Most people would call my life boring—and from the outside, they’d be right. However, I haven’t experienced a single moment of boredom ever.
For the last couple of decades I have rarely ventured more than about 20 km from home, even back when we owned a vehicle.
I spend most days here, never going out purely for entertainment. Linda and I find our quiet life highly entertaining in the most natural, low-key way.
Quitting the rat race and disentangling from consumerism means I no longer get the jolt of buying new things. Instead, I get a quiet kick from repairing old possessions and using items decades old that still work perfectly.
We’re not into mainstream entertainment or socializing. We neither attend nor host parties—our liveliest “social events” are the occasional lively comment thread on this blog.
We don’t travel unless it’s absolutely necessary, and very few trips are. Yet by staying put so long, and proceeding so slowly, this place has revealed its intimate secrets to us.
We’ve watched trees grow that weren’t even here when we arrived in 2014 after crossing the continent in our quest for peace and quiet in an appropriate and affordable setting.
And after more than a decade of feeding the local crows, we now visit with generations of the same family. They bring their fledglings each spring to show them where the daily peanuts appear, recognizing our faces and footsteps from a tree in the yard, or from the power lines across the street.
So, what is boring, exactly, about peace, clarity, and liberation from the tedium of the daily grind?
Linda once put this to the Universe: “Is enlightenment boring?”
Perhaps it is—to those still chasing the next material thrill. But to us, this quiet, ordinary life feels like the deepest adventure there is.
What about you? Have you found richness in what others call “boring”? We’d love to hear in the comments.
For the last couple of decades I have rarely ventured more than about 20 km from home, even back when we owned a vehicle.
I spend most days here, never going out purely for entertainment. Linda and I find our quiet life highly entertaining in the most natural, low-key way.
Quitting the rat race and disentangling from consumerism means I no longer get the jolt of buying new things. Instead, I get a quiet kick from repairing old possessions and using items decades old that still work perfectly.
We’re not into mainstream entertainment or socializing. We neither attend nor host parties—our liveliest “social events” are the occasional lively comment thread on this blog.
We don’t travel unless it’s absolutely necessary, and very few trips are. Yet by staying put so long, and proceeding so slowly, this place has revealed its intimate secrets to us.
We’ve watched trees grow that weren’t even here when we arrived in 2014 after crossing the continent in our quest for peace and quiet in an appropriate and affordable setting.
And after more than a decade of feeding the local crows, we now visit with generations of the same family. They bring their fledglings each spring to show them where the daily peanuts appear, recognizing our faces and footsteps from a tree in the yard, or from the power lines across the street.
So, what is boring, exactly, about peace, clarity, and liberation from the tedium of the daily grind?
Linda once put this to the Universe: “Is enlightenment boring?”
Perhaps it is—to those still chasing the next material thrill. But to us, this quiet, ordinary life feels like the deepest adventure there is.
What about you? Have you found richness in what others call “boring”? We’d love to hear in the comments.
