The Chinese Lie Flat Movement

Capitalist consumer culture is taking its toll on workers around the world. 

Take China and its 996 work ethic. 9 am to 9 pm six days a week. 

That is what it takes for young people to get ahead in the competitive economy of a country looking to be number one. 

Fed up Chinese workers choose to do what is called "lie flat" instead, doing more like a 933, and living in a simple way that has become both a social protest movement and a lifestyle. 

An unrepentant, unambitious Luo Huazhong started it in 2021 with a post on social media. 

In it he spoke of his low-key, minimalist lifestyle. It struck a chord with a generation that is chronically overworked and still struggling to afford marriage or buy a house.

He called it Tang Ping, or Lie Flat – a lifestyle choice where one rejects the societal pressures to buckle down and do the hard work required by climbing the career ladder, and acquiring the trappings of a middle class life.

In response to the pressure and diminishing returns, Luo chose to lower his expectations, and become indifferent to normal aspirational desires. 

He took the red pill, and didn't look back. 

At 26 he quit his factory job - it made him feel empty. Then he moved to a small town, spending his time reading philosophy, and surviving by doing odd jobs. 

He makes around US$60 a month, and eats two meals a day. But now he actually has a life that he likes.

Lying flat has been described by supporters as "a harmless choice to strive for nothing more than what is essential

for survival". 

"Of course, I know that if I were to join a corporate design firm, I would very likely make more money and be able to afford more tasty food and better accommodation. But I would only sleep three hours a day and have no time to enjoy life. Now my simple bowls of noodles taste good and my bed is soft enough. I see no reason to try harder." - Li

But the Chinese choosing to lie flat are taking flack from the mainstream just like anyone does that doesn't buy into the capitalist consumer model.

The government and the bosses do not approve, of course. 

"What are you - lazy?" 

"It's shameful", they say.

But what can they do?

You can't march freedom-loving citizens at gunpoint into the factory churning out worker/consumer drones.

That is the beauty of this movement. 

Nothing works without the workers of the world. If we withdraw our services, everything goes caput. 

The power is ours. We do not have to comply. They need us, we don't need them.

If you live in a society that punishes active resistance, and we all do now, then passive resistance is the tactic of choice.

Tang ping ups the ante and elevates the general strike to a lifestyle. 

People everywhere want less grunt work and exploitation, less stuff even, and a more blissful, rewarding, authentic life. 

They don't want to sacrifice their best years to support an increasingly losing venture regardless of how hard you work.

Tang ping is a cat on a leash falling down and refusing to move - there is not much that anyone can do about it. You can take it for a walk if you like, but you will have to drag that cat down the sidewalk.

Thing is, the cat isn't going to do anything until you release it from its bondage. Everything just wants to be free, and if you can't provide that, we will find a way of providing it for ourselves, regardless of where we live, and what our nationality is.

The Not Buying Anything blog approves of this movement. In fact, we are in full supine support of our Chinese simple living brothers and sisters. 

In solidarity, I lie flat. Let us exit the matrix together.

"I 'lie flat' because this is the way my life is meant to be. If people think I'm a loser, then so be it." - Zhang

Less Work Monday

Many people choose simple living because it enables them to work less, and isn't working less a goal for most of us?

For Linda and I one of the main benefits of our simple lifestyle is that it enables us to have the freedom for me to be Linda's full time caregiver (she has MS). I can't think of a better way for me to expend my energy than intimately caring for the person I love the most.

And yet a lot of people are still uncomfortable with me 'not working' or not having a "job". I guess this is because we have been brainwashed to believe that if you are not getting paid, you are not really doing anything of value (which means adding to the GDP).

It is telling that international human rights law does not recognize the refusal of work, or right not to work by itself, except the right to strike. Since there are few alternatives to conventional 'work' one is more or less forced to submit to wage slavery. It's 'get a job' or die.

I tend to resist things when I am told that I don't have any other choice. I don't want a 'job'. I have a job, and it's called life. That keeps me busy enough, thank you very much.

Work sucks. If it didn't, lottery tickets, ponzi schemes, retirement, and being in management wouldn't be so popular.

Maintaining a simple life gives one freedom from work. Spend less = work less = live more.

Put The Brakes On And Stop

In my past rushed life I enjoyed how productive I was... to a point. Sure I got a lot done, and perhaps was paid well for doing it, but it was quickly sucking the life out of my life. I had less and less time to do the things I wanted to do. Since then life has slowed down rather dramatically. But even the slow life is too fast at times. Occasionally, we need to stop.

North America, so driven to prove something to the rest of the world, has no culture of stopping (or even slowing down). No siesta, no mid-day cafe conversations stretching into evening, no joyous lolly-gagging. Loafing is generally seen as a sin, regardless of how regenerating its benefits may be.

The over-used phrase about time being money trains us to be active at all times. To burn the candle at both ends. If you get tired, well, there is a pill for that. Or wait a few months till your next vacation. Do NOT slow down. And if you stop you may get run over. But we do need to stop.

I remember a camping trip to an October Fest celebration during which I and my friends were all going hard. After lots of beer, sausage, and dancing, we returned to our camp site and continued partying. Early in the morning a woman emerged from the tent next door in her housecoat. As she approached our campfire she screamed, "When do you people stop?" The poor woman was near hysterical, and we couldn't really blame her.

We all paused quietly, looking at each other and shrugging our shoulders. Finally, one of our group looked at the sleepy, angry woman and said, "I am afraid, ma'am, that we don't stop". Now when I think of that I chuckle and figure it is pretty accurate for our whole culture.

When do we stop? I am afraid that we don't. And we pay the price. But this is not the natural state of being human. This is far from the ebb and flow of life that all humans experienced until industrialization and money came to rule our days.

We should take lessons from other cultures that still enjoy a reasonable pace of life. We have something to learn from those who stop for the siesta. We have something to learn from our pets. Why not take a chapter from simpler living, slower living, people and creatures? Wouldn't you like to curl up in a sunbeam and nap for a few hours?

Buddhists believe that there are three doors of liberation: Emptiness, Signlessness and Aimlessness.

"Aimlessness basically means that there is nothing to attain, nothing to strive for, nothing that we are compelled to do. This enables us to be happy in the present moment, to live, to do the experiencing of life." - Source

This is what freedom is. This is what slowing down, and yes, stopping does for us - it liberates us from the destructive ways our pro-activity culture cajoles us into. Aimlessness allows us to be spontaneous and truly engaged in life now. It unleashes creativity and positive energy. It gives us time to just be.

Take some time this week to slow down, and to stop. Take a moment to do nothing. Or to stop and really experience something, like a thousand tide pool creatures in a pool on the rocks. Or stop and practice active listening when someone speaks to you. Nap in a sunbeam. Swing in a hammock. Look at clouds.

Take up Slackerism for a moment and say, "No" to The Man... or Woman. Stop and be free.

My Mom Would Think You're Lazy

Anyone seriously considering downsizing, or living with less, is going to be up against formidable opposition. Courage, perseverance, and a tough leathery hide are required to venture into the Simple Zone. When troubled times call for us to go shopping in order to do our part, not doing so is risking being unpatriotic. Being seen as a penny-pinching tight-wad pales in comparison.

When I first decided that I wanted to delve deeper into simple living, some thought I was making a colossal mistake, or worse. I could have stayed in my teaching position until I was 65, rather than retire at age 40.

Thing is, over the course of my career I heard of many colleagues that passed away shortly before, or just after retiring. All that financial planning is rendered ineffective if you die before the first pension check hits your mailbox. I had to change my life before it happened to me.

I took a two year sabbatical first, wanting to ease into a life with less. After the freedom of these two years I couldn't go back. I quit.

"If you don't teach what will you do?" I was asked. My mind was reeling thinking of the infinite possibilities. Don't get me wrong, teaching was one of the most incredible and satisfying things I have ever done. But it has a way of consuming your time; it takes over your life, becomes your life. It is 'right livelihood' but at what cost?

Someone else asked, "What about retirement?" Since I try to live in the moment, considering this was not at the top of my list. Sixty-five felt like a long way away, and I wanted to retire to a simpler life immediately.

My favorite reaction, though, came from two individuals I didn't even know. I explained to these friends of friends, that I had quit teaching to live a slower-paced, environmentally responsible, low-income life.

The young couple were silent as they shook their heads in response to my words. Finally the woman looked at me, and proclaimed, "My mom would think you are lazy."

Ouch. Move over Big Brother, Big Mother is here.

Call me a slacker, call me a hippie, a radical even, but don't tell me your Mom thinks I'm lazy. That's just mean. I guess what she was saying was she thought that my work ethic sucked.

This is what 20th-century French philosopher André Gorz wrote about the work ethic:

The work ethic has become obsolete. It is no longer true that producing more means working more, or that producing more will lead to a better way of life. 

The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet-unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. 

This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact. Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be.

- Critique of Economic Reason, 1989

Go tell your momma that.

We have to become smarter about work and consumption and quality of life. We have to lift our foot off the gas pedal as we speed toward the precipice. If that means affecting the 72% of the economy that consumer spending accounts for, then so be it.

It has to happen or we are going over the cliff. I do not intend to do a Thelma and Louise thing. I am getting out of the car before it takes the plunge, even if your mom thinks I'm lazy, and wants to see me disappear over the horizon.

Oh, and by the way? Your mom is wrong.