Simple Living, High Thinking, Non-Violence

Gandhi's home. He was influenced by the writings of Henry David Thoreau,
and the two men lived in similar simple surroundings, undistracted by unnecessary stuff.

Today, the 148th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth is being celebrated around the world. It should be - he was an amazing man, as close to a true hero as one can get.

Gandhi emphasized simple living, high thinking, and non-violent resistance, all things that we desperately need in today's world if we are to slow our slide into dark decades of dystopia.

Call it utopian if you want, I don't think of that as an insult, but Gandhi's philosophy on non-violence went far beyond simply the absence of violence. He also advocated radical democracy and self-rule, and extended participation to all segments of society.

Inequality and hierarchical structures (political and religious), are institutionalized violence. Authority over others always ends badly. Just ask the Catalonians, or any of us that suffer the violence of the state in its capitalist corporate economic prison.

I celebrate Gandhi's birth today - he was a model human of the most gentle kind. He lived what he proposed, and had solutions. Right now, we badly need solutions, and soon.

Simple living, rational thinking, and non-violent resistance are tried and true, proven solutions, and I thank this amazing man for bravely bringing them forward. The sooner they are adopted, the better off we will be in the end.

We can break the bars that hem us in to narrow lives of drudgery and perpetual shopping. We can all be heroes. To this, I think, Gandhi would agree.