Basic or Simple Living as a Lifestyle Choice

[Shadowgirlau]

What is basic or simple living?

Duane Elgin, author of Voluntary Simplicity describes it as: Living in a way that is outwardly simple and inwardly rich.

Simple living to many of its adherents is an intelligent response to the realization that rampant materialism has not only failed to deliver its promise of greater happiness, but is an abject waste of your life, and also threatens the sustainability of the Earth and the possible collapse of modern civilization.

Basic or simple living is about the conscious pursuit of authentic happiness and finding true fulfilment in life. It allows us to escape the mindless consumption that keeps us shackled to the rat race, freeing up our lives and our time so that we can enjoy the really important things in life.
“Downshifting” to a more materially simple life allows us to exchange the stress, social injustice and ecological irresponsibility of consumerism for improved financial security, quality of life, personal sustainability and/or spirituality.
INDEED, THE ADVANTAGES OF VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY ARE MANY:

Happiness
As early as the fourth century BC, Greek philosopher Epicurus recognized that the troubles entailed in maintaining an extravagant lifestyle often outweigh the pleasure of partaking in it, leading him to conclude that the pursuit of consumption beyond that absolutely necessary for happiness, bodily comfort, and life itself should be either moderated or avoided. This truth has now been confirmed by scientific studies on happiness and wellbeing.
Personal freedom
Reducing our need for purchased goods and services frees many people to reduce debt to the point where they can minimize their participation in the economy, freeing up their time for more satisfying aspects of life. This allows us to live more with less.

Financial security
Limiting consumption to a personal level of material “enough” for sustaining our quality of life allows finances to be withdrawn from expensive debts and diverted to more prosperous investments.

Spirituality
Voluntary simplicity has been integral to the spiritual lifestyle for millennia, including Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian sects such as the Quakers and Amish. Sustainable living, while outwardly less materialistic, affords greater spirituality.

Global responsibility
Conspicuous consumption greatly inflates the impact we have on the planet, the ecological footprint of people in industrialized nations being many times that of the poorer majority of the world’s people. The immorality and irresponsibility of such inequity is a strong motivator for many advocates of the simple life who make a conscious choice to live simply so that others (people and species) may simply live.

HOW TO ACHIEVE BASIC OR SIMPLE LIVING
Enjoy Simple Living
LESS (stress, disorder, debt) is MORE (freedom, purpose, peace).
There are many ways to slash consumption and establish a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle that simultaneously lightens our impact on the planet.

- Well we are now at the end of the article.
I found it quite interesting and on so many levels I have found it to be – spot on. Living a more simple, back to basics type of lifestyle is very important to me, something that is dear to my heart and something i have been striving to do for the past 5 yrs at least.

So let’s hear what you all think about enjoying a simple lifestyle or should I say, living more simply? I was just talking to hubby about this very thing the other day when he was pointing out in a surprised manner, that we have an income equivalent to what he was earning before he retired (he was working part time and I was no longer working either so we were a one income family) and yet we are managing quite well in spite of the upheavals that have been hitting us of late. So lets have some thoughts on this if you dare?

Article as read at the Small Farm- Permaculture-and sustainable living.com site

[Mojojo]

Its a bit of a conundrum really.
A simple lifestyle where I don't have to buy much of anything is waht I want as well, where I earn my 'living' working on the land.
But then if you look at it closely, the very basic things I need to live that life, need the massive international industries that produce them.

While modern materialism/consumerism is definitely changing this planet beyond repair, in a pure sense its very very difficult to live entirely simply. The Amish do pretty god job of it. But even they have to make some allowances, eg axe heads and saws that are made from Iron ore mined in Australia, shipped to China, processed in a large factory, then shipped to America by another huge company, for example.

First you need land to live on and from. How much land? (as an aside, I did some calculations a while back that showed there is approximately 1.24 acres of arable land available in the world per person, and other - more detailed and by more qualified people - studies show the similar figures. Is this enough land?)
All well and good if you have inherited some land. But for most of us, it means we have to purchase it.
Which means we have to either have an income to secure a mortgage, be able to obtain an income from the land to pay for the mortgage, or have put away enough money from working for a portion of our lives to buy the land outright.

For the most part we need a job, at least for part of our lives, to do this. Most jobs are in someway connected to the massive materialistic/consumerist lifestyle! Not to mention how we travel to those jobs, or how we manage the money we earn from those jobs. Banking, retail, the oil and gas industry, mining in my case, are all involved. I am really struggling to think of one job that is not at least partly related to or dependant on the very thing we are trying to avoid here.

So I have a car. Having a car goes totally against the principle of living simply, if you think of all of the materials that went into making the car, and all of the things that are required to run a car... Petrol, oils, petrochemicals used to make tryes and rubber from plantations that are destroying natural forest and animal habitat in asia.

Although I love the romatic idea of driving a horse and cart to the nearest town for whatever supplies I need, in reality, this is not going to happen. Because of the massive centralisation and ease of transport, I couldn't actually get the things I needed in the local town, for example, fabric to make clothing. I would have to travel some 45 kms away, which is a very long way by horse!

Thats just the very tip of the iceberg... think of your computer, the internet, power... even if it is solar power the materials that are needed to produce the panels have massive industry behind them.

OK, the above points are looking at the simple life principle from an extremely pessimistic view, definitely. And I know that the point is to minimise this impact. Indeed its a very big part of what I want to do with the rest of my life. I've also been thinking about it a bit because we need approximately a five year transition period to get our property to a point where it is paying for itself, and indeed, we need people to buy our produce for it to do that at all.

Every little thing we have or use has been built by someone, somewhere, contributing to the problem. Even very simple living has an impact. Yes, we just need to minimise this impact, but it is nigh on impossible to eliminate it.

Mind you, I do tend to get caught up with the problem within the problem within the problem, and lose sight of the objective.

[Mojojo]

I think my point is, that even with the simplest of living by every single human, I don't think the ecological footprint of humans on the earth could be reduced to a point where we are not doing any further damage.

But its not going to stop me trying.

[Shadowgirlau]

Hi Jo,

You raise many pertinent points. Thank you for starting us off thinking about how we live more simply.

Living a more simple life is certainly not an easy objective to obtain as you have pointed out. We find ourselves very much so in the middle of a catch 22 situation as we attempt to do so.

While I am fortunate to have a few acres, a roof over my head and some tools to help me along the way, no debt and no mortgage either. Getting here has not been easy and yes has meant that I/we have had to live in a manner and do those things which do not really sit well when stacked up against our actual belief system that we try and live by ourselves.

Even though I believe that our ecological footprint in our family is way smaller than it was, I also have to acknowledge that it isn’t perfect either. We still use big industry somewhere along the way.

We are attempting to do as much for ourselves as possible and provide as much for ourselves as able to, so as not to be reliant on “big industry” realistically though I do believe that I will always have to use something that is processed at some time or another. It is just a fact of life as it is now. As pointed out, even the tools I use have been manufactured.

Thanks again for your valuable input.

Kathleen

[minnie]

Hi Jo and Kathleen,

It's sort of what I say when people say they strive to be totally self sufficient... they can't be, if they want to eat and live with things we have today. Even the first settlers had their tea, sugar and flour shipped out.

So while I want a more simple life and try hard not to cause too much damage, inevitably I do. But realising this, I too believe that every little bit helps and with some hideous things happening based on our consumerism I try not to buy where it's identified as causing problems, an example is I won't buy Nestles products while they continue to put palm oil from Indonesia into their chocolates. The people in these villages have to feed their families and based on that the corporations succeed in getting them to fell the rainforest and plant palms for palm oil. That the orangutans will be gone in five years means nothing to the corporations and only by not buying product will they listen!

It's certainly been interesting with borrowing money when you have a small income and live simply, banks cannot see past 'the job' so if you have a small business that's been around for a long time making a small income you're not what they want... they want a person with 'the job' that after securing lots of money, can lose 'the job' and then have to default on the loan... very interesting, that's for sure. So before setting up to live simply if you need a line of credit etc set it up while 'the job' is there, that you don't have it later, they couldn't care less then just as long as it's paid... ridiculous really they way things are judged.

It's so much easier to live simply if you don't go out to a job, because you can dress simply and you eat your food and of course transport and all the other things that go with having to go out to work each day. So to grow a bit extra and sell it at the gate where you make even $50 is good money and it goes much further than when you commute.

Anyway speaking of working and jobs, I'd better get back to mine.

Vicki

[Shadowgirlau]

Hi Vicki, it is just wonderful to have some stimulating input. I just knew this article would bring forth some good conversation

As I have stated many times before we attempt to keep everything minimal here on our place. Yes we do use machinery when needed although I do limit it to those times when it is really necessary. This is a fact of life for us and because physically we can not do certain things ourselves anymore due to age and or disability. I do as much as I can by hand though in spite of continually being told to "do it the easy way" by DH who worries I am over taxing myself. If I wasn't afraid of horses I might even consider going back to horse and cart for getting around, I know hubby wouldn't mind as he likes horses. Not me though.
Thank you for your input girls.

Kathleen

[minnie]

Hi Kathleen,

It's a good topic and interesting to see all the things others may comment about.

Unfortunately with most of our lives these days we are missing 'big' families, with lots of kids to help with chores and close community, everyone getting together to help a neighbour build a shed or share produce etc.

It's one of the biggest issues with being self sustaining I think, and something we need to do is talk to our neighbours and be involved and try to encourage young people to help out. Still too many people want to close off from the world and do it all themselves and they just can't it's way tooooo hard.

Too many kids these days spend holidays in front of tele all day while parents are struggling to do all the jobs about a property, I'm a firm believer that the kids that are involved in helping and being part of things are the ones that usually turn out to work in with people later on... but hey, there's no guarantees how kids turn out no matter how well brought up!

I know we're lucky where we are with neighbours and will miss them terribly when we go as everyone helps out each other. We just can't do everything ourselves and sometimes it's daunting trying to. Nieces and nephews are either too young or totally uninterested in our lifestyle as are their parents, so I just hope as time goes on we meet some good kids interested in our place and what we're trying to achieve...

Vicki

[Mojojo]

Yes it is all definitely good food for thought, and a thought provoking topic.

Thinking about the horse and cart, got me to wondering, are you even "allowed" to "park" a horse up in towns these days?
Probably not! My partner is just like you Kathleen, won't go near horses.

On the palm oil, its not just nestle; but it is only nestle that has been the target of email/internet campaigns lately. Its in so many things - shampoo, soap, margarine for example.
Under the food standards in Australia and NZ, manufacturers don't even have to label that a product contains palm oil - its just listed as vegetable oil.
This site is a good resource for palm-free stuff: http://www.orangutans.com.au/Orangutans-Survival-Informationat%20least%20/Helping-you-buy-responsibly-Palm-oil-free-alternatives.aspx

Maybe there'll be new neighbours that will be just as good Vicki at your new place

When we have kids I will probably end up on Today Tonight or get locked up for slave labour for asking them to collect the eggs or whatever when they are old enough. I really hope to bring them up with an interest in carrying on what we start. And no blinking nintendo/wii or whatever is the thing at the time. I am sure they will hate us for it for a long time!
I am being pleasantly suprised at all the offers of help and loan of tools etc that our new neighbours are coming forward with, its heartening to see after so many years of city neighbours not even speaking to you, let alone offering to collect the mail while we are away. One of them even said if we want a proper shower while we are camping down there doing the work to just come and knock on the door! It seems everyone is really very friendly, I am really looking forward to living in such a nice little community, and returning the offers of help - when we have something to offer.

[minnie]

Hi Jo,

Yes it's lots of things that's for sure, and I noticed today on a bag of potato chips they said cooked in some sort of palm oil... it just never stops honestly!!

If I'd had kids I'd have been the same and get so frustrated with how so many either let their kids do whatever they want or coddle them to the point of making me want to scream.

I'm really pleased you've got some good neighbours and community down on your farm, it really is the most important thing... good neighbours which doesn't mean they live in your pocket but are always there when needed or just to catch up with for a chat or whatever. Speaking of which we borrowed a couple of bales of hay from our neighbour this afternoon until we get our load next week (only small one ) and we went up to see the latest bull he's bought (only a weaner now)... he really enjoys us looking at his new cattle and giving our two cents, he's really upset we're going although understands, and is now talking of selling... I do hope he gets people that get on with him here.

Vicki

[BJTJ]

HI all
yes we have pretty good neighbours here also, I swap veges for native plants with my neighbour as I now refuse to buy any plant unless it is food producing! My problem is I seem to have a split personality I think. When I am at work I enjoy my work, helping people in the community, the busy ness , the continueing problem solving I do,BUT when I am away from there I don't want to go anywhere but in my vege patch or orchard (or my computer - love being able to research so easily. Being 20 k's from town means if you haven't got it you can't get it until next time. We refuse now to go into town to get things unless we are in there for work or an absolutely essential reason to make the trip (sometimes my wine is essential though)! As we have had our property for 15 years and we had a few tenants in while we live in Qld for a few years, we have so much "stuff" that we are constantly reusing to make things with. We have become extremely resourceful in reusing things (the gate that the tree fell on from the lightening strike is now my smaller vege patch gate, and the good part of the mesh makes a great climber for my peas. I now do not buy washing powder in packets, but by the bucket so we can reuse the buckets (for some reason you cannnot have too many buckets when you have animals). It has become more and more of a challenge on how to reuse things rather than throw out, mind you we don't get our rubbish bins empytied out here so that also means a trip to the tip in town. It seems to be our recycle bin that fills up first (must be all my wine bottles)!! Yes living simply is very satisfying and very challenging. BJ

[Mojojo]

I really miss having the piles of recycled things around like on the farm when I was a kid. Our new place is clean, has nothing, nothing at all... no scrap heaps no bins of stuff in the back of the shed, not even any piles of old fenceposts. Which is good in someways, but in others, I am just so tempted to go to clearing sales and buy those piles of 'stuff'. For example, its so annoying to have to buy bits of 'scrap' timber! (next time we took the chainsaw and cut them from some fallen branches)

You are right about the buckets, thats a really good idea with the washing powder. Hmmm. Now what can wine bottles be recylced into....

[BJTJ]

I wonder whether a hot house could be built out of wine bottles....... would take a while though!! BJ

[minnie]

Hi Jo and BJ,

I love having all those bits of tin and wood about as well, never know when you'll need a bit of something.

But now we're going to have to move soooo much of it, that's the downside Jo, moving!

I get this thing with bottles, especially the nice shaped, coloured etc and can't bear to throw them... good for putting water into on a table for BBQ... but a lot of them hmmm... I usually drink Chateau Cardboard and at one point was keeping the bladders for all sorts of things like water bottles, or pillows or to fill with warm water to use for animals... and tie to trees to frighten birds, but now they go to the tip and DH burns the cardboard.

Our new place looks as though we'll be able to compost the paper (unlike here with slater cities) so it will be nice to compost them.

Vicki

[BJTJ]

Too many preservatives in the casks - alway s get wheezy but don't with bottles with wine so bottles it has to be.

BJ

[minnie]

Hi BJ,

Talking to someone about this yesterday, I don't with one brand but even some bottled I have...

Some years back a doctor I worked with related the story of breaking down in his car and for some reason (that escapes me now) he was syphoning out water from the engine and got a mouth full of anti-freeze.

Some days later at a dinner party the host opened this very expensive bottle of french wine and when Doc J (as he was known) took a sip he spat it back because it had anti-freeze... a few weeks later it came out in the papers that some french wine makers were putting anti-freeze in their wine!

He only noticed because of the experience the few days before.

Vicki

[Mojojo]

Just read a quote from John Seymour, and it seemed appropriate to share it here.

The tiny amount you and I can do is hardly likely to bring the huge worldwide moloch of plundering industry down? Well, if you and I don't do it, it will not be done, and the Age of Plunder will terminate in the Age of Chaos. We have to do it - just the two of us - just you and me. There is no "them" - there is nobody else. Just you and me. On our infirm shoulders we must take up this heavy burden now - the task of restoring the health, the wholeness, the beauty and the integrity of our planet. We must start the Age of Healing now! Tomorrow will be too late.

[Shadowgirlau]

Very apt quote to post right now Jo, thank you
As we look around us, read and listen to reports on various programs we realize that in actuality there is a rolling cascade of people out there (even in suburban areas) turning the tide slowly but surely.
Have a great weekend
Kathleen

[minnie]

Hi Jo,

I believe he's totally right with this... and say to people all he time who tell me 'me making changes and going without won't help things' but it will... if everyone just does their small part then the difference is made but it's only you, you need to worry about changing not everyone else.

A bit like 'you can't change anyone but yourself'.

Thank you for this, it was good timing.

Vicki

[dggoatlover]

This topic is very silimar to a book I just finished reading - 'Better Off' by Eric Brende:

An undergraduate course in the history of technology led Brende to enroll in a graduate program at M.I.T. that contemplated the social effects of machines on human life. He then decided to test his idea that the more advanced the machine, the bigger the downside, by moving to the country to farm and live cheaply without electricity for 18 months. This is not a back-to-the-land book on how to dig a root cellar; rather, it's the Brendes' experiences on the farm they rented. He and his wife soon discovered a natural rhythm to their lives that had been missing in Boston and that they both found deeply satisfying. It seemed as if they'd stay permanently, but when they got rid of the car in favor of a horse and buggy, it turned out that Brende's wife was allergic to horses. By this time, the experiment had confirmed the author's thinking about the harm technology does to humans and society and that machines are becoming our masters. His curiosity about how much he could transfer of what he had learned to the "outside" world, plus his wife's allergy, led them to move to another undisclosed location–a small town outside a Midwestern city–where they were able to live simply, albeit with electricity, and survive, even thrive, on odd jobs, bartering, and soap-making. Brende's close look at technology's generally unnoticed harmful effects is a welcome relief from the usual how-to-get-ahead-in-the-rat-race attitude. (Amazon Review)

I found the book very interesting and while it is very difficult to live a completly self sufficient lifestyle I believe Brende has helped me to understand that you can use limited technology and still be comfortable. You don't need to have loadls of cash or have a farm to be able to survive simply.

[Mojojo]

Hmmm. Does sound like an interesting read. The machines are certainly becoming the masters in a lot of ways. I have friends who can't deal with it if they are not on facebook/email/internet even for a day.

I've been contemplating trying to stay unconnected from the power grid, and having a small solar system for fridges, laptop, and some lights. We are thinking that the mains connection is going to cost us an absolute fortune (neighbour paid $60K+ 18 months ago and its still not even connected!) but then ... we can't use the welder. Or a coolroom. Or an electric oven. Or the water pumps for our planned horticultural pursuits. Generator? Now then it gets complicated.
I wonder if you could even get new building passed off as habitable if it does not have power connected?
It would be so nice to not be grid connected. Not just power, I mean in general.