A Certain Isolation

I like being at home, and it has always been that way. It makes it very handy now that I am a full time caregiver.

It always amazes me that people spend insane amounts of money on a house, then work hard to get away from it. From going out to to going shopping to going on vacation, there is always going, going, going, and not so much staying, relaxing and enjoying.

I guess go is the thing to do, and I am part of a minority of people that sees the beauty in maintaining and enjoying a home-based lifestyle. Contrary to popular belief, reducing the amount of going and increasing the amount of staying has benefits.

Sticking close to home certainly saves money, since just about any going out will require spending money. But saving money is not the most important benefit.

The biggest payoff of pulling back from the speed of a fully plugged in modern lifestyle is what it can do for your spirit. Philosopher and social critic Søren Kierkegaard wrote about the individual vs. the crowd, why we conform, and the power of the minority.

"One can very well eat lettuce before its heart has been formed; still, the delicate crispness of the heart and its lovely frizz are something altogether different from the leaves. It is the same in the world of the spirit.  

Being too busy has this result: that an individual very, very rarely is permitted to form a heart; on the other hand, the thinker, the poet, or the religious personality who actually has formed his heart, will never be popular, not because they are difficult, but because they demand quiet and prolonged working with oneself and intimate knowledge of oneself, as well as a certain isolation." 

Things like Black Friday don't motivate Linda and I to leave our home. But that doesn't mean we live in total isolation all the time. We have wonderful neighbours close by, and we enjoy our infrequent trips into town to conduct business.

We live in an interconnected universe, so it is impossible do anything in complete isolation. What we do at home, and in our heads, has far-reaching effects. A butterfly flapping its wings affects the weather on the other side of the globe - imagine what our minds can do.

Christopher Alexander is an unconventional architect who has started a movement to help regular people reclaim control over their built environments. What he has to say about creating beautiful buildings that improve life can be related to building a beautiful home life.

"This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole; and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it."

There is nothing inherently wrong with going out. We are social creatures. But perhaps a certain isolation would help restore some balance. Slowing down and enjoying a full, uninterrupted home life can save money and make life more meaningful.

When we make our homes and our selves more coherent and whole, we take our place in nature and improve the world at the same time.

Zero Emission Vehicle

Strictly speaking all modes of travel have an emission footprint, including walking and cycling. Moving from place to place always has its costs, although some methods of travel have a smaller impact than others.

Therefore, one of the best ways to reduce your transportation emissions is to travel less. In some cases that is hard to do since we tend to be travel obsessed in rich nations. We like to think that humans have always been travel obsessed, always wanting to see what is over the hill and around the bend.

But not all cultures across history have been this way, with some occupying the same general area over hundreds and hundreds of years without ever succumbing to Itchy Foot or Grass is Greener syndromes. Generations of people who happened to like where they were.

Even today there must be billions and billions of people that are born, live, and die without getting more than a few kilometres from home. I imagine a great deal of them are alright with that situation.

10 Ways To Tell You Might Be Living Simply

Is a bike your main vehicle? You might be living simply.

There are as many ways to practice simplicity as there are people. Everyone can engage in simplicity, but how do you know when you are doing it? 

Here are 10 ways to tell you might be living simply:

1. You get 8 or more hours of sleep every night, and don't wake to an alarm.
2. You know your neighbours.
3. You life is so low-stress you don't need to take vacations.
4. You have the time to do the things most important to you.
5. You have clothes with holes in them.
6. Your home has wheels.
7. Your guests have to bring their own plate, cup and cutlery when they come over for a meal (maybe a chair, too).
8. You have more space than stuff.
9. You work to live, rather than live to work.
10. You have a front yard vegetable garden instead of a lawn.

How do YOU tell when you are living simply?

Stay Home

This wall of snow separates our house from our compost bin.
Doesn't everyone want to stay home on a day like today? 

The winter storm over the past few days has been so severe that the police are asking everyone to "stay home". I think that is excellent advise during winter storms... or pretty much any other time.

I am always surprised at how people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) on a house and then spend all their time "going out" or on vacation somewhere else. If I paid that much for a house I would never leave it.

Luckily we have a reasonable rent, so I can leave any time I want. But I don't usually want to. Especially on days like today. It is a good time to sit by the fire and read. Or to crank up the oven and bake some bread.

Or have a coffee and talk with a friend. Listen to music. Play music. Play in the yard. Plan a garden. Or a revolution.

Your home should be such a wonderful place that it is better to be there than just about anywhere else. Don't stay home just because the police ask you to - stay home because it is your ultimate sanctuary.

Stay Where You Are

Nothing can lower your carbon footprint as much as staying where you are.

I hear a lot of people saying that someone should do something about global warming. I don't hear a lot of people saying that they are voluntarily eliminating non-essential travel.

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to stop participating in the creation of that problem, but that seems to be a novel concept for those who selfishly continue climate-harming behaviours while crossing exotic destinations off their 'bucket list'.

A small minority of voluntary staycationers are starting to speak out. There have been people polled in Europe that go so far as to suggest that taking a flying holiday is immoral and should be stopped altogether. It may sound extreme, but the problem we face is extreme.

Tourism is one of the world's largest and fastest growing industries, and it has a huge, rapidly growing carbon footprint that must be addressed before permanent damage is done to our planet's vital systems.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and environmental groups have singled out air travel as accounting for 60% of tourism greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, tens of thousands of commercial jet planes generate more than 600 million tones of CO2 per year. These numbers are projected to increase in the coming years, raising questions about what we are really doing.

Why are so many people flying more often and farther than ever before to do pretty much the same things they do while at home? Can the travel and tourism sector be considered a beneficial activity? Is the promise of zero impact Eco-tourism even possible, or is it all industry greenwashing to protect profits?

A 2007 paper titled Tourism Feels The Heat Of Global Warming concluded, "If the goal is to effectively decrease greenhouse gas emissions in the travel and tourism sector, there seems to be no way around curbing the growth of the industry." In other words, we will just have to stay home more often.

Today one of the most radical things you can do is be happily content to stay where you are. It may also be one of the most beneficial things you can do for others and the planet.

Stay Home - Save The World

The original staycation

Activist Gary Snyder once gave the shortest answer ever when asked what people should do to save the environment: "Stay home." This solution fits with NBA's philosophy - stay close to home, consume no more than our fair share, and learn to survive and flourish in the local ecosystem.

Snyder's brand of environmental activism is based on "reinhabitation" and "wild mind".

Reinhabitation deals with committing to life in a specific place, and growing to understand oneself as a part of a community with local plant and animal life. Wild mind for Snyder means "elegantly self-disciplined and self-regulating." Nature takes care of itself, and so should we be taking care of ourselves. So far we haven't been.

Citizens of rich countries will have to become self-disciplined and self-regulated so that the rest of the world does not need to suffer the results of our high consumption habits. If we only took our fair share of the world's resources many of the problems experienced by less affluent nations would disappear.

If we limited our use of oil, for example, things would automatically improve in a nation like Nigeria, a place that has been greatly affected by Shell Oil drilling.

One part is easy. Stay close to home, just like we used to before, and will again some day, even if a small group does manage to escape to start over and plunder another planet somewhere. The harder part will be learning to control ourselves.

Funemployed

Ever wished for the simple life? Like when you were a kid, or a student. A life that has time to do the things you want to do? During the current economic bowel movement some people are getting their wish, having been pooped out by an ailing system. But they are turning poop into fertilizer.

For the funemployed the pleasures of a simpler life are apparent. They are re-branding their joblessness. They are taking advantage of being unemployed, which has never had much cachet in our work and money-obsessed culture. Instead of moping about and feeling like losers, they are seeing the value in being time-rich. They are doing what they want, not what their parents, or society wants them to do. They are going against their cultural programming that says it is better to have more money than more time.

We did not invent "labour-saving devices" and increase personal wealth so we could have less time than ever before to do what matters most to us. Many couples are convinced that double incomes are the only way parents can support a family. What happened to all the leisure time advertisers have been promising since I was a kid? Even with automatic everything we are more time stressed than ever.

Time will get you money, but money can't get you time. When you are on your deathbed taking your last breath, you can not, regardless of how much money you have, buy more time. Best you take advantage of the time allotted you while you can. Instead of fretting and worrying about being jobless, think about the free time you have had thrust upon you. Once a boss fired me by saying, "I am going to give you a wonderful opportunity to do something else, because as of today you no longer work here." I saw it as an opportunity, too. It was my first brush with funemployment.

A person could spend a great deal of time combing help wanted ads and pounding the pavement, resumes in hand, but I don't recommend that. See your freedom as a gift and you may never want to go back to the usual regime of work, sleep, repeat. A lighter life requires less money, less work, and allows you more time.

A job for most of us working stiffs is about money, nothing more, and there is nothing attractive about poverty. But let's face it, many of us in high-consuming nations could give up a whole lot before we got anywhere close to poverty levels. The more material things we give up, the less money we need. You are free to work part time, or casual, or on contract. Or be funderemployed.

Funderemployed is when you take a lower paying job because it really interests you, even though you may be overqualified. Some examples in my own life are river rafting with school groups, tour guide of a waste water treatment plant, and chauffeur. All paid less than I was used to, but all had either a more flexible schedule, a more scenic workspace, or interesting people I would not meet otherwise. Each job provided experiences I would not have had if I had stuck to a more profitable though less interesting line of work. Mostly though, I had increased control over my time.

What would you do if you had more time? Go fishing. Take the kids to the park. Plant a garden. Sit under a tree. Draw. Sing. Learn to play an instrument. Visit a friend. Picnic with your partner. Have a nap. Read a book. Lay on a beach. Walk a labyrinth. Ride a bike on a trail. Stay up late. Stargaze. Sleep in. Help a neighbour. Volunteer at your kids school. Take a trip. Go for a walk. Bake bread. Plan a staycation. Get an interesting part-time job.

The funemployed know a good thing when they see it. The idea of more work , more money, and more stuff, past a certain point, falls prey to the law of diminishing returns. After that point more becomes detrimental to you and your surroundings. What most of us need is more time. And you can't buy that. You just have to take it.