Quote:
Originally Posted by jaminhealth
Just talked to a friend in the East who was widowed after 56 yrs of marriage and a house to take care of. One of the first things she did was sell the house and get rid of years of stuff and now happily living in an apt..she says she couldn't be happier. I asked her how she has adjusted and for her it's pretty easy she says, she took care of husband for many years as he declined. Many have a hard time adjusting.
Love Carlin's youtube on "stuff".
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Been thinking on our topic from many different angles. Watched George's "Stuff" last night at work, the only place I really can watch it due to limited Internet at home, and some things are being corrected, such as tossing old school notes into recycling. Further, as I walk around the house with all its unpacked boxes of this or that, there is a lot of stuff.
But that is one of the complications of living out in the country, where floods at many different points on that one road back into town can cut you off in the high lands (it would take a Biblical Flood) for days. You need lots of stuff to keep going on your own if it comes down to it.
As far as a house full of books, I'm in the den and it is floor to ceiling of books for 1/3rd of the walls (the rest being windows and closet), that is one of those things with many different angles. Such as the information that one wants isn't always going to be on the Net, the Net is not always going to be there (such as when contact with the satellite is not possible) and when you need answers like damage control for broken piping, you need those answers at hand. When the streaming world is not available to you, when you are a roof for a night for traveling friends, it is nice to have books that they might want to read.....or puppets to entertain children that may be with them.
That latter part gets into the argument of "You have more than enough (whatever) than what you will ever need or even get to!". That is, that whatever is not only for one's self but others and as far as having lots of books, it is escapism especially for people pushed together so they don't go stir crazy. Long story short, if one is so fortunate so it is only them, then it is simpler to be simple.
In the dream sense, I rather built this place as a Mode II-A Safe House (private residence that can be used as a Mode II) where a Mode III is an unpowered storage bunker and a Mode I is a regional HQ capable of housing at least a company where a Mode II is somewhere in between. That is, in thinking, if the Mode II-A has a place to butcher a deer, it can be adjusted for emergency surgery. I am not butchering any deer here but the place does have at least three power sources.......and I would rather have friends visiting in their travels than to actually have to make this a safe house, but there is the thinking.
Long story short, the way we think, the we dream, even the realities we are involved in, may make our lives rather complex.
The other night was the dark before garbage day. As I drove out, I saw dumpsters stuffed to the brim and yet mine was barely full, just kitty litter and the weekly bag from the kitchen (ie, a thread I made long ago about that). Now admittedly, I am single but most of the ranches around here are of couples or the like or even more. Still, though, I wonder if there is that much of a difference in that I change three kitty litter pans a day, a difference in the numbers of occupants in the house. So what else makes their cans so full and mine so empty (still heavy enough for one week when I wrangle it into a car to take it to the road)?
Well, it is all just guess work for I am not going to do a door to door survey or even worse, bin dive. I suspect, however, that many don't recycle. I make recycling runs to drop off my baggy plastic at one place and almost all the other possible things at another. Now some people have a recycling bin as well on the road and that's good for them, I commend them. Myself, I prefer not going that route for like I said in "Technology & the Single Person", I need community contact. Going to the recycling place to drop of things keeps me in touch with the world.
So there is a question of if one does not recycle, have they taken a simpler route?
I buy my food, as it turns out, in a minimal of packaging. It is not really for the recycling reason, though, but other reasons, such as buying raw goods, canned, and bulk frozen as I can. This is in part because I learned it is more economical to buy raw goods, I can make out like a bandit at the store. I buy canned because I have a sailor/forest ranger mentality. As it is probably known, I make and drink powdered milk because I can have months of stocks in the house to be able to resupply from as oppose to having to drive out to the store, the closest one being almost 10 miles away. Admittedly, I got back into powdered milk, grew up on it as a child, because I figured it was cheaper in the long run. Bulk frozen is another area of economy especially since I have a chest freezer.
There, however, is another point about living simple. Which is and which is not? Bulk frozen is not simple, IMHO, because it requires a freezer and that requires power and if one one such as the latter is lost, where are you?
Raw goods and cans, on the other hand, is simple for they can be kept around by themselves for months until they are needed. Powdered milk can be made by just adding water (not the most appetizing); Moors & Christians (my version) can be pulled from jars on the counter, and it is add water and heat. That is simple.
GRANTED, I might be able to add the bulk frozen to the simple category, by a degree, by smoking it, but I don't know those techniques yet.
In conclusion, simple living depends on a lot of things.
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