Brave New World’s Simple Lifers

''John the Savage'', by Ian Young

In the dystopian haze of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the simple lifers, or Savages as they are called, stand out like a gold-filled crack in a wabi-sabi Japanese tea cup. 

They’re the rebels in the area for people who are born naturally, who escaped the World State’s reproductive controls and social conditioning. 

The simple lifers refused to swallow the state’s sugar pill of engineered happiness and endless consumption. Instead, they have a life that’s unscripted - it’s messy, raw, and gloriously unfettered. 

There’s something magnetic about their defiance, something that tugs at the simple in our souls like a half-remembered dream. Who wouldn’t be drawn to that? 

The World State offers a sanitized, shrink-wrapped existence, but the simple lifers? They’re chasing something wilder—a life that’s truly theirs, thorns and all.

I’m captivated by their ethos, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s alive. It’s the opposite of the numbing ho hum of running on the state sanctioned treadmill. 

Simple living, though, isn’t some quaint, sepia-toned throwback - it’s ironically a complexity of a concept, nuanced and multifaceted. 

It’s not about stripping life down to a minimalist Instagram aesthetic or retreating to a cabin in the woods (though, honestly, a good Wi-Fi-free week away from it all might sound tempting to many). 

It’s about peeling back the layers of noise—advertisements, obligations, the relentless churn of "more"—to uncover what actually matters. 

For some, that’s a quiet cup of coffee savoured without staring at a screen. For others, it’s trading the corporate grind for a garden that doesn’t care about your quarterly performance review.

But let’s not romanticize it too much—simplicity’s not all pretty sunrises and homemade bread. It’s a paradox: the pursuit of less can feel overwhelming, even radical. 

Try telling your boss you’re ditching the smartphone because you’re tired of being a node in the attention economy. Or explain to your friends why you’d rather fix your old boots than buy new ones when “treat yourself you deserve it” has become a cultural mantra. 

The simple lifers in Huxley’s world aren’t just opting out of Soma—they’re defying a system that’s rigged to keep their souls sedated and their spirits shackled to a conveyor belt of empty pleasures.

That takes guts, and it’s not always pretty. Simplicity can mean frayed edges, tough choices, and the occasional pang of FOMO when everyone else is upgrading to the latest shiny thing.

So what does it look like in the flesh? 

It’s as varied as the people who chase it. Maybe it’s swapping the SUV for a beat-up bike—not just to save gas, but to feel the wind bite your face and remind you you’re not invincible. 

Maybe it’s cooking a meal where every ingredient has a story, not a barcode—potatoes from the farmer’s market, not a laboratory. 

Or perhaps it’s the audacity to sit still, to let the silence settle, and realize the world doesn’t collapse when you stop scrolling. 

Here are a few sparks to ignite your own experiment in simplicity:

- trash the TV and crack open a book, not just for the quiet, but to wrestle with ideas that don’t come with a laugh track.

- ditch the smartphone for a digital detox, and discover how much of your day was hijacked by dopamine hits disguised as notifications.

- cook with ingredients you can pronounce, not because it’s trendy, but because it’s a small rebellion against a food system that’s forgotten what “real” tastes like.

- take a hike, leave the concrete jungle and let nature remind you that time doesn’t always need a timestamp.

- master the art of doing nothing, not as laziness, but as an idle act of defiance against a culture that equates stillness with failure.

Huxley's simple lifers didn’t overthrow the World State, but they did carve out a corner of existence that was undeniably theirs, away from the pressure cooker of conformity and compliance. 

In Brave New World, they were the beauty of the gold in the jagged cracks of civilization.