Has anyone here deliberately chosen not to devote their life to material wealth...even as a dream? Do you feel that excessive material abundance is a hindrance on your personal freedom and happiness? Does having too many toys pull families apart and alienate them from real experiences and conversation? Apparently, you have company, and lots of of it! These people are not against money...just all the stuff that it buys, that crowds out your life. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/us/17texas.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin AUSTIN, Tex. — Like many other young couples, Aimee and Jeff Harris spent the first years of their marriage eagerly accumulating stuff: cars, furniture, clothes, appliances and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys. Now they are trying to get rid of it all, down to their fancy wedding bands. Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May. “It’s amazing the amount of things a family can acquire,” said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to “the ridiculous amount of money” her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca. The Harrises now hope to end up as organic homesteaders in Vermont. “We’re not attached to any outcome,” said Mrs. Harris, a would-be doctor before dropping out of college, who grew up poverty-stricken in a family that traces its lineage back through the Delanos and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Mayflower settler, Isaac Allerton. Mr. Harris, 30, who dropped out of high school and “rode the Internet wave,” agreed, saying they were “letting the universe take us for a ride.” They are not alone. Matt and Sara Janssen, who traded down from their house in Iowa to a studio apartment in Montana and finally an R.V. powered by vegetable oil, now crisscross the country with their 4-year-old daughter, highway nomads living on $1,500 a month. Not that simplicity need be that spartan. Cindy Wallach and her husband, Doug Vibbert, of Annapolis, Md., moved out of their apartment with an “everything must go” party and, along with their 3-year-old son, now sail and make their home on a 44-by-24-foot catamaran. “We never wanted four walls and beige carpet,” Ms. Wallach said. Though it may not be the stuff of the typical American dream, the voluntary simplicity movement, which traces its inception to 1980s Seattle, is drawing a great deal of renewed interest, some experts say. “If you think about some of the shifts we’re having economically — shifts in oil and energy — it may be the right time,” said Mary E. Grigsby, associate professor of rural sociology at the University of Missouri and the author of “Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement.” “The idea in the movement was ‘everything you own owns you,’ ” said Dr. Grigsby, who sees roots of the philosophy in the lives of the Puritans. “You have to care for it, store it. It becomes an appendage, I think. If it enhances your life and helps you do the things you want to do, great. If you are burdened by these things and they become the center of what you have to do to live, is that really positive?” Juliet B. Schor, a sociology professor at Boston College and author of “The Overspent American,” said the modern “downshifters,” as she called them, owed debts to the hippies and the travel romance of Jack Kerouac. “Their previous lives have become too stressful,” Dr. Schor said. “They have a lack of meaning because their jobs are too demanding.” Mrs. Harris, who with her husband home-schools their son, Quinn, 5, and plans to do the same with their 15-month-old daughter, Nichola, agreed that there was something of the hippies in their quest: “the ideals, the peace and love, the giving and freedom.” But she said they had no tolerance for idleness or drugs. “Any state that can be induced by drugs, the mind and body are already capable of,” she said. Mrs. Harris grew up in Wisconsin with her mother and sister. They were so poor, she says, that they nearly froze to death in the winter and had to cook their meals in the fireplace. She developed a weight problem, ballooning to 200 pounds — she has since shed half of it — and suffered for years from the chronic pain disorder fibromyalgia, which she overcame, she says, by improving her diet. In April, the Harrises began detailing their story on a blog. They were taken aback by some of the hostile responses. “Some people seem to be threatened that they’re not making the same choice,” The timing was right, she said. They had been feuding with their landlord over conditions in the simple house they rent in Austin for $1,650 a month, and felt they had to get out. At first they intended to auction what they owned. But “we were unable to define the worth of something we didn’t want or need,” she said. They finally decided to donate much of it to a children’s home in the Texas Hill Country and the bulk of the rest to an agency for the homeless in Austin."
sure definitely basically material things steal time (in terms of acquisition and maintenance) and since all the wealth in the world cannot purchase a mere second of lost time, the wisest course is simply to accept the bare minimum
not sure what is a Ghandian extreme Basically I live mostly off things I grow in a sort of communal environment (1000 acres and 60 people - mostly trees) in a small thing built out of mud bricks and huge second hand glass windows. Runs off solar power, collects rainwater enough to do me through the year, although I am hooked up to a bore if the need arises. I don't pay rent. Even then, I am about to start traveling again (asia) so the internet connection is only running for about 4 more days before it gets disconnected. As for things one may need, the most important thing I have discovered is the utthari or chaddar Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (it is the black thing) You can make a hat out of it, use it as either a top piece or bottom piece of clothing, use it as a towel, sleep on it, sleep under it, go swimming in it, tie things up in it and even make emergency underwear out of it (in case monkeys tear up your regular ones) .... maybe that is a ghandian extreme Other than that ....Maybe I will miss sciforums :bawl: I don't need hot water to take a bath Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Ghandian as in Mahatma Ghandi. He lived the life of a monk while engaged in the highest levels of social activity and politics.
So I look up the word utthari on google and up pops this thread!!! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
not sure why you view that as something outside of the OP actually ghandi's vision was to have villages operate as self sufficient so they could maintain themselves independent of the hell of (western) industrialism - enabling them to provide their own food, shelter, clothing and medicine. I guess the reason we view that sort of approach as a life of self-abnegation is because we have been won over by mod cons ....
its a hindi word for "top piece" basically its just a length of thin cotton Better to not go for a white one since they are likely to get stained too easily you can try looking up its lower alternative, the gamcha http://images.google.com/imgres?img...bnw=86&prev=/images?q=gamcha+&um=1&hl=en&sa=N Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
no good here I am afraid termites would have a field day There are mud brick buildings in the region that are still standing after 100 years despite having no maintenance for the past 30 (although admittedly they do need a bit of work) me personally - clothes, plumbing/solar power fixtures, some agricultural requirements for organic farming (extra produce is sold locally to finance the needs) - eg - tools, lime, wire, stakes etc and fuel for running some light machinery. I ummed and ahhhed about buying a car (it would make things a bit easier) but opted out of it since the running costs would mean working more and less time. There are some people here who work more traditionally with bullocks, but if you want to do that you have to work them every day so that they don't slip out of training.
What could your community grow for biodiesel in that climate? I'm guessing its dry and hot...so you could probably use straight vegetable oil.
we tried that there are a lot of heavy chemicals used in manufacturing biodiesel and in the end it clogged up the engine of the tractor (there is a mild sort of political undercurrent between the traditional bullock farmers and the more up to date agriculturalists .... so the bullock farmers kind of viewed this as a victory -lol) Basically the idea is to save time At the moment it simply works out easier to borrow a few things from the mechanized world - hopefully we won't be too dependent on them if the plug gets pulled on the whole industrial scene ..... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Viscose chemicals like glycerin you mean? Some people bypass the whole biodiesel process by simply adding gasoline to straight veggie oil to thin it down.
Never. I've been bred a consumer and will die a consumer. In everything we do in America it is devoted to commercialism. Anything that happens is to make a profit it seems. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
When I was a kid I'd get told off for not looking after my things. I never saw any value in it all. Even when I was young I couldn't see how "stuff" would make me happy. I don't own very much at all. Even this computer I'm using isn't mine. I have clothes I wear and a few books and films but once I've watched and read them they go to the charity shop. I don't miss anything I've owned and given away. Almost everything in my house was given to me. Yep, thinking about it the only thing I can think of that I've bought myself in recent years is a Dali print and frame. I think that's probably one of very few superfluities in my house. Why? I can't be bothered accumulating things I don't care about, and I don't care about anything other than my family and friends and a few religious books and artifacts. If my house caught fire I'd make sure everyone was out and then walk away happily. The things you own... end up owning you.
