my head. “My laptop contains every paper I’ve ever written, my journal and my favorite pictures. It’s my primary means of keeping appointments and a schedule. I use it to keep track of my money and spending. It will be my only convenient way to write grad school application essays, and papers once I start grad school. I’ll need it for getting online at home back in the States, and without Internet access I’ll have to spend ridiculous amounts of time in the car running errands. … Besides, I only make $375 a month. If it’s broken, I won’t have enough money to fix or replace it. … ”

Returning to America without a computer, I would have been considerably busier, yet considerably less productive than I had been when I left America, and that would have equaled unneeded stress. I shrugged, feigning peace of mind as I milled around the apartment.

More than my lack of charity was bothering me, though: My friends were Thai and, in the back of my mind, I knew that I would’ve given them the laptop had they been Americans.

* * *

Living in Thailand forces Americans to adjust to quite a few things. Among these is the fact that, compared to Americans, the Thai generally don’t care about stuff.¹ I’d applied this generalization to my friends when I told them they couldn’t use my laptop, assuming that, because they were Thai, they shouldn’t be trusted with it. Though I had initially felt guilty about my willingness to treat Thai friends differently than I would have treated American friends, I slapped a lame excuse on this as well, convincing myself that the value of my computer, combined with the Thai disposition toward stuff, justified my behavior.

The fact that the Thai have little concern for stuff did more than push me into an unwillingness to loan out my computer, though; it resulted in a lot of daily stress and discomfort — the kind that’s hard to explain because the particular events that cause it are no big deal, but quickly add up and, in their totality, almost overwhelm you.

By “stuff” I mean, very broadly, physical, material stuff. I’m making a metaphysical distinction between physical, material parts of the world and nonphysical, immaterial parts of the world, and I’m using the word “stuff” to name the former. Things like laptops, cars and buildings count as “stuff,” but so do things like streams and beaches, human bodies, pieces of art, even the weather. Because the Thai don’t care much about stuff, they put considerably less effort into ordering and controlling the physical world than Americans do, and this results in a world that feels unordered and out of control to Americans. It also results in a world that’s considerably less comfortable than the Western world Americans are accustomed to — so much so that you can often see the stress on expatriot faces.

I realized this, and, as time passed, I wound up subtly resenting the Thai for no better reason than that they didn’t care enough about stuff.

* * *

In the months that followed this realization, God taught me one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned. Bringing to my attention the way Thai people spend their time and energy — to the small, daily decisions that, when added together, shape their entire lives — He allowed me to see that the Thai don’t care about stuff for a very good reason.

They have different priorities than Americans do. There’s only a finite amount of time in each day, and each of us has only a finite amount of energy. The Thai spend this time and energy building and maintaining relationships, caring for their families and friends, and this leaves them comparatively little time and energy for worrying about stuff. Americans, on the other hand, spend incredible amounts of time and energy worrying about stuff. We spend our lives preoccupied with everything from scientific progress to the preservation of our National Parks to the building of new and better homes; we put enormous effort and resources into ordering and controlling the physical, material world. Compared to the Thai, this leaves us very little time to build and maintain relationships with friends, with family members and (most importantly) with Christ Himself.

Material poverty isn’t the only kind of poverty, and it’s no secret that America is one of the most relationally impoverished places on earth. What I learned in those months was that America’s materialism, our preoccupation with stuff, is largely why.

* * *

Previous to my year in Thailand I’d heard about the evils of American materialism innumerable times, but usually within the context of Marxist or socialist criticisms of capitalism. These criticisms had seemed to me nothing more than propaganda, rhetorical attempts to get rich Americans to feel guilty about having lots of stuff and, in acts of repentance, give it to the poor, the victimized heroes of Marxism, those who don’t have lots of stuff but should — because they deserve to be happy too. Doubting that increasing their possessions would make the materially poor any happier than the miserable wealthy people I knew, I’d always dismissed any reference to American materialism as a Marxist/socialist power move. But my year in Thailand rocked me — the scales fell from my eyes and I realized that materialism saturates the West’s understanding of both wealth and poverty, drives its interest in both capitalism and Marxism.

The truth is, materialism isn’t limited to the possession of lots of stuff, as Marxists/socialists (and too many missionaries) would have us believe; it’s any level of concern for stuff that leaves us too little time for relationship with Jesus Christ and others. The poorest of Marxists/socialists are therefore just as materialistic as the richest of capitalists … but this is beside the point. The point is, in Thailand I realized that, in spite of my intentional lack of material possessions (I brought only a backpack with me when I moved there, and made next to nothing), I was a full-blown materialist: My concern for stuff left me too little time for relationship with Christ and others. Moreover, I realized that being a materialist was necessary if I was going to be a respected member of American society when I returned.

* * *

You see, when I worried about losing my computer, my concern wasn’t that I wouldn’t have it while I was in Thailand, my concern was that I wouldn’t have it when I got back to the States. Though I used my computer everyday in Thailand (and for all of the same things I used it for back home), I knew that I could afford to lose it, but only if I didn’t go back to America.

Now that I am back in America, my laptop allows me to meet many different ends, and nearly all of these ends amount (in one way or another) to ordering and controlling the physical, material world. Because we Americans think that these ends are important, my ability to meet them earns respect from my peers and affects my personal happiness; losing my laptop would (ultimately) have resulted in less respect and relative unhappiness. I had a dumb sense of this when I told my Thai friends they couldn’t borrow it. In Thailand, however, these ends aren’t considered very important; the material world is thought to have little to do with human-wellbeing, so the social consequences for not meeting these ends are significantly lower than in the States; losing my computer wouldn’t have resulted in a loss of respect, nor, had I been Thai, would it have had a significant effect on my happiness.

The degree to which we Americans associate human wellbeing with the physical, material world and the fact that we win and lose respect based on our ability to order and control it reveal the extent to which we’re enamored by it. The truth is, we care about stuff way more than we should. Virtually all of us do. Society makes us — and we make society.

From the level of the individual to the level of the entire culture, there’s an enormous gap between what we care about and what we should care about. The reciprocal relationship between the millions of individuals that make up our culture and the culture that shapes each of us individuals renders this gap profoundly difficult to close. I am still a materialist, in spite of the awareness I gained in Thailand. My deep, culturally-ingrained concern for the physical, material world makes prayer without ceasing (which requires an orientation towards the spiritual world) unrealistic, and makes me feel irresponsible when I put off material concerns to spend time with family and friends. But this isn’t just a personal problem. It’s become the American way of life. Only if our entire culture moves its heart away from the material world and towards its Creator and those who bear His image will Americans be able to acquire the relational wealth I witnessed in Thai Christians.

¹ It’s worth noting, here, that the Thai express their concern for stuff in different ways than Americans do. This often makes it hard for Americans to recognize Thai behavior as such.

Questions, comments or objections? Email Blake at: roeberdb@fotf.org

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