To Think Afar

A simple life involving cooking fresh food from scratch, reducing waste, lowering consumption, composting kitchen and yard waste and using the lowest technology possible to accomplish every task is a back-to-basics life, an embedded life--a life that is connected at every possible point with the Earth and with other people.

This is what many people mean by living a simple life.

People who choose this kind of simplicity desire to live in daily awareness of the consequences of each act, and seek to minimize their impact through living closer to the source of life and reducing the processes that separate them from that source. They seek to live mindfully and sustainably.

People who live this way are inevitably going to reduce their reliance on consumer products to meet their every need and instead rely more on their own skills and abilities, including their imaginations, on other people and on their community.


Time-saving, labor-saving, convenient

Consumer society, with its focus on "progress" and "leisure time," has redefined this word to emphasize the so-called values of ease, convenience, time-saving and labor-saving. Simple in this context means whatever takes me the least time, the least effort and the least involvement in the action I am doing.

Clearly, these "values" are in stark opposition to the connected, involved values of true simplicity.

This twisting of the meaning of simplicity is a perfect example of the way consumer society distorts traditional values to fit its own limited ends, which of course are to encourage ever-increasing consumption, self-centeredness, individualism and the fulfillment of all needs and wants through the purchase of products.

By teaching us that "simple" means "easy" rather than "basic" or "connected," the forgers of the consumer economy can reinforce in us the notion of valuing our time in terms of money, rather than in terms of satisfaction or accomplishment, or the ineffable benefits of direct contact with the Earth, the source of all good things.

They hope in this way to divert us from seeking satisfaction in relationships and closeness to the Earth and redirect us back toward seeking satisfaction in things we buy.