Most of the alerts come from China and India, cultures with an unbroken history and relationship with the benefits and logic of simple living.
In these places, newspapers regularly run articles on simple living related topics. Often they beautifully state the case for choosing an accumulation-adverse lifestyle.
Recently an alert from chinadaily.com caught my attention. Consumerism is newer in China, and like everywhere else, not everyone is on board.
There "more people are realizing the benefits of 'less is more' after cutting life down to the bare necessities".
One new minimalist described their previous clothing addiction as "spiritually painful". After years of "buying clothes in bulk", they needed to do something drastic.
Regaining control of their life they cut their wardrobe from over 1,000 pieces to 20.
This led them to want to continue a "reductive lifestyle" to reduce all possessions to the bare essentials.
"There are too many things that compete for our attention," they concluded, "and if we don't set boundaries, we will be very tired."
"Everyone should find their own minimalist lifestyle. You will discover many interesting things about life while experimenting."
Simple Living Alert!
Experiment with it now.
Discover interesting things about life.
Be less tired.
It's interesting that the person in the blog described buying clothes as painful, a lot of things in consumer society capture you. Many substances that fueled the Atlantic slave trade were addictive and include: sugar (alcohol production), coffee/tea (caffeine) and tobacco. Consumer societies are trying to keep addictive products ticking over such as gambling, pornography, buying new things for novelty sake and video games. Even watching TV sports is a very mild form of gambling.
ReplyDeleteHave you heard of Li Qizi 李子柒 who has become very popular in China and increasingly outside. She had a traumatic early life and later started making videos about simple countryside living in her native Sichuan province. Her Youtube page is:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoC47do520os_4DBMEFGg4A
There are other similar Chinese video bloggers out there, but she is the most popular. She isn't a natural celebrity and doesn't quite fit the mold when going on those mainstream Chinese audience shows.
Peace,
Alex
Hi Alex, I have been watching Li Qizi for the last couple weeks and am amazed at her abilities, tenacity, strength, knowledge. One thing the videos have reminded me of is how important clean water is. Really fascinating and absorbing videos. That's great you are watching them too and shared the link with the NBA community, thanks. - Mary
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