Fiona Hammond

James Wallam is a futurist. This is not code for a science nerd…it just means that his profession is analyzing the world around us and forecasting social trends and technological innovation that could impact the way we live and work in the future.

I’ve just finished his book “Stuffocation” which explores our intriguing and tricky relationship with stuff as an expression of our status. It’s a fascinating description of the trend towards experience as the new social currency. This book takes a good look at why we love stuff, and how and why this may be changing. It really got me thinking about Jesus and the gospel themes of building community and sharing. Without deliberate reference to the Gospel, Wallam has described the early Church. Our flawed humanity means that we’re still tempted to post our new experiences on Facebook as proof of status, but that’s just human nature, isn’t it? This is a trend the Church should know about and contribute to.

Check out his blog: http://stuffocation.org/ for more information about his book and the trend toward experience rather than ownership.

If you’d like a taste: here’s a quote:

“The western world today has 3 major problems:

The environment — caused by the incredible success of materialistic, consumerist capitalism
The “happiness deficit” — the stress, anxiety and depression that go hand-in-hand with materialism
Inequality — the trickle-down effect, the idea that “rising tides raise all boats” isn’t true. Our materialistic, consumerist capitalist system has winners and losers. And that isn’t fair.” From http://stuffocation.org/magicofexperiencerevolution/