Ursula Le Guin

American novelist Ursula Le Guin was my kind of person. It seems to me that she spoke the truth as she saw it. Perhaps that is why her thoughts and ideas aren't more well known.

Le Guin passed away at the beginning of the year, and The New York Times actually noted the solemn event in their obituary pages, possibly due to a Mother Jones story in 2013 that found that only about 21% of the Times' obituaries were for women.

Maybe things are getting better.

Her outlook on things make a lot of sense to me. The two most important things to her were

1. family, and 

2. being creative. 

She once said that she enjoyed housework. I think she probably enjoyed just about everything, and took nothing for granted.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes by this amazing writer:

“A decision worthy of the name is based on observation, factual information, intellectual and ethical judgment. Opinion—that darling of the press, the politician, and the poll—may be based on no information at all.” 


“I’d like a poster showing two old people with stooped backs and arthritic hands and time-worn faces sitting talking, deep, deep in conversation. And the slogan would be “Old Age Is Not for the Young.” 


“It goes right back to the idea of the Power of Positive Thinking, which is so strong in America because it fits in so well with the Power of Commercial Advertising and with the Power of Wishful Thinking, aka the American Dream.” 


“Spare time is the time not spent at your job or at otherwise keeping yourself.” 
“None of this is spare time. I can’t spare it.” 


“It appears that we've given up on the long-range view. That we've decided not to think about consequences—about cause and effect. Maybe that's why I feel that I live in exile. I used to live in a country that had a future.” 

Ursula Le Guin passed on at the beginning of this year, January 22, 2018. She was 88.

There Is A Book For Everyone

Illustration from: eye, The International Review of Graphic Design.

At one time, not that long ago, books were only attainable by monasteries, educational institutions, and extremely rich people. Painstakingly produced by hand in 'scriptoriums', books were luxury items of the highest order. 

Today, by comparison, it's Bookapalooza. Books for everyone!

It was the invention of the printing press in the late 1430s that launched this reading and learning revolution with impacts that continue to this day.

I think it can be safely said that there is an apt book for everyone - something to think about in situations where gift giving is appropriate. 

Some say that people don't read books these days (the kind with a spine and paper pages that you hold in your hand). Sigh.

That may be true, but they are less likely to enjoy reading a book if they don't have easy access to books around them. Therefore, if you want to give a gift, consider giving a book. 

What a treasure they are, each and every one of them. Just like those of the handwritten variety were in the Dark and Middle Ages.

Note: a trip to the library to get a library card is a good gift, too. Or, if you wish to buy a book, consider a trip to a local used book store to see what you can find.

Happy reading.

Free Knowledge

Your public library will buy and store books and other materials for you.
Illustration: Wendy Macnaughton

It has been a fascinating and challenging year since Linda and I packed up everything we owned into a travel van and moved from the west coast of Canada to the east coast of Canada.

One of the first things we did once we decided to stop driving and start looking for a home was locate the public library and apply for our (free) library cards. A short while later our shiny, fresh cards became the first mail we received at our new address.

They were the opposite of receiving a bill in the mail, a kind of anti-bill. A library card gives rather than takes. I can even figure out how much it gives measured in monetary terms.

Our new library has an online resource called the Library Value Calculator. It "lets you know how much it would cost if you had to purchase" the materials and services the user has accessed at their local branch.

I estimated our library usage over the past year using the calculator. I included fiction and non-fiction books, CDs, and videos. We also use the library for printing and photocopying. We don't need to think about bookcases, equipment or ink cartridges.

The total cash value of our library use came to about $1500 dollars. That is money freed up for other essential uses like food, or power, or heat in the winter.

Perhaps the money is the least important part. What is more important is all that freely accessible knowledge just waiting to be absorbed. I don't think I have personally ever entered a public library and not left a happier and more informed person.

Adjusting to our new home, the library has been an awesome hub from which to connect with, and learn about, our community and beyond.



Note on illustration: "Part of her ongoing "Meanwhile" series, illustrator Wendy MacNaughton spent a month at the San Francisco Public Library getting to know the visitors, staff, guards, and librarians, drawing the people she met and interviewing them. The result is the story of the library told through her drawings and the subjects own words. It's a moving meditation on the important and often unseen roles libraries play in the community, and how they serve the public way beyond books."

http://wendymacnaughton.com

5 Ways Books Are Better Than Computers

"So many books. So little time." - Frank Zappa

I love books and believe they will be with us forever, regardless of any technological advances past, present, or future.

In many ways I find books better than computers.

1. Books are lessons in single-task focusing and enjoyment. Computers are multi-tasking nightmares.
2. Books can be used freely without expensive electricity.
3. Books don't have distracting advertising.
4. Books are made of paper and retain the spirit of the trees of which they are made.
5. Books are historical documents with a link to thousands of years of the written word. 

This year I will use the computer less, and read books more.

What books are you reading this week?


Note: All of the above books are from the public library except for the Bukowski which was a gift from a dear friend.

Simple Living In History

“This book highlights how rethinking our attitudes and behaviour toward consumption can be a fruitful pathway to social and ecological harmony.”  - David Holmgren

  

Simplicity has always been practiced by humanity. For 99% of our existence it has been the preferred mode of living on our finite planet.

It has only been the last few decades that extreme materialism has been touted as the best way to achieve happiness. This in spite of knowing for thousands of years the appropriateness of living simply.

The accumulated knowledge of appropriate living on Earth was recognized recently when The Simplicity Institute published a book called Simple Living In History: Pioneers of The Deep Future.

After receiving an email from the Institute I previewed the book. The Table of Contents sent me immediately to our public library website to see if it was in the collection. Unfortunately it wasn't, so I will be recommending it to their book buyers.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface by the Editors, Samuel Alexander and Amanda McLeod

FOREWORD
by David Shi


1. BUDDHA - Peter Doran

2. DIOGENES - William Desmond

3. ARISTOTLE - Jerome Segal

4. EPICURUS - Michael Augustin

5. THE STOICS - Dirk Baltzly

6. JESUS - Simon Ussher

7. WESTERN MONASTICISM - William Fahey

8. THE QUAKERS - Mark Burch

9. THE AMISH - Steven Nolt

10. HENRY THOREAU - Samuel Alexander

11. JOHN RUSKIN - David Craig

12. WILLIAM MORRIS - Sara Wills

13. GANDHI - Whitney Sanford

14. DITCHLING VILLAGE - William Fahey

15. THE AGRARIANS - Allan Carlson

16. THE NEARINGS - Amanda McLeod

17. IVAN ILLICH - Marius de Geus

18. JOHN SEYMOUR - Amanda McLeod

19. VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY - Mary Grigsby

20. RADICAL HOMEMAKING - Shannon Hayes

21. INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES - Bill Metcalf

22. PERMACULTURE - Albert Bates

23. TRANSITION TOWNS - Samuel Alexander and Esther Alloun

24. DEGROWTH - Serge Latouche

25. THE SIMPLER WAY - Ted Trainer

26. MINDFULNESS - Mark Burch


Each chapter of Simple Living In History is an essay about the person or movement indicated. It reflects the recent history (the past couple thousand years) of right living on our fragile planet even though our experience of living simply goes back hundreds of thousands of years to our origins.

Talk about a simple living study list - the Table of Contents alone gets me going. Awesome for future research, but I am going to see if I can get my frugal hands on a volume of this book.

Simplicity has been the way of the past, and will be the way of the future. Therefore a book like Simple Living In History becomes an important collection of applied knowledge to guide us into our sustainable future.

“Simple Living in History challenges the mentality of waste and extravagance that defines modern industrial lifestyles, reminding us that the answers we need have been here all along, waiting for us to notice them.”   

- John Michael Greer

Finding Freedom

"The man looks, the wolf waits."

Of Harry Haller, the outsider anti-hero in Steppenwolf, a novel by Hermann Hesse (1927):

"There was never a man with a deeper and more passionate craving for independence than he. 

In his youth when he was poor and had difficulty in earning his bread, he preferred to go hungry and in torn clothes rather than endanger his narrow limit of independence. 

He never sold himself for money or an easy life or to women or to those in power; and had thrown away a hundred times what in the world's eyes was his advantage and happiness in order to safeguard his liberty. 

No prospect was more hateful and distasteful to him then that he should have to go to an office and conform to daily and yearly routines and obey others. 

He hated all kinds of offices, governmental or commercial, as he hated death, and his worst nightmare was confinement in barracks. 

He contrived, often at great sacrifice, to avoid all such predicaments. 

It was here that his strength and virtue rested. On this point he could neither be bent nor bribed. Here his character was firm and indeflectable."

Reading And Literacy Monday

My current library books

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” Jorge Luis Borges

I am a voracious reader. So much so that I have been known to read cereal boxes or shampoo containers just to get a fix. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm, though, which is a shame - reading is a major conduit to learning, joy, and freedom.

In 2008 a poll revealed that more than 25% of Americans had not read a single book in the previous year. Since then things have improved a bit.

The Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project found in 2012 that 83% of Americans between 16 and 29 read a book in the past year, and 60% visited their local library. 

Among those 30 and over, 81% reported reading for pleasure. 

The Nation's Report Card on Reading found that more fourth graders reported reading for fun in 2011 than they had in 2009, and the number stood at an all time high of 46%. OK, that is better, but what are the other 54% doing?

Literacy Facts

• About 14% of Americans can't read. 
• 63% of prison inmates can't read. 
• 774 million people worldwide are illiterate
• Two-thirds of the world's illiterate are women 

From:  ProLiteracy

Turn off the TV, enjoy a good book

Reading and Leisure Time

Reading for pleasure may be up, but little screens still dominate our down time. The 2011 American Time Use Survey uncovered this trend.

Unsurprisingly, watching TV was the number one leisure activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours per day), accounting for about half of total leisure time, on average, for those age 15 and over.

And then there are those lucky seniors. On an average day, adults age 75 and over spent 7.4 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities - more than any other age group. On the other hand, 25 to 44-year olds spent 4.2 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities - less than other age groups.

Time spent reading for personal interest and playing games or using a computer for leisure varied greatly by age. 

Individuals age 75 and over averaged 58 minutes of reading per weekend day (the most for any group) and 21 minutes playing games or using a computer for leisure. 

Conversely, individuals ages 15 to 19 read for an average of 7 minutes per weekend day while spending 1.2 hours playing games or using a computer for leisure.

What is your family reading?

Give A Dr. Seuss-Approved Gift: A Library Card

If you are giving gifts this holiday season, consider one of the most valuable (and often free) gifts one can possibly give - a Public Library card.

A library card is the perfect gift for all ages. Introduce someone you know to the magic of libraries, and the magic of books and life-long learning.

You will be making sure they have unlimited access to reading, knowing, learning, and growing.

Author Penelope Rowlands shares her thoughts on the importance of libraries, librarians, and books.

"Like every author I know, I became a writer through reading. I spent my childhood supine — on the floor of my room or under a tree in country summers — endlessly absorbed by words on a page. I think it's safe to say that I wouldn't have become a writer without free access to a library, whether at school or in the neighborhood. To enter one was to arrive at a feast. I hauled bags of books home in triumph. To this day, I patronize — and treasure — my local library. I think of it as a sanctuary, a respite from isolation, and I value the easy access to librarians, with all their perspective and advice."

Give the gift of libraries, books, and reading to someone you love. Oh, the places they will go.