10 Ways to Reclaim Our Lives in Simplicity

The easiest way to reclaim our lives is to go back to the tried and true ways of simplicity. 

"Simplify, simplify, simplify," is even more relevant today than when Henry David Thoreau recommended it in the 1800s.

However, as Thoreau discovered it will be hard. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Hard work pays off.

Choosing the easy way has not worked for us - just look at the state of our world today.

Obviously we need to do things differently. 

Why not try simplicity? It worked before, and will work again.

This list will sound old timey, and it is. 

Perhaps progress, this late in the game, means going back to what worked, instead of choosing the failing alternatives that brought us to this momentous time in our brief history.

How to Reclaim Our Lives in Simplicity

1. Go offline. When you go online, use the computers in the library. Or, buy an old computer and run Linux on it.  

2. Use cash. Get rid of debt, then don't accumulate more.

3. Get around by walking, biking, or public transportation. Carshare. Rent. Taxi. Rideshare. If you have to own a car, choose something basic, and keep it for as long as you can.

4. Grow a garden. Raise as much of your own food as possible, and what you can't raise yourself, buy from farmer's markets.

5. Support local. Try to source as much of what you buy locally.

6. Leave your phone behind. When at home, leave your phone turned off, and check a couple of times a day. Or not.

7. Spend time in nature. Much of our current predicament is due to an artificial separation from our environment. Our liberation will require fewer digital experiences, and more analog ones.

8. Cook your own food. Cooking food with your own hands and wholesome ingredients is the way to extreme numminess and optimum health. Enjoying food you've raised and cooked yourself harkens back to a time when we were more free and self-sufficient.

9. Stick close to home. It is enjoyable and beneficial to know your own area, and the people in it. Good things happen when one is committed to a place and getting to know it intimately.

10. Only buy what you need. Why buy things you don't need? Advertising, propaganda, cultural brainwashing. In simplicity, we ignore them all knowing that chasing happiness via stuff is a losing game, no matter what they say.

Avoid the rush, and simplify, simplify, simplify today. 

We have freedom, peace of mind, health and happiness to gain, and nothing to lose.

Giving to Our Mother on Earth Day

"Hey! You're right - this is way more fun than the corporate jet."

Today is Earth Day. If you are thinking of a gift for Mother Earth, I have the perfect thing.

The most awesome, most needed gift that you could possibly provide your planet, IMHO, is to live more simply.

The best thing is that anyone can do it. Anyone, and everyone can give this gift. Any act of simplifying your life will be gratefully accepted by our fair mother.

Imagine the positive impact of giving up your private jet, even if it is just on Wednesdays. Or pairing down the number of homes you own to just two or three.

How about selling off that car collection and riding one of your motorcycles more often? 

Or sell off your motorcycle collection, too, and ride one of your bicycles more often.

Even cutting down showering to just once per day will have a noticeable impact on the environment. 

Giving up meat in favour of more lentils, beans, and rice is a good one. I figure that 276 million Indians can't be wrong. I'm with them.

Everything any one of us does in our own personal offering pays off in reducing mom's stress levels. 

Providing the gifts nature needs might be tough, and that's alright. Remember, if there's no component of sacrifice, it's probably not a deeply committed gift.

Living more simply gives the present of reduced resource use and waste. You decide the size of your gift. All efforts are appreciated and matter.

Our giving back in this way will make sure there is more to go around for everyone, including all the other life forms with which we share our beautiful planet.

The Great Mother loves you for it, and will shower you with life-sustaining gifts in return.

Everyone's a winner, folks, and that is true (I fact checked it myself).

And don't forget to visit your mother regularly. We would all benefit from reconnecting with her, seeing that she loves us, and realizing that we are an important part of her family.

Happy Earth Day.

Love ya, mom.

The Three Stages of The Quest

Quest. 

The word elicits a deep felt call to challenge, adventure, and an improvement in the human condition.

Across the ages, it has been a commonplace thought that those that seek visions and insight must go apart from others and spend time in the wilderness. 

The quester is stripped to the bare essentials in a moment or life lived at the most simple. 

And the most natural.

Simplicity and nature nurture intentions. They are tools waiting to be used.

Both allow us to break our selves down without the usual distractions so we can remove the ultimate distraction - that which is within. 

As Suzy Kassem writes, "If the mind is in the way, the heart won't see anything."

At the end of the quest, this extreme simplification conducted in nature? 

Kindness, compassion, and a better world. 

Happy questing! 

May we all grow, develop, and evolve individually, and together, in simplicity and nature.

Three Stages of The Quest

1. Sudden jolt. Something tweaks you to begin your quest, and leave everything behind.

2. Down the rabbit hole. Your adventure takes you within, simultaneously curious and bewildered.

3. Understanding and acceptance. The quest ends with the seeker sensing a deeper connection to everything.

Repeat if necessary.

Freedom From Owning Things

Most humans see owning stuff as a good thing. The more stuff, the better. 

But is that actually true?

"Other animals don’t anguish with such existential troubles," wrote Walt Whitman. 

"They are so placid and self-contain’d," he said. "They do not sweat and whine about their condition. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins… Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things.” 

Viewed this way, material things are only a burden. The possessionless free animals have it better than we do.

I would like to be a raven for a day, to be completely liberated from the mania of owning things. And I don't own much.

But that 24 hours would be enlightening.

It takes time and practice, but eventually we can attain a more natural and beneficial state where we too are free from being demented with stuff.

As usual, living simply helps, and is a great start.

You still won't be able to fly.

But you will feel a lot lighter, and your spirit will soar.

 

Trickflation

Greedy companies have many different ways of gouging consumers.

There's inflation, shrinkflation, skimpflation, and crapflation, to mention a few.

Another one that has come to my attention is trickflation. Or you could call it sneakflation, or shiftyflation. 

You can file all these shady business practices under the overall category of greedflation.

In the example above, different packaging, exactly the same amount of product, and a new much higher price.

They are sneaky, and they hope we won't notice. 

But we are noticing, and we are getting tired of such dishonourable practices.

So tired, that we are quitting buying crappy products for good.

Demand destruction is always a possible outcome for greedy operators. People stop buying from you, and they never come back.

You can trick some of the people for a while, but you risk them finding out and deciding to keep their money in their wallets as a response.

We're not buying anything from dishonest entities.

And that's most of them.

Good riddance. We will do just fine without your trickery, and without your products.

Now You're Cooking With Cow Patties!

Cooking with gas used to be a good thing.

Starting in the 1930s, the phrase "Now you're cooking with gas!" was all the rage. 

Advertisers ran campaigns to get people to switch from wood or coal stoves to newer, cleaner, gas alternatives.

The marketing campaign worked, and millions of indoor natural gas appliances were sold.

Over time the phrase "now you're cooking with gas" was being used as an idiom meaning "doing something very well", or "making excellent progress".

How things have changed. 

Today, not even one hundred years later, governments, including my own here in Canada, are trying to ban gas cook stoves. 

That is right. They aren't banning military activity and war (one of the biggest contributors of green house gases and death globally), they are banning something that accounts for .06 percent of Canada's total emissions.

I am therefore thinking about coining a new phrase more appropriate for our new world order.

Here are a few I am trying out depending how far back we need to go as we replace our centuries long obsession with progress for our new obsession with regress.

"Now you're cooking with electricity!"

"Now you're cooking with coal!"

"Now you're cooking with wood!"

And my personal favourite,

"Now you're cooking with dung!"

Drying cow dung to be used as
cooking fuel in India.

What "modern" people may not realize, is that many people around the world have always used wood and other biomass as their primary fuel source for cooking. 

Half of humanity today still cooks over biomass fires, from China to Kenya, and Guatemala to India. 

Many of those burn dung as in many places it is the only fuel available. 

No bull. It's true.

The burning of dung is a smoky and inefficient process, but it gets the job done.

In our more simple future, those of us used to a gas or electric range in the kitchen, may benefit from having knowledge of alternative forms of cooking.

Otherwise, after the grid goes down, we risk the danger of not being able to cook anything.

Let us today recognize the dung burners. 

We know not what they live with every day.

And that lack of knowledge might become very detrimental in the dung days to come.

Get ready for it.

"Now you're cooking with cow patties!"

Note: new job opportunity - dung delivery dude.

Flowers Smile

Blue pines and green bamboos

Shade my window.

Flowers smile;

Warblers sing by my hermitage.

As I climb the stone steps,

I feel the strength of cedars;

At the pure cool mountaintop,

Buddha is bright and vivid.

- Deiryu 

 

"Deiryu (Kanshu Sojun) was a remarkable figure of the Japanese Taishō period (1912-1926) and Shōwa period (1926-1989).

In his painting and calligraphy, Deiryu displayed the humor, strength, and inner vision that made him one of the outstanding monk-artists of the twentieth century." 

The Monk's Secret

The monk's secret is very simple.

It is so simple that most modern people can not understand how it can even be possible.

The Monk's Secret

As a monk you have a lower standard of living.

Despite this, you have a much higher quality of life, and are therefore happier.

Go figure. That is what happens when one lives simply with a higher purpose that rises above the work, buy, die model of consumerism.

That little truth makes all of consumerism, and the myth of progress, a bunch of self-serving lies meant to enrich the few while enslaving the rest.

It's not like we are all blissfully happy with the way things are now.

We could wander off in any direction totally aimlessly and probably find something better. 

But we don't have to wander the wilderness when there is a better way right in front of us. It has been there all along, waiting for our awakening.

You don't have to be a monk, but it might improve life to live like one.

The true gifts of life and luxuries are not "out there", but can only be found while reducing distractions and desires and going within.

We have little to lose by trying the age old simplicity solution, and much to gain.

The monk's secret is only a secret because it has been actively suppressed for so long by vested interests determined to keep us bound by harmful ways.

I don't know about you, but I am breaking free of it all, and finding vastley improved happiness as a result of this epic adventure called the simple life.

Highly recommended for any human - monk, or not.

Not Buying Anything As Protest

There are three ways to approach a problem. Accept it, change it, or leave it. When it comes to consumerism, our choice has been to change it by leaving it.

The more simply one lives, the less they feed the beast.

Over the decades Linda and I have continuously simplified, which is synonymous with buying less and less of what consumerism has to offer.

We have removed our support for the system as it has descended from bad to worse, and have quit almost everything that is part of a normal life where we live.

The status quo has never appealed to us. We see it as the source of decay we are presently experiencing.

What we need as tyranny takes hold, is a form of protest they can't shut down and destroy.

It has to be something everyone can do, but without a central command or hierarchy that the powers that shouldn't be can target.

Considering that, our diffuse form of protest has been enjoying sticking around the neighbourhood, and not buying into all the stuff and services we've never needed. Or even wanted.

Our lifelong form of protest has been getting along just fine locally and without all the extras.

We just said no, and escaped the wheel of consumer life. 

China's lie flat movement is a current example of a mass opting out.

If active protest is squashed, and it is in most places, not just China, then a passive response is inevitable. 

People are choosing to opt out in greater numbers as the lies and resulting horrors continue to pile up.

What if, along the way, we found we were happier with life outside of the system?

I wonder if that would get anyone's attention?

They can stop us from doing something, but what can they do if we choose to do nothing that supports their corrupted system?

Don't work for them, don't buy their useless narratives, stuff or services.

They don't really care about our ballots.

The same can not be said about our dollars.

Silent Spring

Your blog host on a pilgrimage to an old growth western

red cedar tree on Vancouver Island, BC Canada, 2012

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” 

 

― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

 

Not Selling Out

I don't want to provide free advertising for any corporation. 

Nor would I accept payment to do such a thing, because I value my freedom and integrity.

Influencer, a job category that didn't even exist when I was in the workforce, is definitely out for me. 

How could I be when I scrupulously erase any sign of corporate identifiers on any of my clothing or possessions?

I use a thick black felt marker, duct tape, or hammer to  remove any labels or logos identifying the corporation expecting me to give them free advertising.

I don't like having that kind of dreck in my face, since the corporate world is so up in our stuff all the time. 

I don't want to promote and provide any large corporation with free advertising on me, or my stuff. 

I don't want them in my headspace.

Influencer equals selling out.

"Selling out" is a common expression for the compromising of a person's integrity, morality, authenticity, or principles by forgoing the long-term benefits of the collective or group in exchange for personal gain, such as money or power. - Wiki

Maybe our culture has forgotten that term. Or it has been consciously buried to avoid nagging feelings of cognitive dissonance.

Selling out used to be a bad thing, not a lucrative job category to which many young people aspire.

For free, or paid, I'm not shilling for any corporate masters.

Decision Trees: Should I Buy This?

Click on image to enlarge.

Making a hasty purchase is rarely a good idea. 

That is why advertisers say things like "act now", "limited time only", "hurry", and, "don't wait". 

Advertisers want to trigger an instant sell before we have the time to really think about whether it is a beneficial purchase for us or not.

The faster you buy, the better it is... for them.

Impulse buying leads to post-purchase regret. Overflowing storage spaces and growing debt follow. 

A pre-purchase decision tree is designed to avoid all of that.

A purchase decision tree is a visual template to foster better thinking processes while contemplating buying something.

The main thing it does, besides helping order one's thinking, is slow you down. 

The To Buy or Not to Buy Decision Tree says, "Whoa! there big spender - let's give this, and every purchase, some careful thought before deciding."

After consistent use of such a device, the thought processes become second nature and the actual visual is not required.

Then you don't have to worry, because you're not in a hurry, and your thinking isn't blurry.

Think first, buy later. Then, if you decide to make a purchase, you will know that it is the result of sound thinking rather than an uncontrolled impulse.

Or, don't buy at all. 

That is the conclusion my internal Should I Buy This? decision tree leads me to most of the time.

Click on image to enlarge.

Dumb Consumer Item of the Month: McMansions

Image from the McMansion Hell blog.

“This idea of extreme consumerism took off in the ’80s. It was a time of big hair, Madonna’s Material Girl— and great big houses.” 

- Kate Wagner, architecture critic

How do we define who we are in consumer societies? Mostly by the stuff we own.

And in that regard, the big three are

1. The car we drive,

2. The clothes we wear, and

3. The house we live in.

Basing our social standing on stuff instead of our value to the functioning of the community we live in leads to the rapid adoption of dumb consumer items.

It's consumerism gone wild.

Nothing highlights this deficiency more than the McMansion craze. 

Why McMansions? 

Because like the fast food they are named after, Mcmansions were mass-produced, cheaply made with questionable ingredients, not that beneficial for the greater society, and yet were still hungrily eaten up by consumers.

McMansions were most popular between the 1980s up to the Great Recession in 2008. 

Their popularity has decreased since then, although large, oversized homes remain the number one choice of many home buyers. 

In fact, by 2014, three times as many U.S. homes were built in the 3,000 to 3,999-square-foot range as in the under 1,400-square-foot range.

While some home buyers are opting for smaller homes, these down sizers remain a minority. For now, the tiny home movement is tiny.

A related website I visit from time to time is called McMansion Hell, written by a blogger with architectural training.

The witty and humorous McMansion critic, Kate Wagner, writes that these humungous homes are "an accumulation of deliberate signifiers of wealth, very much a construction with the secondary purpose of invoking envy, a palatial residence designed without much cohesion". 

Other less than flattering names used to describe such homes marketed to anyone able to get a mortgage large enough, are Persian palace, Garage Mahal, starter castle, Hummer house, tract mansion, Millennium Mansion, or executive home.

They are typically between 3,000 and 5,000 sq. ft. because building large homes is more profitable for builders than constructing smaller, less ostentatious alternatives. 

The McMansion Hell blog points out many other problems with these "look-at-me!" awkward abodes. 

"It’s not just a very large house", Wagner explains. 

“It’s also poorly constructed and poorly designed,” she says. 

“It’s a hodgepodge of several different architectural styles, lots of different extruding masses, windows that don’t match. It really looks like everything has been put together in a cobbled way.”

It’s basically an architectural expression of hyper-consumerism.” 

Infill Mcmansions look out of place compared with the existing neighborhood, and clash with the local architectural characteristics, which has made them unpopular and unwelcome in most communities.

The main problem is that these big cookie cutter homes were built as statements, rather than practical places to live. 

They are environmentally problematic, expensive to maintain, and are often built far from city centers on less expensive land, necessitating long commutes.

These biggest of bungalows are the very expensive equivalent of a super-sized fast food meal that makes your stomach hurt moments after completion.

We have covered several dumb consumer items on our blog, but few are as dumb, or as expensive, as the Mcmansion.

This one will be hard to top. 

But of course I will try for there is no shortage of dumb to be exposed when it comes to the toxic products of hyper-consumerism.

Revolution?

"The Siesta" by Paul Gauguin

You say you want a revolution?

Be kind.

Be compassionate.

Live simply.

Be an active producer, not a passive consumer.

Dance.

Learn, grow, evolve.

Acknowledge a greater power.

Eat wholesome foods made by your own hands.

Cooperate with others to make the world a better place.

Take a nap.

There's your revolution.

Last Day of Winter/First Full Day of Spring

Yesterday was the northern hemisphere's last day of winter, meaning today is the first full day of spring.

Fitting, then, that I saw my first robin in the yard yesterday morning. 

What an early welcome sight it was. 

Such signs are why one does not need a calendar, or the astronomical accuracy of knowing that the season changed at exactly 11:06 pm EDT last night.

Nature tells us all herself if we look for the signs.

On the last day of winter I went on a bike ride to the community mailbox which is 4km down the road from our home.

I returned along gravel roads and rails to trails paths that I have not been on for a few weeks. 

The conditions were good as the frost has come up out of the ground, and surfaces are drying and firming up. 

Perfect for biking again. 

If at all possible, I like to ride off paved roads along routes that are not as busy, and that go through the scenic backcountry.

On my ride I heard an owl call from in the woods. I stopped to listen. "Who - who, who! Who - who, who?"

Later I stopped to watch a robin (turdus migratorius) at the top of a tree. It was singing its heart-warming song over and over, meaning it is setting up its breeding territory.

The robins will start laying their first batch of eggs in late April and May.

There were geese in pairs in farmers fields, another sign that things are changing.

On this observation, some people say, "When geese are in flocks, winter still rocks. When geese are in a pair, spring is in the air."

I saw that water was running in brooks and streams, trickling away and quickening its pace on its short trip to the nearby ocean.

And I saw snowdrops emerging from the warming soil in a yard along our road a couple of weeks ago already.

And naturally, since it was the last day of winter, before I got home a few flakes of snow began to fall.

The snow may accumulate again at some point, but the coming spring is undeniable.

Nothing can stop it.

Goodbye winter.

Welcome warmer weather.

Today, the first full day of spring, is a good moment to start our garden planning and seed purchasing.

Let the season begin.

No Modern Stuff - Still Happy

The Amish have been walking away from modernity since arriving in North America hundreds of years ago.

In that time they have changed, but not dramatically. 

For the most part, they have:

- no electricity

- no iPhones

- no unnecessary medical procedures

- no computers

- no $70,000 Detroit automobiles

- no fashionable wardrobe

- no nails

- no heavy equipment

- no power tool built barns

- no nightclubs

- no Hollywood movies

- no TV

- no fast food

- no annual resort vacations

And yet, they are still healthy, and still happy. 

Miraculously, everything gets done.

Is there anything to learn from these simple living people? 

Is there is a lesson here for the "advanced", high consumption peoples of the planet who haven't found happiness in stuff and status?

Go Amish!

Or almost Amish.

Even a little bit Amish would be an improvement.