It is important to recognize inaccurate stereotypes about the simple life because they make it seem impractical and ill suited for responding to increasingly critical breakdowns in world systems. Four misconceptions about the simple life are so common they deserve special attention. These are equating simplicity with: poverty, moving back to the land, living without beauty and economic stagnation.
Poverty fosters a sense of helplessness, passivity and despair, whereas purposeful simplicity fosters a sense of personal empowerment, creative engagement and opportunity. Historically, those choosing a simpler life have sought the golden mean -- a creative and aesthetic balance between poverty and excess. Instead of placing primary emphasis on material riches, they have sought to develop, with balance, the invisible wealth of experiential riches.
Thoreau wrote that he had "more visitors while I lived in the woods than any other period of my life." The romanticized image of rural living does not fit the modern reality, as a majority of persons choosing a life of conscious simplicity do not live in the backwoods or rural settings; they live in cities and suburbs. While green living brings with it a reverence for nature, it does not require moving to a rural setting. Instead of a "back to the land" movement, it is much more accurate to describe this as a "make the most of wherever you are" movement. Increasingly that means adapting ourselves creatively to a rapidly changing world in the context of big cities and suburbs.
Many who adopt a simpler life would surely agree with Pablo Picasso, who said, "Art is the elimination of the unnecessary." Leonardo da Vinci wrote that, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Frederic Chopin wrote that, "Simplicity is the final achievement ... the crowning reward of art."
The influential architect Frank Lloyd Wright was an advocate of an "organic simplicity" that integrates function with beauty and eliminates the superfluous. In his architecture a building's interior and exterior blend into an organic whole, and the building, in turn, blends harmoniously with the natural environment. Rather than involving a denial of beauty, simplicity liberates the aesthetic sense by freeing things from artificial encumbrances. From a spiritual perspective, simplicity removes the obscuring clutter and discloses the life-energy that infuses all things.
Although the consumer sector and material goods would contract, the service and public sectors would expand dramatically. When we look at the world, we see a huge number of unmet needs: caring for elderly, restoring the environment, educating illiterate and unskilled youth, repairing decaying roads and infrastructure, providing health care, creating community markets and local enterprises, retrofitting the urban landscape for sustainability and many more. Because there are an enormous number of unmet needs, there are an equally large number of purposeful and satisfying jobs waiting to get done. There will be no shortage of employment opportunities in an Earth-friendly economy.
A central and exciting task for our times is consciously designing ourselves into a sustainable and meaningful future, from the personal level outwards. In envisioning what this future could look like, it is important to not be bound by old stereotypes and to instead see the realism and the beauty of simpler ways of living.
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Great article, thanks so much!
Mia Rose
http://www.healinglovenotes.com
I have seen this cycle break down person after person, relationships, marital or social, time and time again. I'm not saying less is more, but maybe more isn't more either. Learn when enough is enough, you'll stress less.
"Voluntary Simplicity" as the title of a life-art project that pares away all that is in unnecessary to a beautiful life.
I would add this: that beauty is not only in things and stuff; beauty is also in experiences and our emotional life. Part of the art of Voluntary Simplicity is creating a life that is, on balance, filled with life-affirming, beautiful human emotions -- caring, connecting, 'communing' with our human, natural, and built communities, and so on.
It is about the very challenging discipline and practice of making choices in your life that (as we put it in my family and tribe of friends) make your life story worth experiencing yourself and passing on to the generations that will come after.
What is the story you individually, and we, collectively, at this time in the evolution of humanity want future generations to tell about us? That we consumed the world to death, or that we created lives that allowed future generations to live?
Thank you, Duane, for never giving up on your beautiful vision.
But think about it this way.... Even if you were in the city, and you and your spouse became self-employed, working from your home..... That provides a myriad of opportunities to reduce expenses-- being a one car instead of a two car familiy, raising your own kids rather than hiring that job out to a day care center, living as a family unit economically. It's a good life. I know because that's what I do.
And of course if we all live simply we can have a beautiful, diverse and bountiful biosphere to play in.
MRI's cat scans, radiopharmaceuticals, don't come cheap or easy, or as you put it simple.
Do you read articles, or do you just look at the title, hop down to the comments, and fire away?