Friday, January 07, 2005

The two threads.

If you look over my posts about how to live, you may see some conflicting ideas. That's because there's really two different things going on:


1. Live simply. Don't let the stuff I own own me. Give up stuff I don't need + some stuff I do like to free up time. For example, I have removed 4 computers from my home, which means I don't have to spend time maintaining them. I give up the power of those PCs to gain the time.


2. Live frugally. Don't buy as much stuff, reduce my dependency on civilization, waste disposal, energy sources, and my job. Do more for myself instead of paying someone else. Cook my own meal instead of eating out.


Sometimes these ideas work together: moving from a suburban house to a cheap city condominium means I save money on the mortgage, don't have to pay anyone to mow a lawn, can get rid of a car & walk instead.


Sometimes they work against each other.


If I want to start cooking all my own meals, instead of eating out, I would like a well-equipped kitchen to make it more convenient. But that means having a large enough kitchen to keep all the appliances accessible. I'd want a nice set of knives, which need to be in a knife block on the counter, instead of in a drawer.


If I want to grow my own vegetables, then I'll need land (not a condo), and various gardening implements.


Man, simplicity is complicated!


5 comments:

Steve Eck said...

Not to be nosy, but what does your wife and child think of your living simply quest?

There have been a lot of 'I' and 'My/Mine' in the posts...

Anonymous said...

Yes, a lot of 'I', 'my', 'mine'... Sounds like someone rather selfish. There was a post about "Relationships take work". They (relationships) take being less selfish and arrogant and thinking more about the other people.

APOO said...

What you say is interesting. I would frankly summarize it down as striking the right balance. Everything has its trade-off's. Its like shipping a product, you have to try to get rid of the high priority bugs, knowing some trivial ones will get shipped!

PS: This blog link does not render properly from your msdn blog site.

Jay Bazuzi said...

My son explicitly asked me to see me more. http://jbazuzi.blogspot.com/2004/12/i-want-you-to-work-this-many.html

My wife is actively working on this problem with me. We just returned from a sunny vacation to Seattle winter weather. She suggested we turn the heat in the house down to save energy.

We've dropped it by 6 degrees, which seems to be an acceptable level. It's a little less comfortable, but still quite tolerable.

Jay Bazuzi said...

Anonymous: Actually, I'm trying to be clear about what are my choices / goals / ideas, to avoid the risk of assuming anyone else agrees with them until they explicitly say so.

 
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