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TechnoratiChasing Utopia, Family Imagines No Possessions
AUSTIN - Like many other young couples, Aimee and Jeff Harris spent the first years of their marriage eagerly accumulating stuff: cars, furniture, clothes, appliances and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys.
Now they are trying to get rid of it all, down to their fancy wedding bands. Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May.
"It's amazing the amount of things a family can acquire," said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to "the ridiculous amount of money" her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca.
The Harrises now hope to end up as organic homesteaders in Vermont.
"We're not attached to any outcome," said Mrs. Harris, a would-be doctor before dropping out of college, who grew up poverty-stricken in a family that traces its lineage back through the Delanos and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Mayflower settler, Isaac Allerton.
Mr. Harris, 30, who dropped out of high school and "rode the Internet wave," agreed, saying they were "letting the universe take us for a ride."
They are not alone.
Matt and Sara Janssen, who traded down from their house in Iowa to a studio apartment in Montana and finally an R.V. powered by vegetable oil, now crisscross the country with their 4-year-old daughter, highway nomads living on $1,500 a month.
Not that simplicity need be that spartan. Cindy Wallach and her husband, Doug Vibbert, of Annapolis, Md., moved out of their apartment with an "everything must go" party and, along with their 3-year-old son, now sail and make their home on a 44-by-24-foot catamaran.
"We never wanted four walls and beige carpet," Ms. Wallach said.
Though it may not be the stuff of the typical American dream, the voluntary simplicity movement, which traces its inception to 1980s Seattle, is drawing a great deal of renewed interest, some experts say.
"If you think about some of the shifts we're having economically - shifts in oil and energy - it may be the right time," said Mary E. Grigsby, associate professor of rural sociology at the University of Missouri and the author of "Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement."
"The idea in the movement was 'everything you own owns you,' " said Dr. Grigsby, who sees roots of the philosophy in the lives of the Puritans. "You have to care for it, store it. It becomes an appendage, I think. If it enhances your life and helps you do the things you want to do, great. If you are burdened by these things and they become the center of what you have to do to live, is that really positive?"
Juliet B. Schor, a sociology professor at Boston College and author of "The Overspent American," said the modern "downshifters," as she called them, owed debts to the hippies and the travel romance of Jack Kerouac.
"Their previous lives have become too stressful," Dr. Schor said. "They have a lack of meaning because their jobs are too demanding."
Mrs. Harris, who with her husband home-schools their son, Quinn, 5, and plans to do the same with their 15-month-old daughter, Nichola, agreed that there was something of the hippies in their quest: "the ideals, the peace and love, the giving and freedom."
But she said they had no tolerance for idleness or drugs. "Any state that can be induced by drugs, the mind and body are already capable of," she said.
Mrs. Harris grew up in Wisconsin with her mother and sister. They were so poor, she says, that they nearly froze to death in the winter and had to cook their meals in the fireplace. She developed a weight problem, ballooning to 200 pounds - she has since shed half of it - and suffered for years from the chronic pain disorder fibromyalgia, which she overcame, she says, by improving her diet.
In April, the Harrises began detailing their story on a blog (www.cagefreefamily.com). They were taken aback by some of the hostile responses. "Some people seem to be threatened that they're not making the same choice," Mrs. Harris said.
The timing was right, she said. They had been feuding with their landlord over conditions in the simple house they rent in Austin for $1,650 a month, and felt they had to get out.
At first they intended to auction what they owned. But "we were unable to define the worth of something we didn't want or need," she said. They finally decided to donate much of it to a children's home in the Texas Hill Country and the bulk of the rest to an agency for the homeless in Austin.
But, Mrs. Harris said, their calls for pickups have gone unreturned, and they are now rushing to find new recipients. "You wouldn't think, O.K., I'm going to give away all my fine things, but at the end of the day they're still in the house," she said.
Their rings - his gold band and her one-carat diamond - may be "red-paper-clipped," Mrs. Harris said: bartered for something better that could in turn be bartered for something better still, as in the Internet celebrity Kyle MacDonald's tale of a paper clip that ultimately produced a house.
"They don't fit us anymore," Mr. Harris said. Sure enough, his band was loose on his finger, but that was not what he meant. "They don't fit our lifestyle," he explained.
They have already given away some property, Mrs. Harris said, including their big-screen television, presented to a neighbor. It had bad karma anyway, she said: her father had gotten it as an employee of the year just before he was fired.
Their goal, she said, is to retain one personal carton per family member, plus bedding and kitchen utensils. They hope to sell or barter their two vehicles - a new Honda Odyssey minivan and a 2004 Dodge Intrepid - for a school bus or a four-wheel drive.
They are exchanging e-mail with a woman who has a remote cabin available in central Vermont. There is no electricity, Mr. Harris said, just propane power and a wood stove.
"We want to be in clean country with like-minded people with access to clean food," Mrs. Harris said.
Mr. Harris does have a concern, though. He now telecommutes from his job as a Web systems administrator and is hoping to stay employed through the move. "The question is, Do I have Internet access in the woods?" he said.
They plan to travel first to Wyoming for the Rainbow Gathering, a free-spirited annual outdoor convocation, then head to Vermont.
In her garage strewn with cartons to be given away, Mrs. Harris shook her head. "Stuff, stuff that a family has," she said.
Then she noticed a box of Christmas decorations, and at least for the moment grew wistful.
"I won't lie," she said. "I'll cry when that goes."
"When what goes?" Quinn asked.
Mrs. Harris seemed to struggle. "The stuff of our lives," she said.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
62 Comments so far
Show AllWhy do people not look outside the borders of U.S. insanity for a simpler life? Just because the walls of the prison are so far away they can't be seen doesn't mean they aren't there. The system is broken, even down to the dwindling of clean water, clean air, honey bees, and other victims of climate change, and that's just a generalization of all that's happening. And doing this singly, one family on several acres, is also unsustainable, a progression of the ideology of "me and mine", building another level of borders and separation. Not good folks.
I saw what was coming, sold my house, and moved south to Costa Rica 4 years ago. We are creating sustainable community around permaculture farms, organic hydroponics, and growing jatropha for bio-fuel. A one acre lot and 1500 sq. ft. house for less than $200,000. Community ownership of the bio-fuel business so 100% of members are financially independent and organically fed. Thinking communally, including others, sharing what you have, working together for the common good, this is what we must do. It is a shift in awareness that will come voluntarily by some, and will be a matter of survival for others. No man is an island.
The path this couple is following is a good step for them. People who have acquired too much can get a spiritual benefit by simplifying, especially if they donate some of that surplus to people in need. But buying land in Vermont is certainly not widely transferrable model outside the educated telecommuter group who have some substantial net worth to work with.
Taking the positive kernel from this, even the poor are badgered to acquire unnecessary goods and clutter up their lives. I had poor students, kind generous girls with lovely manners, who said they could not afford to buy a review book but who had $20 nail artistry jobs. These kids did not have much; many had never been outside their zip code. So I didn't want to criticise their little attempts at decoration and joyfulness. First I bought the books in bulk at a discount for my classes. Then I told them that if they bought the review book and gave up nails just once, they would get an education and have more opportunity for spending money as they wished for the rest of their lives.
Most of us should cut down on some "stuff". Ask - do I really need this? Can I make do with what I have? Each item we do without can translate to an hour less work, an hour to spend with family and friends or an hour painting or gardening. It can translate to the ability to give and share with others. It can mean a quieter and more "Zen" esthetic in our homes and on our bodies rather than showy or ongepatschke clutter.
That being said, we still need to do more to help people get basics like a job, nutrition, a place to live, education and healthcare. If you have that, you are rich.
i have been on what i've called the minimalist movement for years now but i am only now understanding that there are others like me. i am happy to read this!!!!
Urban living is a product of social engineering...there is no such thing as 10 million people living a symbiotic natural life style. Urban environments are filthy for one thing.
Hey I didn't bring em up that was USAn
Sorry I know we've digressed.All I've been say'n is it's O.K. to simplify your life .(and you know what this is exactly why my brother warned me about getting into many conversations here)
it sometimes get a little WACK....
I got shit to do in the morning.
It's been real.....?
The Amish run thousands of inhumane puppy mills and peddle these pitiful, unhealthy, unsocialized and inbred creatures off to a few large corporations selling to pet shops. Their interpretation of the Bible is to use and abuse animals without mercy for their own financial benefit. There is also a lot of family sexual abuse within Amish society but it hardly ever sees the light of authority because of their strict code of tribal secrecy.
Please....let's use some other example besides the Amish to depict voluntary simplicity.
Oh believe it or not the Amish are not my only neighbors that know how to grow or kill their own food.
USAn is your point that we should all move to the city?
I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon.
Micheal H.Shuman wrote 2 excellent books aimed at rebuilding local economies Going Local and The Smallmart Revolution
The answers to to carbon footprint issue may lie in shortening supply lines . That means where ever people live their resources need to come mostly from that area. If there are no resources in a particular area to sustain life, well then it might not be a good idea to live there.
I was born in Pittsburgh and spent half my life there. Most people live in the north hills, the south hills, east Pittsburgh (Penn Hills, etc...) and the west (out by the airport.) Automobiles are necessary to do anything in Pittsburgh. If you live in Wexford and work in Crafton how do you get to work except by car? And Pittsburgh has daily traffic jams just like any other city, maybe worse than most. There are only a few arteries by which to get across town from (and to) anywhere and certain times of the day traffic is at a standstill. Now I live in (fairly) rural West Virginia, and although I do need to drive my car everyday, I actually drive far LESS than if I was in Pittsburgh living in Avalon and commuting to work in Monroeville. And around here there are no traffic jams.
LOCAL AUTONOMY THROUGH SELF-SUFFICIENCY
REDUCE CONSUMPTION
HUMAN+MICROSOLAR+MICROWIND ENERGY
There is a focus on needs and wants in this discussion that could use another comment, I think. Of course there are many things that we absolutely do not need.
When we give/donate/sell all of those things and realise that we still need shelter, food, transportation and healthcare, we should look towards autonomous ways of providing for these needs.
This kind of self-sufficiency actually comes through community. If we ask ourselves, 'What does my community NEED and how can my talents fulfill that need?' then we will be moving towards self-development that meets community need.
So, let's learn and start NOW!: growing food, bicycle technology, natural building, passive solar technology.
Natural resources are more abundant and less-damaged in rural areas. More people live in cities. If everyone starts providing for community needs we'll all be better off. The urban folks will have more concentrated resources to meet them (except arable land) but ultimately we don't need more people in the cities unless vertical, economic-justice oriented development becomes a reality.
Of course we must all REDUCE CONSUMPTION
Let's get off the computer and CREATE!
abc.
workreno,
Food, and other goods come to city dwellers the same way they do for rural dwellers - from the producers to the stores via warehouse distribution network.
But in a city, it is likely that the food reaches the city travelling mostly by rail, while a small town the distance was mostly by inefficient truck from a distant distribution terminal near a big city. Also, city dwellers can walk or take the bus to their local food stores and markets - and locally grown produce is usually much more readily avaialble from farmers markets and CSA's in most cities than rural, small-town or suburban area. Rural residents must drive significant distances to the local Wal-Mart - which is often the the only source of groceries.
Or do you have some kind of idyllic notion that US rural residents live in some kind of self-sufficient la-la land? A few, ultra-orthodox Amish perhaps do, but few others.
Personal automobile use is the greatest single source of carbon emissions, after electric power generation, and really-existing rural living requires much greater amounts of car use than city living. If one lives in a rural area because they operate or work on a farm; then, of course they have to live out there. But people who move to the countryside as a lifestyle choice are generally not helping the planet.
USAn
Nothing against city dwellers but it seems you may be a little mis informed.
How do you think all that food, clothing and what not get to the city?
They aren't pulled from a flying pigs ass.
Living in the city or in the country has little to do with the size of ones carbon footprint.
YES magazine has a realistic 10 year plan to be carbon free in the spring 2008 issue.
Each journey begins with one step.
The point is anyone that attempts to soften their footprint in any fashion should be respected for that attempt be it city dweller or hillbilly.
This reminds me of a man my Father knew when I was young. He worked hard and became very successful, he had everything a person could want. When he retired and his children were gone and his wife died. He became a recluse on a little get away place he bought to relax. He went from rags to riches back to where he started.
I think about that a lot, this man already had everything he needed.
...
iamyself and others,
City dwellers have far smaller carbon footprints and are doing much more for the planet than these rich, elitist hippies living "simple" living in the sticks with their pickups or SUV's.
You white hippies in teh vermont or oregon woods have got to get over your racism-tinged aversion to car-free urban living.
It always turns out that people who do this have a great tele-commuting job. What a surprise. We feel caged in our jobs, absolutely. But even if we gave up all our possessions, we would still be caged. You need a home, basic utilities, food, healthcare to survive. To get these things you must get a job. Once you have a job, in the capitalist system virtually all your waking hours are taken from you, in addition more costs are added i.e. car, car insurance, gasoline, convenience foods etc. Unless you can score a good tele-commuting job, you are also likely to be trapped in some sprawling urban hell. Trapped in this system, with only 2 weeks off a year, buying stuff is the only release you are allowed.
We've looked into moving to places like Oregon, Vermont, and ecovillages like the one in Ithaca. What they don't tell you is that the cost for basic housing and/or land in these places is HIGH and the amount of jobs are LOW. So we're stuck.
A key text on this issue.
From Orwell's provocatively titled essay
'Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun'.
'The Socialist objective is not a society where everything comes right in the end, because kind old gentlemen give away turkeys. What are we aiming at, if not a society in which 'charity' would be unnecessary? We want a world where Scrooge, with his dividends, and Tiny Tim, with his tuberculous leg, would both be unthinkable. But does that mean we are aiming at some painless, effortless Utopia? At the risk of saying something which the editors of Tribune may not endorse, I suggest that the real objective of Socialism is not happiness. Happiness hitherto has been a by-product, and for all we know it may always remain so. The real objective of Socialism is human brotherhood. This is widely felt to be the case, though it is not usually said, or not said loudly enough. Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles, or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo, not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another. And they want that world as a first step. Where they go from there is not so certain, and the attempt to foresee it in detail merely confuses the issue.'
What's so heroic about disenchanted caucasian families, with elitist aspirations "seeking Finian's Rainbow?"
If the Harris' had really wanted simplicity, why didn't they move to, say, Baffin Island or the Northwest Territories instead of Vermont, eh?
Vermont is swarming with ouslanders, like the Harris,' all of whom have delusions of grandeur living in a rustic mileau as organic homesteaders or farmers. How many of those families succeeded vs. the ones who failed?
As for Dr. Grigsby, her theory of the Puritans as the originators of that movement is inherently racist and pure bunk! The real Puritans were lazy, shiftless cowards and thieves, who stole land and food from the stocks of First Nations, and who were frequently inebriated.
Thanks U-C-D
I wrote em all down.
"When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am ,"What is it?"
No,not as there is time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod :I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit."
The hipity-dipity friend that bought me a copy of "The Poetry of Robert Frost "for my birthday fifteen years ago and I collected a dozen morel mushrooms this evening and had
a rewarding feast when we got back to her house.
I'm told some would have paid $250.00 for that snack.
Who is the one that is wack?
Back in the '80s I had a "great" job, owned a house and a new Porsche, had friends in high places, did designer drugs with designer people, but hated getting out of bed every day. I hated my job, but it was high-profile and paid very well.
At last I asked myself the right question: Why do I do what I do? Answer: to pay for the house and the car. Why do I have the house and car? To impress people I don't respect. Where has it gotten me? Worse than nowhere. What should I do? By now it had become a prayer, which was answered: Stop doing everything that feels wrong. I looked around me and saw that everything felt wrong; only one friend and my cat felt right.
I sold everything, and the cat and I left for Minneapolis (from Florida) without the first clue what to do when I got there. Planning beyond the route to Minnesota was too overwhelming.
It worked as long as I didn't do what felt bad. Makeup felt bad, jewelry felt bad, drugs felt bad, booze, sex, work all felt bad. I found a spiritual community of like-minded Friends, and that felt good. Then memories long suppressed emerged of a childhood with a pedophile in the family, and darkness fell. But the support community was in place, and I changed profoundly.
Six years of this work passed and I got married. It was time; I was getting old. I thought I needed security. Now we have a house, two cars, stuff everywhere, and debt. I cling to the knowledge that I can be free, and when I am, that will be enough, just as it was before.
And then I will explore the Intentional Living Co-Housing movement where I know I belong.
What you want to be, what you want to do, what you want to have, what you want to think, who you want to know, why you want to exist--- these are all questions best left to the experts. So turn on your TV and just relax. When you get sleepy, take your pills and go to bed. The alarm rings bright and early for another day of labor on the plantation.
USAn May 18th, 2008 3:52 pm
"And I suspect all of these simple-life-in-a-cabin types drive a car at least 30,000 miles a year. So, for the planet's sake, find another way to live your "simple life"."
I agree. Let's all more to Pittsburgh where all the answers lie.
I don't much care for insults, such as calling those who are seeking to *dare to be different* "hippy-dippy" etc.
If I was stuck for hours in an elevator, I think I would much prefer my companions to be friendly and 'hippyfied', -than aggressive and stupefied (-with materialism)! :p
Such easy slurs, ~ but weren't William Blake, Ghandi, Christ and many other seers, visionaries, artists, thinkers and prophets also 'hippyfied' -in that they rejected the status quo, and struck out on their own?
**Thanks to the beautiful souls who have said some great things above!**
Cee Miracles may or may not see this thread, but (-respect!) she too has been 'living the good life' in the back woods for some time now. It's often hard, but she 'does real' - and has a lot of integrity.
I dedicate the following quotes to you daring, independent, *spirited* beings who have dared to reject the abnormal 'normal' society, and instead have chosen a *WEALTH of BEING*, over the poverty of just 'being wealthy'.
-- There's a big difference! :)
These are for you:
"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
(Winston Churchill)
~ the rest are by Ralph Waldo Emerson:::
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
"What you are comes to you."
"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."
"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else."
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
And lastly, this gem from Mizuta Masahide (a student of Basho) ::
"Barn's burnt down,
Now I can see the moon."
With love to all intrepid adventurers who *dare* to live free! :)
U-C-D xx
To each his own.
less is more
And I suspect all of these simple-life-in-a-cabin types drive a car at least 30,000 miles a year. So, for the planet's sake, find another way to live your "simple life".
I agree with the poster who said that true simplicity would involve deeper community, not less of it... and I don't much see obsession with the rural as the answer for the population as a whole. But I think we should welcome just about anything that goes against the grain in anon-violent way. This may or may not be the Harris' answer, time will tell. There is a larger call here... consider the lilies. Do we rely on crumbs from the powerful meta-manipulators, or do we rely on the earth and each other, on the provision that involves minimal destruction. The whole thing about health insurance that was raised... I agree, but nothing can protect you from death. health insurance sometimes means your life is saved from ending early, but sometimes it means you check into a hospital where they kill you through bad science or incompetence. You can run as fast as you want on the racetrack of life, but finally it is death that does the overtaking. So it matters what you feel is important, and what you believe about the nature of existence. I make no epistemological argument, but I will say that I think we live together forever, and that we share each other's joy and pain in the long run whether we like it or not.
I have a TV and only watch FSTV on DISH. The computer is strictly for communications and information, not playing games, and it's almost 8 yrs old anyway. I agree about the need to downsize and get rid of unneeded stuff, but what about my books? I couldn't do without my books and there are quite a few of them. I'm not cut out for a life of utter simplicity. I was homeless and lived in my car for almost a year and still had a lot of stuff sitting in a rental storage unit. Otherwise that was an enjoyable year.
A very touching story and it's wonderful so many of you have similar feelings. I'm also getting rid of stuff and decades of accumated junk. My books are invaluable to me, and I'll keep them. Giving my clothes to the Goodwill and putting the books in storage. I'm leaving here soon with the clothes on my back, and when I get to the nudist colony, I'll give them away, too! I want off the grid!
I just want to advise this couple to be sure to get some cash for some of those possessions before moving to Vermont, even if they have a free cabin lined up. I am going the same route--not for the first time, as I'm one of those "hippie-dippies" who went back to the land 30 years ago, but need new land after a divorce--and I really wanted to move from West Virginia to Vermont, because of the huge difference in social climate. I gave up when I discovered how expensive land is, and how hostile to newcomers Vermonters are (they've been inundated by rich yuppies). It isn't only the cost of land--the cost of living is high in Vermont. Be prepared. As to the not-yet-researched internet access, in the middle of VT where I went, a guy was working to set up a locally-owned cooperative to hook up his surrounding communities with a fober-optic system so they could telecommute. I thought that was a great idea. But you'll also need power, and should not depend on the grid. So you need money for solar panels as well (everyone I visited in VT had panels--two had a windmill as well).
"It's funny how some of the "non-consumerist" refuseniks still own PC's and internet access to post here."
Including you, seditious?
(Tell you what, you give up your computer and I'll give up my TV. Is it a deal?)
When one considers the PC a communication device, it becomes evident that PC + internet usage is not necessarily consumer behavior. We're not on this forum consuming, by virtue of the fact that we have produced thoughts, wisdom and encouragement for others through our postings. Sky
WTF!?!
It should be obvious that with advanced in technology, autometisation of production, computers, robots, remote communication and control, , ... our productivity has been increased enormously in the last 50 years , but this capitalist system is forcing us to work hard as 50 years ago , just to buy mostly things that we really do not need. To live simple lives means to spend more time with family and friends taking parts in various social activities as basic as dancing and singing (that humans doing as we know) to anything that our imaginations can create. Instead of that we become consumers spending most of time in front TVs where advertisers are forming our new needs for which we have to work hard.
Maybe this climate change threat and more open discussions could create new movement for change but such individuals' efforts will not do much.
It's funny how some of the "non-consumerist" refuseniks still own PC's and internet access to post here.
heav y runner
I hear ya man .Couple of us decided to run up to Maine back in the early 90's in February (from central PA)to see a friend working for as a boat builder.
Can't remember how many degrees below zero it was ,but it was record lows for Maine that week.Paul lived in a cabin that had no insulation .You could see the back of the sheathing boards on the outside of the wall studs.When you walked outside your facial hair was frozen solid in seconds.
I thought to myself Paul must really love building boats.
But now I realize that sometimes adverse conditions are just part of the deal.
Vermont has great people and a progressive culture, but I'm glad I am living simply in the California desert where the Sun shines 335-350 days a year and 15 F is a cold morning in the winter.
The nearest big box store is a Super K-mart 41 miles away, and Wal-Mart is 100 miles away and Costco is 180 miles distant. I can visit four National Parks without going through a single stop light.
I spent a couple of weeks at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, during mid winter some time in the early 70s and it was -20 F every day, or colder. That gets dreary after a while.
To the Harris family
You won't regret a thing.
Got the dandelion wine started last week ,2 of the garden beds are planted, sour dough bread will come out of the oven in 15 minutes and I noticed a couple new bull frogs out by the pond the other night.
What more could I want for?
Living simply is the best thing you can do for your kids- and it obviously means different things, for different people, but the accumulative results can be important for the planet.
My family chose to head for a rural area of a Pacific Northwest state, where there aren't many high-paying jobs, but it's so beautiful, still an abundance of wildlife- so what if we mostly maintained just the bare basics? Our kids grew up happy and healthy, and enjoyed the vast outdoors as their playground. It was worth it!
The more I learn to live without, the better I feel. De-cluttering is extremely liberating. Learning to BE rather than doing all the time is worth the effort. Today I sat on my deck and a rose breasted grosbeak landed within two feet of me on the railing and watched me as I sat quietly. It even let me talk to it. Living simply is simply awesome!!!!
One lead-weight detail for roamers and dreamers. Unless and until you get liberals reforming American health care to "universal", you do need to know where your health insurance is going to come from both now and a few years down the road. It's a big, big deal unless you either have loads of money (no need for insurance) or no money (Medicaid). If you're under 65 (not elgible for Medicare) and you have an in-between of "some" money, you're at risk of losing it all. American medicine is targeting you with a scope over the barrel.
Rebel Farmer:
Very much appreciate your comments, especially on a personal level, because I am on that same path.
In Nov '06 the car I'd owned for 12 years gave up the ghost. I'd been saying before it went tires up that it would be the last one I ever owned. To date that is true.
I live in a small (2K population) community on the southern Oregon coast, where I can walk to everything I want or need within five to ten minutes. It feels amazing, to the point I have to check myself virtually on a daily basis just to make sure it is still reality.
I'm most impressed with your remark about "relocalization" and "interdependence". Amen, brother! Amen!
One of my next goals is to participate in promoting a community garden, where we not only nurture plants but also our community . . . the social fabric that has always been such a strength of American, and global, communities.
Thanks!
itsanaziworldorder: Yes! The "grand adventure" Yes! Where's that crack? I want in!
To me this story is inspiring. I've got too much junk laying around the house and could really streamline my life if I tried. Maybe I'll have a yard sale tomorrow. Plant a garden this year. Experiment with how little I can get by with.
Thanks for the idea, you "clueless, hippy-dippy people."
If you haven't figured out a way to capitalize on the earth's changing climate or the manipulation of media there will no doubt be other disasters modeled after hurricane Katrina.
Some of my most memorable and fulfilling experiences are a direct result of not having any money (I had enough to keep myself well fed.) As soon as I got a regular job, became a home owner, and started to fill the house with junk these experiences began to decline and life became somewhat hum-drum and tedious. Money and happiness strangely enough seem NOT to go hand in hand!
JH: Don't give up hope. The impending economic collapse, probably late this year or early next year, may get this ball rolling. It really doesn't matter much whether people embrace simplicity for all the "right" reasons, or they are forced by neccessity. The outcome is the same. And the sooner the wake up call comes, the better.
Well, for one, the "movement" didn't start in Washington in the 1980s. And it probably didn't start with the "back to the land" trend of the 60/70s. But, it is a sentiment whose time has come. Unfortunately, not enough of the population aspires to simplicity and thriving on less. The cure for affluenza, unfortunately, will probably be the disasters of climate change, and the end of oil. Simplicity won't be a choice, it will be the way we'll have to live.
I'm always amazed at how much I can do without.
I went through this "what is the meaning of life" thing about 20 years ago. I was making the big bucks and had "arrived" at all my career goals. When I got there I remember thinking, is this all there is? So I quit my job and moved to a small town with a great community feel. Then I got sucked back in to the wage slave trap.
I started this process AGAIN just over a year ago. I had enough money in the bank to last me for about a year, so I quit my job. I knew that I had to do this to give me the kick in the pants to change my life. Now, I have sold my small farm and am off loading everything that is not productive (keeping tools and garden stuff). And it is totally amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in a lifetime.
I'm going to rent a small house and grow a garden. But most importantly, I am connecting with my community in the relocalization movement. Fostering interdependence that we will all need very soon to survive and thrive. This feels right to me. It's not just about living simply, but about living a life worth living. It's all the intangibles that we trade with each other, but have no dollar denomination.
I may not be completely off the energy grid, but I am definitely off the consumer treadmill. I am now a real citizen and a valuable part of my community, not just a shopper/consumer. I now have the freedom to know what is going on and actively participate. I don't think my congress critters are any too happy about my finding my voice. Even if they don't want to listen, I can become very annoying in my pursistance.
Free at last! Thank Gawd almighty, I'm free at last!
Nine years ago I developed a condition which as I looked at it was a form of involuntary vow of poverty. That's different than having bare necessities.
That people choose to live more simply is fine and good. Using and polluting less is necessary for us as individuals and a society. I'm trying to unclutter myself.
You do have to get out of your comfort zone in order to change. I wish half the resources I can access through Medicare were more expansive so that I could utilize more things that would help my health improve more. Rather than make drug companies profits.
Is this a good time to ask why food stamp allowances aren't increased to reflect the reality of rapidly rising prices? I will start my garden soon.
"If anyone has to work so hard just for food and shelter that she has no time or energy to allow meaning to find her, the society in which she lives is a criminal society."
I couldn't agree more!
"I love clueless hippy-dippy people. He's planning on keeping his job but hasn't even checked to see if there's internet available in the woods where he plans to live?"
Me too. It's such absurdities that make the little cracks for life to enter and engage us in the 'Grand Adventure':)
However, I can't help but to see a certain elitism in the sort of "simplicity" that involves driving a gas guzzling bus around the US and finally settling in a remote cabin in the woods - and therefore dependent on long car trips for supplies. It all sounds pretty expensive to me.
A simple life would be:
1. One that even the poorest person could follow.
2. Engages in, not flees from, community.
3. Doesn't involve, or greatly minimizes, the burning of petroleum which unavoidable engages one in the pollution and war that surrounds oil production and use.
The genuinely simple life is the one I see among some of the anarchists here in Pittsburgh. No fancy possessions, bicycles or a bus pass for transportation, a life in a simple, low or even no-rent dilapidated, hillside house with gardening space, but located in a urban area in order to meet the above three requirements.
Jesus told a story about a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it he gladly sold everything he owned to buy the field that held the treasure. For humans the treasure is meaning. If anyone has to work so hard just for food and shelter that she has no time or energy to allow meaning to find her, the society in which she lives is a criminal society.
Every longing is a longing of the finite for the infinite. People who try every day to fill their God shaped hole with finite things in spite of having failed in that same endeavor every previous day of their lives are sick. They know they are sick but they don't know why.
"This body, Arjuna, is called the field. He who knows this is called the Knower of the field. Know that I am the Knower in all the fields of my creation, and that I regard discrimination between the field and the Knower of the field as the highest form of wisdom"----Bhagavad Gita
Meaning is NO THING. These people are lucky to have woke up before they died.
Congratulations and best of luck to this family. We are two senior citizens who did the same thing two years ago… moved from the state of Washington to a log cabin on 123-acres in northern British Columbia. We live off the grid, produce our own power with a micro-hydro system, cook and heat with a woodstove, grow our own organic vegetables, and stay in touch with the world through our satellite internet connection. Our blog can be seen at www.riverofmist.com. We can enthusiastically attest to the value of voluntary simplicity. We are celebrating our 2nd anniversary this weekend.
Bob Weimer and P. L. Morningstar
I love clueless hippy-dippy people. He's planning on keeping his job but hasn't even checked to see if there's internet available in the woods where he plans to live?
Live simply so others can simply live.
Simplicate and add lightness.