SIMPLICITY FIST

When visitors to my hut see how I live, normally they decide that I'm impoverished, though I'm not. Even those not assuming I'm poor usually think I'm living a life of self denial. Most people have wrong ideas about "voluntary simplicity."

Though frequent readers of this Newsletter already know that for me a simple life in a hut is hugely rewarding, I decided that this week I'd state that fact outright. Far from denying myself and living in poverty, I am living luxuriously because I'm doing exactly what I want to, how I want to do to it, where I want to.

Also, many people seem to assume that we who withdraw from "the real world" generally are those who can't manage out there, or else are just too lazy to try.

Again, it's just the opposite. For, to abandon one's society and live differently is hard. It can't be achieved without decisive decision making, aggressive action taking, and a willingness to endure all kinds of social and emotional negative feedback, even hostility, from the surrounding society.

At first, to vigorously confront this notion that people living simply generally are weak or born losers, I thought about writing that voluntary simplicity is like a fist -- a fist to smash through the usual ways of doing things, and a fist willing to defend its right to be as it is.

But then in my reading I stumbled across some old Nazi literature from back when Hitler was psyching up Germans for war. Influential German Nazi-Philosopher Oswald Spengler wrote that man is a "... beast of prey, brave and crafty..." and that "The animal of prey is the highest form of mobile life." He also described hate as "... the most genuine of all race-feelings in the beast of prey." In Hitler's time, lower-middle class, mostly unemployed, angry and insecure Germans ate up this kind of talk, and there was enough of them to democratically elect Hitler as their leader.

Therefore, especially in the context of what's happening in heartland US society today, I lost my stomach for thinking of voluntary simplicity as a fist. Using that kind of simple, gut-level imagery to stir up and manipulate the basest of human impulses is powerful and effective, but it's like giving someone a hammer that's been used in a murder: The hammer is no less a truly fine tool than it ever was but, because of its acquired association, the healthy human mind recoils from using it.

So, here I'm satisfied to just state my feelings about voluntary simplicity unequivocally. Others more talented than I have written about what voluntary simplicity is and is not, so, if you're interested, you can let them tell you about it. For example, there's a good introduction to voluntary simplicity at The Simplicity Collective website.

Searching the Internet on the keywords "voluntary simplicity" turns up a huge literature on the matter.

The concept of voluntary simplicity is not like a fist. It's like a flower bud waiting to blossom and share its fragrance, if given a chance.