It is hard for me to write about living simply without setting off my irony detector. For I live in a modern industrialized country and had the good fortune to be born into a middle class family. So that “simply” in living simply is a relative term I use to compare myself with frenzied, consumptive, upwardly mobile fellow citizens whose lifestyles are frantically destroying everything beautiful and sane about this planet I reside upon. But it is nowhere near “simply” measured on a global scale.
The frantic consumers I compare myself to are a small minority of the global population. To be in the upper half of the worlds wealthy elite you need to possess total wealth (assets – liabilities) of $2,200 – that’s everything (for we who own cars that may be less than the wealth we possess just in our car). To be in the world’s richest 10% requires $61,000 and the top 1% - $500,000. (Davies-Sandstrom-Shorrocks-Woff).
This minority of avid consumers is the foundation of our system of global capitalism; a system which rapes and pillages the earth to extract resources - 60% of which are processed, packaged, marketed and sold to the 10% who can afford to buy the stuff offered up by that miraculous invisible hand of the free market, which is giving the entire planet an all too visible finger.
In order for me to tone down my irony meter regarding these matters I need to frame my discussion of simple living in terms of it being a rising subversive movement among the upper 10%, not as a “lifestyle choice” among well-off liberal hipsters one-upping each other over raised bed gardening and chicken coops as fashion statements.
And this is not a difficult move to make. Buying less stuff is something which shakes the foundations of global capitalism. Imagine what would happen if retail sales were to drop by 25% this year. The economic catastrophe would dwarf the Great Depression. And that’s what would happen if simple living really caught on among the 10%. If these consumers stopped buying all the unneeded crap marketed to them they would be less stressed out, have more time to spend with those they loved, be happier and bring down the entire system.
Happiness as a revolutionary force. That’s how I like to frame simple living.
And it goes deeper than that. Living simply is living a life committed to the belief that material things are not what life is really about. Few would dispute this. It is a universal message conveyed by the major wisdom traditions.
But one is the path of earthly wealth, and another is the path of Nirvana. Let the follower of Buddha think of this and, without striving for reputation, let him ever strive after freedom. - Dhammapada (73-75)
'I am wealthy, well born; what other is there that is like unto me?...' Thus deluded by unwisdom, bewildered by numerous thoughts, enmeshed in the web of delusion, addicted to the gratification of desire, they fall downwards into a foul hell. Self-glorifying, stubborn, filled with pride and intoxication of wealth, they perform lip-sacrifices for ostentation, contrary to scriptural ordinance - Bhagavad-gita 16: 15-17
You don't sit with the wise. Born in the yoke you die plodding, driven by Yama's stick and your own greed. For the sake of wife, son, house, job, power, you take this load on your head. It was you who left your lord to soak in the senses..." - Kabir
As for your body and your wealth, which is the more to be prized?...an excessive love for anything will cost you dear in the end, the storing up of too much goods will entail a heavy loss. To know when you have enough is to be immune from disgrace. -Tao te ching
The righteous man is he who believes in Allah...who for the love of Allah gives his wealth to his kinsfolk, to the orphaned, to the needy, to the wayfarers and to the beggars - Koran
God said to him: 'Because you have asked for this - not for a long life for yourself, nor for riches, nor for the life of your enemies, but for understanding so that you may know what is right - I do as you requested. I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now.
- I Kings 3: 11-12
Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. – Matthew 6: 25-33
Simple living, in this light, can be seen as a well-trodden, ancient, spiritual practice - even though it might be difficult to see cutting up a credit card as participating in the lofty traditions of the world’s major religions. Yet it is. And if everyone cut up their credit cards they would bring predatory global corporations to their knees.
I have my good days and my bad days, but spending time in my garden is consistently something that makes me happy. I’m connecting with the earth and with a Reality that teaches me skills I value – ways of learning how to tend the soil in harmony with the cycles of my particular microclimate. This is an important education: wishful thinking doesn’t produce vegetables, skillful rhetoric won’t get them to grow better, nor will a degree in agriculture.
Why would I spend a day at the mall when I can be in my garden?
Duh.
But there’s more to it than that simple obvious choice. In a book called “Living the Good Life” Helen and Scott Nearing describe their move from New York city to a farm in the Green Mountains of Vermont in 1932. Remember, this was in 1932.
When we moved to Vermont we left a society gripped by depression and unemployment, falling prey to fascism, and on the verge of another world-wide military free-for-all; and entered a pre-industrial, rural community. The society from which we moved had rejected in practice and in principle our pacifism, our vegetarianism and our collectivism… Under these circumstances, where could outcasts from a dying social order live frugally and decently, and at the same time have sufficient leisure and energy to assist in the speedy liquidation of the disintegrating society and to help replace it with a more workable social system?
The choice made by the Nearings was a rejection of a “disintegrating society” which had rejected them. This rejectionist branch of simple living is not at all uncommon today. There is a kind of soft nihilism about rejecting society that may be satisfying for a while but I think it leaves its participants more isolated from their fellow citizens than is healthy.
I think living the good life cannot exclude participating in the life of society as a whole - even if we think it is totally FUBAR. Political activity, participating in changes on a community level to a more sane way of living - pushing our communities in the direction of living simply - must be part of living the good life. Rejectionist nihilism really only isolates it practitioners.
And, anyway, attempting to become a self-sufficient peasant in 21st century America carries with it a deep irony. The life of self-sufficient peasants in countries like Guatemala, or Senegal, or Thailand, or rural China, is not a life very many of them would call "good" these days.We're talking about a harsh, brutal level of survival. I would guess that most of these real peasants would jump at the chance to change places with an American noveau-peasant; thrilled at giving them a chance to experience real peasant living.
I’m afraid the cat is out of the bag. There’s no going back to an idyllic country life where the travails of a planet under dominion of far too many human inhabitants can be avoided. Hippie homesteaders face the predations of Republican survivalists should the end come. And now there are tanks, helicopters and nuclear weapons. There’s no way to recover that simple life of old villages in earlier times. It’s completely gone. Get over it.
So why live simply?
I prefer the phrase “live mindfully” or “living the good life.”
What does it take to live a good life?
Ancient philosophers spent a lot of time and energy examining the concept of living a good life. They called it “Eudaimonea” – which is literally translated from Greek to English as: “the state of having a good indwelling spirit.”
Socrates defined it as: “The best possible state of your soul.” And Aristotle defined it as: “virtuous activity in accordance with reason”
Aristotle further elaborated:
existence is good to the virtuous man, and each man wishes himself what is good...And such a man wishes to live with himself; for he does so with pleasure, since the memories of his past acts are delightful and his hopes for the future are good, and therefore pleasant. His mind is well stored too with subjects of contemplation.
Again, I think, if everyone came to make their best attempts to live such a good life - rather than their consumptive “lives of quiet desperation” - the economy would collapse. Retail sales basically. Happy people, people who are satisfied with their lives, buy less stuff.
While a collapsing economy would bring great relief to an overburdened planet, it would bring great suffering to our species. We are dependent upon this economy for our jobs. Any deceleration in growth, much less shrinking, of the economy is disastrous. This is the terrible pressure point. How can I advocate bringing down the economy when that would mean massive unemployment?
I don't have a good answer for this. I guess the idea of simple living, living with less, needing less money, might be a way to soften the blow. But I don't think that would be welcome advice to someone who desperately needs a job. I like what Wendell Berry says about work, however:
The real name of our connection to this everywhere different and differently named earth is "work." We are connected by work even to the places where we don't work, for all places are connected; it is clear by now that we cannot exempt one place from our ruin of another. The name of our proper connection to the earth is "good work," for good work involves much giving of honor. It honors the source of its materials; it honors the place where it is done, it honors the art by which it is done; it honors the thing that it makes and the user of the made thing. Good work is always modestly scaled, for it cannot ignore either the nature of individual places or the differences between places, and it always involves a sort of religious humility, for not everything is known. Good work can be defined only in particularity, for it must be defined a little differently for every one of the places and every one of the workers on the earth.
The name of our present society's connection to the earth is "bad work" - work that is only generally and crudely defined, that enacts a dependence that is ill understood, that enacts no affection and gives no honor. Every one of us is to some extent guilty of this bad work. This guilt does not mean that we must indulge in a lot of breastbeating and confession; it means only that there is much good work to be done by every one of us and that we must begin to do it. All of us are responsible for bad work, not so much because we do it ourselves as because we have it done for us by other people.
I have no idea how we could move an entire economy from "bad work" to "good work" and, perhaps, even bringing the possibility up is naive. We're pretty locked into things the way they are. Any collapse of the magnitude I'm talking about is bound to cause suffering. There are many forces active today which could bring about such an economic disaster. A mass movement of simple living is not the possible cause that tops the list. But living simply could soften the blow and living simply is doing "good work" I believe.
I’ll end this with something from the Dalai Lama:
The desire or inclination to be happy and to avoid suffering knows no boundaries. It is in our nature. As such, it needs no justification and is validated by the simple fact that we naturally and correctly want this.
And this is precisely what we see in countries both rich and poor. Everywhere, by all means imaginable, people are striving to improve their lives. Yet strangely, my impression is that those living in the materially developed countries, for all their industry, are in some ways less satisfied, are less happy, and to some extent suffer more than those living in the least developed countries.
Indeed, if we compare the rich with the poor, it often seems that those with nothing are, in fact, the least anxious, though they are plagued with physical pains and suffering. As for the rich, while a few know how to use their wealth intelligently – that is to say, not in luxurious living but by sharing it with the needy – many do not. They are so caught up with the idea of acquiring still more that they make no room for anything else in their lives. In their absorption, they actually lose the dream of happiness, which riches were to have provided. As a result, they are constantly tormented, torn between doubt about what might happen and the hope of gaining more, and plagued with mental and emotional suffering – even though outwardly they may appear to be leading entirely successful and comfortable lives.
This is suggested both by the high degree and by the disturbing prevalence among the populations of the materially developed countries of anxiety, discontent, frustration, uncertainty, and depression. Moreover, this inner suffering is clearly connected with growing confusion as to what constitutes morality and what its foundations are.