This is an idea I've been thinking about a little bit lately. It's meant to be more of a generalization than a hard fact. Of course is wouldn't be hard to think of exceptions to this idea but I think it makes a lot of sense in an abstract way.
Cooking dinner vs. eating out - I enjoy preparing good food and cooking. I'm not sure why but there is something special about getting a meal on the table that you had to first think about, prepare and cook. I think it has something to do with the fact that you own the meal whether it is good or bad. You decided what to prepare as a main dish and you decided what to serve as side dishes, it's yours of which you can be proud or ashamed. At a restaurant you look at a menu, place an order and receive your dinner. If it's good you credit the restaurant and if it's bad you blame the restaurant. You're detached from the food, it's quick, efficient and does not have a lasting effect on your spirit. Also, what makes a good home cooked meal so special is the chance for failure which may happen more often than at a restaurant. The bitterness of failure makes success taste sweeter.
Backpacking vs. car camping - When my girlfriend and I were hiking the other day she mentioned that one of her favorite parts about backpacking was the effort it took to reach your destination. We were on our way down a canyon to a place called Fossil Springs. She was right, there is something special about having everything you need strapped to your back and hiking four miles to get to the campground. Something spiritual is lost with the efficiency of roads when you drive right up to a beautiful area and unload your case of beer. The effort of backpacking allows for a more enriching camping experience.
Disposable packaging and litter - Disposable packaging is all about efficiency. Throw it in the microwave and throw it away, it's easy. No need to carry around things like coffee mugs or water bottles, just throw away the styrofoam and plastic everyday, it's easier. But when you're out in the the woods and you see an abandoned sleeping bag thrown in the bushes, random trash all over the place and a bush littered with toilet paper the pain in your heart makes you realize that efficiency is being paid for by the spirit.
Painting vs. photography - Have you ever been to an art museum and seen paintings from a couple hundred years ago that you can barely distinguish from reality? I can make an image of the same or higher quality and share it with my friends in less than a minute. Was something lost?
Reading a book vs. watching a movie - I don't think this needs an explanation. If you can't relate to it I'd recommend The Mystery of Capital by Hernando De Soto if you think you'd like non-fiction or The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien if you think fiction would be more enjoyable.
Volunteering vs. donating money - There is a huge spiritual difference between writing a check and getting personally involved in the lives of the people that you'd like to help.
"I number it among my blessings that my father had no car, while yet most of my friends had, and sometimes took me for a drive. This meant that all these distant objects could be visited just enough to clothe them with memories and not impossible desires, while yet they remained ordinarily as inaccessible as the moon. The deadly power of rushing about wherever I pleased had not been given me. I measured distances by the standard of man, walking on his two feet, not by the standard of the internal combustion engine. I had not been allowed to deflower the very idea of distance; In return I possessed "infinite riches" in what would have been to a motorist "a little room." The truest and most horrible claim made for modern transport is that it "annihilates space." It does. It annihilates one of the most glorious gifts we have been given. It is a vile inflation that lowers the value of distance, so that a modern boy travels a hundred miles with less sense of liberation and pilgrimage and adventure than his grandfather got from traveling ten. Of course if a man hates space and wants it annihilated that is another matter. Why not creep into his coffin at once? There is little enough space there." - C.S. Lewis
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