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Simple Living

Page history last edited by Deanne Bednar 14 years, 11 months ago

Thoughts on Voluntary Simplicity by Clay and Judy.

Local Currency . Video on Ithaca Bucks, a system started in 1991 in NY.  

Writings below:

  • Quote 1: Reflecting on our relationship with home ownership & slavery"

by Deanne Bednar

 

  • Quote 2: From "Voluntary Simplicity" by Duane Elgin

p. 85

 

"Reflecting on our relationship with home ownership & slavery"

Deanne Bednar

 

Ancient people, our anscestors, probably built small dwellings to live in. Larger structures, like commons buildings, ceremonial structures, would be built as a community effort. On the other hand, Kings and Queens had castle-like homes, constructed by servants, surfs....slaves. We tend to immulate the rich, seeking large homes for comfort/status...to fit in...

 

If we build a large home for ourselves, WE become the slave...either by having to work for 30 years to pay for the house, or in the time and effort of building and maintaining the big house.

To be in a comfortable relationship, and not a slave, our homes will probably be something rather easy to build and maintain. (affordable on all levels - time, energy, and....)

 

Currently our culture is treating __nature as our slave__, asking it to provide our needs in a selfish one-way flow. People in other countries, unseen by us provide the slave labour to extract the resources and shape the "things" that we buy to create and maintain our lives. But nature (and other people) need to be more than our slave. Earth is our survival, our infrastructure, our relative...our HOME. And it doesn't behoove us to treat nature like a slave...or a just a beautiful backdrop for our enjoyment. It IS beautiful, but NOT ONLY that. Rather a rich relationship of interactions, alive, a relative back to the beginning of time. (And other people are our relatives.)

 

From "Voluntary Simplicity" by Duane Elgin

p. 85

 

"This way of life (simple living) does not represent a withdrawal from the world. Some may mistake the unwillingness of this fore-runner group to participate in the aggressive exploitation of resources, the environment, and other members of the human family (and other animals) as a retreat from the world. Yet far from withdrawal, a path of conscious simplicity promotes our penetrating and intimate involvement with life. With conscious and direct involvement comes clarity. With clarity comes insight. With insight comes love. With love comes mutually helpful living. With mutually helpful living a growing civilization is made possible. Thus rather than abandoning the world, those choosing a life of conscious simplistic are, I think, pioneering a new civilizing process.

 

...these pioneers of an alternative way of living reveal that "small is beautiful" when it comes to the process of making changes in our lives. Small changes that are seemingly inconsequential when viewed in isolation are of revolutionary significance in their cumulative impact. It is these many, small changes that will accumulate, bit by bit, into a thorough transformation of our collective manner of living."

 

Baruch Simons reelects on hearing the above quote"

"I resonate with insight leading to love. Layers of insight. The Buddhists say "first comes understanding, (and out of that, our own self management), which cultivates compassion towards others and ourselves, then comes love.

 

Sam Runner reflects: I like the idea of Jacque Fresco's "Resource-based Economy".

 

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