Beyond Control, Toward Freedom

Like the anarchist author Jean Weir, I "experienced society like an iron vice from the day I was born." That is the main reason I find living simply so attractive - it loosens the grip of that iron vice.

Since I was young I felt the control and exploitation that I was swimming in constantly. I thought it might drown me.

Because I was born a sensitive, I keenly felt the stings of an obviously unjust and hypocritical system. It was everywhere - in the "father knows best" family structure, at school, the mall, in the playground and on the streets.

I wondered, and still do, why so few could see it. Can fish perceive the water they swim in? Maybe that is the problem.

My desire has always been to be beyond sneaky methods of control used by parents, teachers, bosses, priests and society. That is why I developed a powerful connection to nature and wild places, and honoured my desire to be far, far away from the centres of civilizational control as often as I could.

I wanted to be away from the set of laws that seek to control everyone except the rich and powerful, who are free to do as they please. 

I wanted to leave consumerism, its garish billboards and screaming advertisements, in the dust behind me. These are the rankest forms of control of all, being subtle and based on the best neuropsychology money can buy (over 1 trillion dollars a year now). 

A saner world would see them for the mind control that they are, and resist them at every turn.

The consumer lifestyle lulls us into creating our own gilded cages, then willingly walking into them. The authorities don't even have to monitor us after our initial training, because when we leave our cells to work for our keepers, we go right back to them at night.

The average person prefers the cage to the perceive dangers and discomforts of more natural surroundings. Things, they say, are not convenient in nature. Therefore, it is bad, and must be controlled, destroyed and plundered.

This shows the level of control has been complete and total. When you can successfully tear people from the land you create displaced zombies, ripe for exploitation and prone to suggestion.

So, at an early age I decided I would not work for this sick system if that was ever possible. I had no wish to aid them in their exploitations and predations. I would rather be poor and free than complicit.

I would go on to disassociate myself from the consumer lifestyle as much, and as soon, as I could. A life of buying less would allow me to work less. Working less would allow me to live more freely. 

Time, I thought, is the most valuable resource, and I didn't want to spend all mine working for the man. Or woman.

Living simply is not so much about saving the world for me, although that would be a nice fringe benefit. It is about getting out of that iron vice of society. 

It is about building a real and lasting freedom for myself, and for everyone else.

MLK and Shifting From A Thing-Oriented Society

How important is it that we overcome our addiction to consumerism? MLK highlighted the urgency well in his April, 1967 speech. 

"We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It would be a different world today if this gifted man was not shot down. Even so, we can all honour his life, and protest his murder, by listening to the wisdom he shared, and implement his transformative ideas in our own lives.

They may have killed the messenger, but they can not kill his message that is being carried by millions. All of us misfits and rebels agree - our "thing oriented" society must change if we are to improve ourselves and the world.

Tiniest Homes

Shoebox apartment in Hong Kong.

In North America, some say that anything less than about 1500 square feet is a tiny home. It's all relative.

In other places, even our tiniest homes look like mini-mansions. 400 sq ft? Luxury. 200? Room to spare.

The tiniest homes I have ever seen are in Hong Kong. Overall, the average living space per person there is 50 square feet, which would still be large compared to the smallest "homes" one can find there.

These tiniest homes are also called shoebox homes, cage homes, bed space apartments, or coffin cubicles. They are a "type of residence that is only large enough for one bunk bed surrounded by a metal cage". 


The tiniest are 20 square feet, and the worst are actual metal cages.

Coffin cubicles often have a communal bathroom and kitchen.
These dwellings are hot, stuffy, and cramped.

But its not just in Hong Kong. Anywhere where income inequality is greatest one will find all kinds of inadequate housing for the working poor.

In Banff, Alberta, Canada, the housing situation is so tight that workers there have been known to pay large sums to rent closets. No doubt these are the smallest, most expensive dwellings in the country. 

Coffin homes in Canada. 

The only way to get even tinier would be to have vertical "tube homes" where one jumps in and sleeps standing up. They could be marketed as square foot living, or "hive homes". 

Fun Fact: You could fit hundreds of thousands of hive homes in the world's largest private residence.

Justifying Overconsumption

Overconsumption hurts everyone. It can not be justified.

Getting people to buy stuff they don't need is very profitable. Therefore, hundreds of billions of dollars is spent every year to get us to want things we don't need. Needs are altered by this well funded marketing machine, and over time we come to need some of the things we didn't used to need.

In order to keep the whole con going, wants must become needs. Consequently, consumer culture comes up with all kinds of ready made excuses for our high consumption buying habits.

We are enabled by insidious advertising slogans. Remember "Shop till you Drop"? Or "Whoever dies with the most toys wins"?

Wow, those are sounding pretty dumb in 2018.

So how do we live with ourselves when that voice deep inside gives us the reminder that to use more when less would suffice is a crime against the Earth and everything on it? We make excuses in order to perpetuate our ongoing denial.


Excuses, Excuses, Excuses


- “I deserve it.” No, you really don't. You deserve food, clothing, shelter, love, freedom, and opportunities to realize your true potential as a compassionate human being, and nothing else. No one deserves to take more than their fair share of the planet's resources.

- “I work hard.” As Marla commented here on Inter. Women's Day, "If working hard was the only factor, African women would be billionaires." Yup. So you work hard. Way to go.

- “I would die without it.”, or "I would rather die without it." No, you won't die without bacon. Or a car that goes 300km/hr. Or an exotic vacation. You might wish you were dead for a while, but you'll get over it. Really.

- "If I don't buy it, someone else will." Not necessarily. What if more and more people stop buying things they don't need? Manufacturers will stop making them. The Earth will smile.

- "I will look poor if I don't have lots of stuff." No. But you might look like a minimalist. Still, I would rather look poor than look selfish and out of touch with ecological reality.

- Who wouldn't want nice things?" The best nice things are not things that can be bought. If the nice things you have all come from stores, you might want to reassess your actual quality of life.

- "I can afford it." But our planet can not. Neither can the millions of people living in poverty. Or wildlife. Or our forests. Or oceans. You might be able to afford it, but We can't.


We should not be justifying our poor consumption habits this late in the game. Today, there are no innocents. Information is too easy to access, and we can all easily learn the facts surrounding how our excessive consumer habits are fuelling ecological crises around the planet.

There are no longer excuses, only lame excuses. Wealth does not change the fact, or amount, of your fair share of resources. To expect more, with this many people on the planet, is an unhealthy obsession fuelled by a dying culture of "more at any cost or consequence".

In 2018 one can no longer justify engaging in a lifestyle that needlessly wastes valuable resources in an orgy of overconsumption. We know it doesn't make us happier, so the logical solution would be to stop doing it.

As soon as possible.

For everyone's benefit, including your own.

Why Isn't There A Maximum Income?

22K Gold Toilet Paper - $1.3M a roll

There is a lot of talk about providing workers with a minimum income. You know, an income that a person can actually live on. But why isn't there any talk about a maximum income?

Because it would kill innovation and motivation? Wrong. Curious people with their integrity intact would continue on as if money didn't even exist. Science started with an attitude of inquiry and a desire to improve life. Not patents or profit.

People rarely use large profits for good. Money should be seen as a curse beyond a certain point. Too little is not good. Too much is even worse because invariably it will be used in ways not conducive to planetary health.

“Do the very rich suffer from maladjusted conditions that lead them to accumulate more than they could ever need, or are they just greedy and selfish?”    

- Ontario Coalition Against Poverty leaflet

Look at the evidence. The rich over consume to the point of ridiculosity. Does one really need gold plated anything?  The conspicuous consumption and greed of the money hoarders infects everything, leading to social strife and environmental degradation.

Therefore, why not a maximum income?

It would most definitely enable a minimum income for all workers and their families, and avoid the corrosive effects of income inequality, and the struggles of the working poor.

What would be fair at the top end of the wealth spectrum? 1 million/year? 1 Billion/year? A trillion?
How much would be enough?

Research shows that somewhere between $50,000 and $75,000 is the income sweet spot. Any less and life might be a struggle, any more and the extra fails to increase happiness.

That sounds about right, although from personal experience I know that one can get by on much less and be happy and content.

Love Your Life Monday

Art by Ricardo Chavez Mendez

“However mean your life is, meet and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.

Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its doors as early in the spring.

Cultivate property like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts…

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.”

- Henry David Thoreau

Lower Your Expectations

Could you be happy with less? Content with a reasonable amount of nutritious food, a warm, dry, secure place to dwell, a small set of clothes, and supportive relationships in your immediate community? Would a simple life be enough?

If developed nations could get a handle on their desires the world would be a better place. We do not need any technological solution to lower our expectations. It costs no money. It saves money and resources. Money and resources that other parts of the world sorely need.

Thousands of children die every day due to not having enough. A fairly recent historical development is that now we also have thousands of people that die as a result of having too much. Obesity, cardiovascular disease, and stress-related illnesses all plague our cushy lifestyles of excess.

A leading causes of teen death in Africa is pregnancy and childbirth. The leading cause of death for North American teens is traffic accidents, while drunk or otherwise. For these teens, suicide is a leading cause of death as well. When we wanted our kids to have better lives than we had, this is not what we had in mind.

Developed nations suffer from a corporate-induced sickness that causes us to always want more. To get more we are driven to move faster, and to make more sacrifices, personally and environmentally.

We want more square feet, more stainless steel, more cars, more toys, more trips to Mexico, more fast food, more clothes, more booze, more, more, more. But the only answer now is to want less. The "more" thing is dead, buried in its own massive pile of putrid refuse.

In my own life lowering my expectations has freed me. I am free to live life at a slow, peaceful pace. I am free to appreciate the simple things in my life. My mind is becoming free of the corporate world's agenda, along with their slick visuals and sound bites. In the wreckage of capitalism all of that has lost its lustre.

More is the buzzword of those who live in a world of infinite resources. Less is the lesson for those of us who don't.

Making do with less in developed nations will allow those in third-world nations to have enough. Today we are constantly told that the only way out of our troubles is to spend more. More credit, more stuff. Never do you hear about more debt, more work, more cardiovascular disease, more stress, more death by too much. Will life with less really wreck our economy?

If the only way to save our economy is by constant spending and growth, and the wrecking of all natural systems life depends on, than let us let it fail. The sooner the better. Let us put the nails in the coffin and inter this burdensome, deadly plague once and for all.

We will experience benefits in all ways as soon as we give up our endless desire and replace it with lowered material expectations. We live in a finite system, and should operate on that truth.

This may be the first generation in North America that would benefit from having less. Our children should not be condemned to die from having too much, just as children in the third world should not be condemned to die from a lack of basic human needs.

Free yourself, heal your planet, help your 4 billion brothers and sisters that struggle to meet basic needs.

Lower your expectations.