ORIGINAL ARTICLETo portray the richness of simplicity as a theme for healthy living, here are eight different flowerings that I see growing consciously in the “garden of simplicity.” Although there is overlap among them, each expression of simplicity seems sufficiently distinct to warrant a separate category. These are presented in no particular order, as all are important.
- 1. Uncluttered Simplicity. Simplicity means taking charge of lives that are too busy, too stressed and too fragmented. Simplicity means cutting back on clutter, complications and trivial distractions, both material and non-material, and focusing on the essentials — whatever those may be for each of our unique lives. As Thoreau said, “Our life is frittered away by detail … Simplify, simplify.” Or, as Plato wrote, “In order to seek one’s own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life.”
- Ecological Simplicity. Simplicity means choosing ways of living that touch the Earth more lightly and reduce our ecological impact on the web of life. This life-path remembers our deep roots with the soil, air and water. It encourages us to connect with nature, the seasons and the cosmos. An ecological simplicity feels a deep reverence for the community of life on Earth and accepts that the non-human realms of plants and animals have their dignity and rights as well as the human.
- Family Simplicity. Simplicity means to place the well-being of one’s family ahead of materialism and the acquisition of things. This expression of green living puts an emphasis on giving children healthy role models of a balanced life that are not distorted by consumerism. Family simplicity affirms that what matters most in life is often invisible — the quality and integrity of our relationships with one another and the rest of life. Family simplicity is also intergenerational — it looks ahead and seeks to live with restraint so as to leave a healthy earth for future generations.
- Compassionate Simplicity. Simplicity means to feel such a strong sense of kinship with others that, as Gandhi said, we “choose to live simply so that others may simply live.” A compassionate simplicity means feeling a bond with the community of life and being drawn toward a path of cooperation and fairness that seeks a future of mutually assured development in all areas of life for everyone.
- Soulful Simplicity. Simplicity means to approach life as a meditation and to cultivate our experience of direct connection with all that exists. By living simply, we can more easily awaken to the living universe that surrounds and sustains us, moment by moment. Soulful simplicity consciously tastes life in its unadorned richness rather than being concerned with a particular standard or manner of material living. In cultivating a soulful connection with life, we tend to look beyond surface appearances and bring our interior aliveness into relationships of all kinds.
- Business Simplicity. Simplicity means a new kind of economy is growing in the world, with healthy and sustainable products and services of all kinds (such as home-building materials, energy systems, food production and transportation systems). As the need for a sustainable infrastructure in developing nations is combined with the need to retrofit and redesign the homes, cities, workplaces and transportation systems of developed nations, it is generating an enormous wave of green business innovation and employment.
- Civic Simplicity. Simplicity means living more lightly and sustainably on the earth, and this requires, in turn, changes in many areas of public life — from public transportation and education to the design of our cities and workplaces. To develop policies of civic simplicity involves giving close and sustained attention to media politics, as the mass media are the primary vehicle for reinforcing — or transforming — the social norms of consumerism. To realize the magnitude of changes required in such a brief time requires new approaches to communicating with ourselves as different communities of citizens.
- Frugal Simplicity. Simplicity means that, by cutting back on spending that is not truly serving our lives, and by practicing skillful management of our personal finances we can achieve greater financial independence. Frugality and careful financial management bring increased financial freedom and the opportunity to more consciously choose our path through life. Living with less also decreases the impact of our consumption upon the earth and frees resources for others.
As these eight approaches illustrate, the growing culture of simplicity contains a flourishing garden of expressions whose great diversity — and intertwined unity — are creating a resilient and hardy ecology of learning about how to live more sustainable and meaningful lives. As with other ecosystems, it is the diversity of expressions that fosters flexibility, adaptability and resilience. Because there are so many pathways into the garden of simplicity, this self-organizing movement has enormous potential to grow.
Duane Elgin is a speaker, author and non-partisan activist for media accountability. He is the author of “Voluntary Simplicity,” “The Living Universe,” “Promise Ahead,” and other books. Please visit his website, www.DuaneElgin.com for free articles and videos on thriving in these challenging times. Your comments and suggestions are much appreciated.
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More middle-class pablum for shoppers who frequent outlets like Whole Foods. Those on line at a soup kitchen would probably find its elitist advise on simplicity sadly amusing.
I see my contention with some of the elitist thinking on this site becoming habitual, which tells me it’s time to move on.
Thanks, Carolyn. I’ve enjoyed my visits here.
Thank God!!!!
Yes, Thank God, and yes, some of the essays here are intellectually embossed academia, how else can we find out how intellectual embossers of academia think? Now if I only had a credit card, or debit card, to subscribe … so to look at headlines I check here what’s free, check Alex for what’s free, and check Jeff for what’s free, and that leads me to some of the sources which are also free.
I could call it the curse of farming such that I have beautiful organically grown beans that people won’t eat I suppose, because they don’t cost as much as the supermarket and aren’t packaged under toxic wrap.
So, Leon Night, I suggest continuing to read here as it provides lively debate between those of us who have been soup kitchened and those who lived high on producer’s taxed income as academicians always do. What we find now is real simple, the farmers still don’t control their prices, academia still teaches the Monsanto way of agriculture, and retired professors have know-it-all attitudes sometimes. But then, so do some architects and bankers I have met.
In today’s world, one must be versed in reading between the lines of a person’s character defects and seeing their soul within. I believe Carolyn and the authors she chooses have good hearts of concern, but they have been so inculcated themselves that they cling to civilization unto the last, just like the rest of us. Even Derrick, who wants somebody to blow up a dam, admits his fear of the repressor.
Nothing could be further from an academic Trieste than Dimitri Orlov, and Carolyn has spotlighted his work, quid pro qua!
Next …
My next column for Collapsenet will be devoted to the “hard-asses” of collapse who love to blow smoke about how enlightened they are. Methinks thou doth protest too much. When TSHTF, we’ll SEE how “enlightened” you are.
Robin, that comment was not intended for you but for he who must not be named.
I wonder how enlightened any of us will be. Especially
those who are so gleeful about a collapse.
It reminds me of having a loved one with a terminal illness.
You know they are going to die, but when it happens, you’re
still devastated.
Absolutely! Anyone who is denying their grief about collapse is only partially awake.