Is Materialism Instinctive?

"Me Grog. Me big caveman - need storage cave for all my extra stuff."

Is a focus on materialism an instinctive behaviour? Is it human nature? Are we predisposed to want to accumulate things? 

Materialism researchers James Burroughs and Aric Rindfleisch think they have it figured out. I have my doubts.

"Telling people to be less materialistic", they say, "is like telling people that they shouldn’t enjoy sex or eat fatty foods. People can learn to control their impulses, but this does not remove the underlying desires."

Sex and eating fatty foods are survival strategies for humans since early times. But until recently, accumulating things as a human would be a very bad idea running counter to effective survival strategies. 

We are the most adaptable and mobile species on Earth. In order to do this, we have, for hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, had to travel light. As nomadic people, extra accumulation of stuff would not be an evolutionary advantage.

If the researchers are right, where is the evidence of acquisitiveness in the archaeological record? Did cave dwelling humans have off-site storage caves to store all their extra pointy sticks, and rocks and stuff? 

If so, where are they? Where are Grog's Super Self-Storage Caves?

People don't really want 10 tons of crap. Or the storage caves or lockers to put it all in. They want to be loved, to be content, to be part of a vibrant community of supportive compassionate citizens. 

Those are the real underlying desires, and we have been told that the accumulation of stuff will bring us all of that through the completely artificial construct of consumerism.

Survival is instinctive. Materialism is a learned behaviour, and one that now runs contrary to our survival. Even a cave dweller could see that.

If the love of things is learned, it can be unlearned. That is what this blog is all about - unlearning the destructive consumeristic behaviours we have been inculcated with by a sick system that does not care one whit about our survival. Or the survival of the planet.

The Zen Road To Affluence

Affluence can be easy when wants are limited.

There are two possible courses to affluence. Wants may be easily satisfied either by producing much, or desiring little. For most of human history we have achieved affluence not by producing much, but by following a different more sustainable and effective method.

The Zen road to affluence states that human material wants are finite and few, while the means for satisfying those needs is relatively unchanging, but on the whole work well.

By adopting the Zen strategy one can enjoy an unparalleled material plenty - even with a low standard of living. Hunter-gatherer societies, past and present, have provided relative affluence while expending the least amount of energy per capita of any human society. How do they do it? By limiting their wants.

This is a far cry from our present system that sees human wants as infinite, and therefore difficult to provide for. In such a system we have to work harder and longer to produce more, all the while consuming ever more energy to do so.

In the Zen approach there is enough for everyone, and cooperation is possible. Our current system is based on infinite wants, and therefore introduces the idea of scarcity - there will never be enough to fulfill everyone's desire. Therefore you must compete for the available resources to satisfy wants, resulting in huge disparities.

I favour the hunter-gatherer/Zen approach. I would rather limit my wants and have a life than slave away endlessly to provide for my unlimited material desires. When wants are few, attainment is easy. When wants are many, attainment is difficult with frustration and unhappiness being the probable results.

The Zen way is a path that leads to liking what you get, not getting what you like. It is about acceptance of a simple life with few possessions rather than wanting what you think you deserve, or what you think everyone else has.

Philosopher Laurens van der Post illustrated these points when describing the Bushmen of the Kalahari:

"This matter of presents gave us many an anxious moment. We were humiliated by the realisation of how little there was we could give to the Bushmen. Almost everything seemed likely to make life more difficult for them by adding to the litter and weight of their daily round. 

They themselves had practically no possessions: a loin strap, a skin blanket and a leather satchel. There was nothing that they could not assemble in one minute, wrap up in their blankets and carry on their shoulders for a journey of a thousand miles. They had no sense of possession." 

"Imagine a world", John Lennon implored us, "with no possessions." He wondered if we could even think of it, let alone make it happen. He probably knew that we all used to live in such a way, and if this history hadn't been destroyed, we would remember exactly where we came from, and to where we need to return.

I'm back on the Zen road to affluence. Check your wants at the door, and climb aboard. There is room for everyone.

The Karma Brokers Camping In Walmart Parking Lots

"The nomadic life is an opportunity to do what I want to do and not have to worry about all the bills and worry about what's happening next." - Sophia

While Linda and I haven't stayed in any Walmart parking lots so far on our trip, I recently saw an interesting article about camping (or living) at Walmart. The piece was about a photographer that visited two separate lots in Flagstaff, Arizona to document the diversity of people staying there, and the community that they have built on the yellow-lined pavement.

The photo above is of a nomadic group of youthful musicians on a temporary stay in one of the Flagstaff lots. They were traveling from Prescott, AZ, to Montana. Each of them plays at least one instrument, and they fund their travels by €œperforming on street corners.

I can relate to Sophie who had this to say about her experience living on the road with her band mates and Kerouac the dog:

"The nomadic life is an opportunity to do what I want to do and not have to worry about all the bills and worry about what's happening next."

Another older parking lot resident sold his house to live full time in an RV. He considers his mobile lifestyle to be responsible for what he calls "the best years of my life".

The photographer that initiated this interesting project concluded that there was a feeling of community among the lot's residents. Reflecting this community, Liz, a woman living in a van with her boyfriend says,

"You meet a lot of good people who like to help out, so when people do that €œit'€™s like you're a karma broker. You give people an opportunity to give good karma back."

See Meet the American Nomads of Walmart’s Plentiful Parking Lots here. 

Tiny Home vs Van

One evening while traveling we pulled into a tiny town. The local mall happened to have a tiny home on display in the parking lot. Feeling a kinship between this diminutive domicile and our own Lilliputian lair, we nestled in next to it for the night.

The next morning I had a sunrise walkabout in the parking lot and gopher field next door. I couldn't help but notice that the tiny home and our van were very similar. The tiny trailer home had some information posted in the window making a comparison possible.

The tiny home was 7 feet by 14 feet. Our van is 6.6 ft by 17.6 ft.

Our van is a bit longer than a standard tiny home, almost as wide, and not quite as tall.

The tiny home has a small porch in front which is about big enough to store one bicycle. Our van's wheelchair lift can be used as a porch for one to sit on, and the back rack has room for three bicycles.

Our van  is well constructed, and so was the tiny home. Inside though, the van wins hands down. The little house on wheels had a front room, a back room with two bunks, and a sleeping loft. It was nice, but that was all that was inside.

Our van on the other hand is completely self-sufficient. We have a bed, a single burner camp stove, 25 litres of water, a wash basin (actually it's an oven roaster doing double duty until we get to our destination), a cooler for food requiring refrigeration, and last but certainly not least, a commode.

We also have a "loft" over the bed area that acts as a large storage space. 2 small kids could sleep up there comfortably.

In the end they are similar, but right now I prefer the van.

The tiny home information did say that a photovoltaic system was included, which is something that Linda and I do not yet have. While we can live without electricity, having a no-emissions method of producing power would make things a bit more comfortable and convenient.

Bottom line on the tiny home was $18,000, and you would still need a vehicle to tow it to its destination. Our van cost us $8500 ($5500 plus our old truck), and it moves on down the highway just fine on its own. With the extra $10,000 dollars we could live the nomadic life for a long time.

That's it - for me, the van wins.

Moving On With Less

Notice: This van stops for spontaneous jams and sing-a-longs.

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

- Jack Kerouac

After almost a decade of living a beautiful, quiet and contented lifestyle on the ocean, it is quite a change to find ourselves following that endless white line and living a nomadic lifestyle. Fulfilling a lifelong goal, we are now living out of our van with everything we own in the world.

Unlike any other time we have done something like this, on this round we have no other stuff anywhere. There is no additional crap lurking in a basement, or attic, or storage locker. No one is holding anything for us. What you see is what you get.

This is everything. Just what we need to travel, to eat, to sleep, to live. No more.

While we were living simply in our beach side home on the Pacific, we always wondered if we could take things further. We could, and we did, and almost a month later, reality is setting in.

Now that we have passed the "what the hell are we doing?" phase, and the "we are going to die out here" phase, we have begun to settle into the hypnotic rhythm of the road. We are charmed by the beauty, the simplicity, and the vitality of living this simple, stripped down unconventional life.

All our old routines and habits have been thoroughly dashed upon the hot highway of life where new challenges and thrills are a constant occurrence. And to support us, just enough stuff to get the job done.

Like Jack Kerouac, we want to spend our time being mad for living. We want to honour the free thinkers, visionaries, philosophers, rebels, and all those with an insatiable wanderlust and perpetual love for adventure and the unknown.

Freed of the trivialities of a settled life, now more than ever we have the time and space to question life, and our own existence. To feed not the "why?", but the "why not?".

For example, why not stop the van at any moment and have a spontaneous jam?

See you on the road.

No More Walls

“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. 

I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. 

Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”

- Anais Nin

Living Simply - Nomads

The Bedouin are stateless nomadic desert dwelling herders.

If modern life is all it's cracked up to be, how come there are still millions of people choosing to live nomadic lifestyles? There are up to 80 million nomads in India alone, and tens of millions more in the rest of the world.

Up until 10,000 years ago, all humans were nomads, roaming the wilderness and living off its abundance. Many people around the world are still living a nomadic existence, whether it is the millions of current traditionalists, or more modern versions of life on the road.

When Linda and I met it was a chance encounter of two wandering souls, and we recognized that fact at first glance. Our first 5 dates all involved traveling and camping, and our wanderlust continues unabated to this day.

Whether it is a voyage around the neighbourhood, or a walk around the world, we are perpetually curious about what is up ahead, and around the corner.

30% of Mongolia's 30 million people are nomadic

10 years ago we went nomadic for a full year. We had sublet our coop unit for the year, so had essentially made ourselves homeless. There is something about not knowing where you are going to sleep at night that adds a whole new urgency and excitement to life.

In the course of the next year we logged some 10,000 km (6,000 miles) driving and commando camping in the back of our small pick up as we travelled from the Pacific to the Atlantic in Canada.

We travelled a further 30,000 km (18,000 miles) by plane, bus, horse drawn cart, train, boat, scooter, foot and ferry as we zigzagged our way to the other side of the planet, then back again.

While overseas we each carried a mid-sized backpack, and over the course of 7 months their meagre contents were all we needed. We washed our clothes in sinks, and bathed out of buckets of steamy hot water. We lived on bread, cheese, cheap wine and whatever the locals were eating. Fortifying stuff for people on the move.

Gokarna, India

We usually spent one or two nights in a location, then moved on. It was all pretty organic - when it felt like time to move, we would go, and when it felt good to stay, we would linger.

The longest we stayed in one place (4 weeks) was in India where we temporarily settled in Gokarna, a small temple town on the Arabian Sea.

While nomadic we were as disconnected as we could get, and the lightness and freedom of movement was exhilarating. It was a constant source of satisfaction that we lived as well as we did with the minimal possessions we carried with us.

I remember thinking, "If I can live for months on end with the things I have in my pack, do I really need all that stuff in storage back home?" We came to realizations during our year on the road that would forever change the way we viewed our lives.

We could see that there is a good reason that so many people spurn modern life and voluntarily choose to live traditionally simple lives on the road. It is a light and unfettered existence, and it is more sustainable than sedentary, high-consumption lifestyles.

40% of ethnic Tibetans are nomadic

You can get a taste of the nomadic lifestyle wherever you are by jettisoning the unnecessary baggage and keeping things light.

It is not so much about being on the move as it is knowing that your life is so unburdened that you could be on the move in a moments notice if the mood struck. To me, that feels like freedom.

Nomadic Rules For Living Simply

• keep possessions to a minimum
• walking is the best way to get around
• relationships are important, things are not
• what your shelter looks like is not as important as whether it is light enough to carry, and keeps you warm and dry
• self-reliance is more secure than dependence
• enjoy the view, and go with the flow
• be creative, use your hands
• be finely tuned to the cycles of nature
• be in charge of your food supply
• use music to bring people together - dance, sing!
• always offer assistance to fellow travelers