Thursday, September 28, 2006

Tips for living simply #2 - don't go too far

This is really a corollary of know your dreams. You could get rid of just about everything you own, and live in a practically empty space. Think of Jack's parent's home in Brokeback Mountain. Or you could get by with just enough to fit in a backpack.

Those are interesting possibilities, but for me they aren't realistic. (Maybe they are for you though. Tell us about your experience!)

Just remember that your goal isn't to get rid of everything in your life. It's to get things out of the way of achieving your dreams.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could become a freegan... Not exactly sure if that simplifies life though...

Jay Bazuzi said...

On the one hand, I have a lot of respect for freegans abilities to look beyond convention for new ways of living.

On the other hand, I believe that eating animals and animal products is essentially ethical. It is simply an example of the interdependence of all life.

It is an opportunity to worship the wonders of life & energy conversion. Plants can turn *sunlight* in to *food*. Wow! I can't do that, no matter how much time I spend in the sun. Similarly, cows can turn *grass* in to *food*. Also, wow!

On the other hand, I find the meat industries disrepect of this wonder to be horrific. That's where vegans/freegans & I agree.

I am not too concerned with the criticism that freeganism isn't scalable. There is no one right way to live, and no one should be suggesting that everyone should convert to freeganism. Driving to work each day doesn't create a polution problem until everyone does it. No one should be suggesting that everyone drive to work each day, either!

 
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.