Hello Folks, My needs are simple. 1) A few acres of land to live, grow, and raise animals on. 2) Clean water. 3) A leak proof roof. 4) Wood for my woodstove. 5) A soft bed. 6) A few friends. And, 7) Some good books. Everything else is just fluff. If you were to gather all your possession into a pile and had to retrieve only your needs from that pile....what you you leave behind? (This is a physical question). Would you just transfer the whole pile to another location, or could you carry your "new pile" in just your arms? Now, imagine, that pile of possessions, mentally! And then imagine your "new pile" of needs, mentally! Did your new pile lift your burdens...I hope it did? You see, more possessions carry with it a mental thought as well as a physical form. Thoreau once said, "Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind." Another wise man once said, "Creativity is the highest form of man's existance." I believe that the burden of too many possessions causes that burden to extend to our mental processes. A mind cluttered with worry does not have room for creativity. Your possessions may show your wealth but, your real wealth is your mind. How you chose to use that wealth is strictly up to you. I go to people's homes and see mountains of clutter. The clutter is difficult to maintain. Their houses look more like storage facilities, than anything else. Their land is piled with old vehicles, broken appliances, and refuse. They are afraid to throw ONE thing away...they might need it, someday they say. There yards are cluttered but, the TV antenna or satellite dish is mounted almost as a sacred altar. This clutter has resolved them to more clutter from the 2000 networks their sacred altar generously gives to them. How much more creative these people could be if they freed themselves of all this clutter? Many of the most brilliant men in history resolve their lives by living them simply. This allowed them a clear mind to work with in their quest for new discoveries. Einstien was a simple man, so simple he did not even consider bathing or wearing clean clothes as a necessity. Thomas Edison was another simple man. He wore cheap suits and often would go without eating for days in his pursuit of many inventions. Imagine, how creative these cluttered people I have mentioned could become if they would just SEE that a simplier lifestyle would provide them with more. All of us make choices as to how we want to live. Possessions are one of our choices. We all have the right to have as much as we want. But, at the same time, there is a limit to anything. Moderation is the key, someone said. It applies to possessions as much as it applied to health, when it was first quoted. Our needs, once satisfied allow use to grow. We are never poor, as our wealth is inside for all to see. This shining of wealth allows "simple folk" to become artists, sculpters, writers, inventors, and genuises to some degree, as apposed to filling our senses with more possessions and never satisfying our true potential of becoming happier. Sincerely, Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), November 24, 2001

Answers

A couple pens, three books (one philoshophy, one sustainable agriculture and my journal), , jar of seeds and my camping backpack and the determination to succeed are the things I would choose now.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 24, 2001.

Why would you equate stuff with worry? Unless one considered onesself the sum total of his stuff. But having stuff around does make life easier and results in the freedom to explore creativity. Unless one gets lost in the forest and the pursuit of stuff becomes an end, posession of stuff is only good. It's all in how you play the game. denying youself stuff because you are too undisciplined to function in its presence is acceptable, but don't glorify your weakness. Chosing to drop out of society while self gratifying may give you the warm fuzzies but denying your children the opportunity to take part in greater society and make the choice for themselves is a tragedy. In short it's all how you choose to order your life. The most creative tend to excel in modern society if you choose to accumulate stuff as a means of advancing that creativity then you're a winner. On the other hand chewing buckskin when really cheap clothing is available can hardly be considered creative unless you're doing something really new with the buckskin.

If you really think Edison was a simple man you've never been to the Edison Museum in Ft Meyers that guy had more stuff than most and lived a very luxurious lifestyle; I don't think it hampered his creativity one iota.

-- Ed (smikula@bellsouth.net), November 24, 2001.

Stuff can rule your life if you let it. Consumerism is a hard habit to kick. Today man is obsessed with stuff!!!More is better!!!

Our economy is based on us buying more stuff! That's a recipe for disaster.

William Morris said that society was obsessed "with the making of machines which were the wonders of invention, skill, and patience, used for the production of measureless quantities of worthless makeshifts."

Truer now than when he said it in the 1860's!

-- Jason in S. Tenn. (AJAMA5@netscape.net), November 24, 2001.

That is true only if you want it to be so. In reality those worthless makeshifts have conquered disease, advanced architecture, made it possible for many more people to exist on less land, and made it possible for most humans to function as humans rather than beasts of burden or organic machinery. It's all in your perspective. If you feel that creativity is following the north end of a south bound mule well I can understand your point. If you feel creativity is proactively positioning yourself to physically manifest the fruit of your mental labors then how can you knock less manual labor. The whole point of luxuries is to free the man for other pursuits, if the man is lazy and wastes the extra time or comes to consider that the amount of luxuries is a measure of the value of a man, is not the fault of the luxuries but the man.

-- Ed (smikula@bellsouth.net), November 24, 2001.

Actually Morris was refering to mass produced junk verses hand-made items or simple but functional things....such as a pencil.

Cheap, easily sharpened , and just the right tool for the job...writing.

The other side of the coin in this example is a mechanical pencil...complex, expensive, and you have to buy the lead!

I'm sure there are many other mass produced items that are just plain not needed.....but I'll say that I'm not a Luddite and am glad to have some of them! Just not an excess!

-- Jason in S. Tenn. (AJAMA5@netscape.net), November 24, 2001.

I think mechanical pencils came into being as a cost savings over wood pencils. When bookeeping was manual the amount of time spent pointing lead was excessive so they developed narrow leads that were fed mechanically to keep the bookeepers transcribing numbers not pointing lead. Again it's all how you look at it. While true it's silly to have them around the house to scrible grocery lists. They to come in handy if you do a lot of manual drafting.

That statem is right in one respect though with there are bottom feeders in all walks of life, and generally they mess up the good aspects of any change. Wheither it's Amour processing and selling diseased cattle, or farmer jones down the street trying to sell cow corn as sweet corn to city people it's all the same. There are those who are going to try to make a buck without providing any real service.

-- Ed (smikula@bellsouth.net), November 25, 2001.

He who dies with the most toys is dead.

-- paul (primrose@centex.net), November 25, 2001.

That's very true. But do you deny youself while you live simply because you're going to die? I'd rather live then die when I die. It's only about gathering the most toys to those who collect toys. To not acquire a necessary tool and do a less optimal job because of it is a crime against ones self. The only downside is that you tend to fill up the barn with stuff. I'm getting better about that though.

-- Ed (smikula@bellsouth.net), November 25, 2001.

Ernest,

I presume that your "enter" key is among the things that you tossed out, so you do not have the capability of starting a new paragraph once in a while. Perhaps one is enough.

From your post I determine that there is no question here, so I will not attempt to offer an answer. Just a lengthly post about, well; Ernest.

-- Ed Copp (OH) (edcopp@yahoo.com), November 25, 2001.

I guess it depends on what stuff you have. My husband has 1969 tax returns cause he might "need" them one day. Myself, seven years of saving them and then the oldest is tossed. DH has kept broken vcr's, telephones, etc. cause he might "need" the parts. Me, if it's broke and costs more than half as much to fix as a new one, I toss it out. We are polar opposites about "stuff". One thing though, all the junk keeps me from cleaning out the barn and I can never find anything I need as I have to go through box after box of "stuff". So I give up and leave the barn a mess. But his "stuff" is important to him, so I quit trying to get him to toss it. Stuff becomes a hindrance when one can't navigate around it or no longer deal with it.

I like new things like electric can openers, but I keep a manual one just in case the electricity goes out. But if the electric one breaks, I toss it out and buy a new one. It is not easy now to find anyone who can actually repair anything and the cost of repair is usually so high that I can replace the item cheaper than repairing it. That doesn't apply to cars and large ticket items like washers. I can't imagine that everyone who wants the "simple" life would necessarily throw out all their "stuff" and start from scratch. I suppose one could do without a lot of the stuff that makes life easier, but why would I want to go back to a harder lifestyle? like washing clothes with a washboard, or getting rid of the electric stove just so I can chop more wood and burn up in my un- airconditioned house while cooking over my simple woodstove. People invented things out of necessity as well as out of want.

It is only when one's wants overwhelm their life and that is all they care about, (keeping up with the Jone's) that I think the worry sets in. Myself, we are living the most simple lifestyle we can and part of that is due to having "stuff" which makes our lives easier so we have time to enjoy gardening, canning, taking care of the animals and still have time to go to football with the son, and help out my Mom when she needs it. If I didn't have "stuff" to help me do that, I would have no time as I am one of those who has to work to pay the mortgage. Hopefully in a few short years, I can work just part time and have even more time to do the things I want to do, like build a greenhouse. Time, and what one does with it, is the important thing.

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), November 25, 2001.

my grandfather was a simple man.made his living from his farm all his life. neverhad a lot of stuff . he had his family,plenty of food to eat &a warm bed to sleep in aftera hard days work.my grandfather was the happiest man i ever met. always smiling &laughing.

-- david coyner (dkoiner@webtv.net), November 25, 2001.

Hello Folks, Excellent answers, except for Ed Copp, who responded with criticism of me not spacing my paragraphs. Ed Copp I tried but, it never seems to work for me on this forum! Oh well, no one is perfect, not even you. Now, the other Ed that posted several times has an opposing view that really makes good sense. The aspect of living with your possessions to further your creativity. I do not questioned those that can do this. I question the weight of what having too many possessions can do to one's mentality. Some do fine by it, others, waste their creativity by only producing means to acquire more possessions. They dwell on this as if their lives were created to become beast of burden to the viewpoint that if they have more, they are wealthier or/and happier. They are the ones that Thoreau speaks about when he said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." They accepted their fate, not knowing how easy it is for them to free their minds and regain the lost creativity that has pulled them down into the cluttered heaps of mankind. The cluttered heaps of their on making. Others that have posted understood well what I was refering to, in the sense that they connected either something in their lives or another's life that showed a need for simplicity. It is true, that simplicity is not all that simple and must be look upon as a quest, taking one small step at a time. I myself could not be where I am over night. I worked on my volunteered simplicity for many years, starting in a city of 3 million people and ending here in the woods. But, all I am saying is true enough. It takes a reversal of living, to be living the good life. I say, put the junk cars in a straight line! Take the garbage to recycling. Give away that extra TV or mircowave. Start at home, with your own possessions. Teach your children there is beauty in the world around them and that having video games is not as interactive as watching a butterfly being born. Or develop a practise of using what you have instead of going out to get every gizmo that Sharper Image has to offer. Einstein said something like, Life and mathmatics are the same! Break them down to their simplist form and you will get the answer! Sincerely, Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), November 25, 2001.

This is just a sub-comment about a sub thread - not meant critically in any sense - on this forum if you want to put a blank line between paragraphs you need to PUT a blank line between paragraphs. That is, a new line will just get reformatted - you need to hit "enter, enter" to put in the blank line. Also can occur on other "plain-text" forums. Hope that helps.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), November 25, 2001.

I can relate to the point Ernest makes. And to the many responses contrary to his point. I try to avoid acquiring things that duplicate the function of others. Easy examples are found in the kitchen: An electric hand mixer, a large mixer/bread dough hook machine, a bread machine, a blender, grinder, food processor. One can buy a single appliance with attachments to address all these needs. But my biggest luxury if I had to walk away from the pile of stuff is this computer. My luxury is having the free time to get onto this forum and read what each of you thinks about as many different subjects.

-- Dwight (summit1762@aol.com), November 25, 2001.

I can relate to all the well stated positions. Its a fact of life that as physical animals with natural physical needs we need "stuff" to some extent. Where we draw the line depends on us as individuals and our individual tastes and proclivities. While I suspect that some of these are flat out foolish and wrong headed I guess its not for me to say how another lives.

On the other hand I'm a bottom feeder. I enjoy it and really hate to see good, functional or readilty repairable, useful stuff thrown out just because the thrower-outer was tired of it or got the newest, bestest model.

My Case 444 is one example. Another is the rototiller and countless others things I have around here that is useful now to me directly or will be useful to someone else. The stuff thats useful to someone else has bartering value to me. Does that make me materialistic? I don't think so---just frugal and cheap. Am I attached to the stuff? I don't think so. If I was the "stuff" would become an anchor and a spiritual impediment.

The bottom line, IMO, is in the state of mind of the "stuff" owner. One can have a simple, healthy, functional, spiritual attitude and state of mind and still have alot of stuff.

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), November 25, 2001.

Hi Ernest,

Great thoughts above. You are an inspiration.

On another note, I emailed you about some books for trade and then my email went down so I don't know if you are interested or not. If so you can reach me at this email for now silgis@n-connect.net.

Stace

-- Stacey (silgis@n-connect.net), November 27, 2001.

Interesting thread. Thanks for starting it, Ernest.

I suppose I would second the old adage about moderation in ALL things...whether those things be consumer items like tools, or excessive junk pile up for replacement, in case something breaks...or...attitudes.

*Judging others* in moderation ALSO seems to be a good, healthy, and practical attribute, seems to me. Self-congratulatory stuff about how wonderful we all are (even though we *are* of course!) is starting to wear on me, personally. I think it's great to give ourselves pats on the back for the great things we do (like live lightly on the land, eat low on the food chain, etc.) but I am really feeling the need to speak up for those who are the "others"...those who seem to get put down frequently on this forum...those "sheeple" or whatever. They are also our neigbors on this planet, and while they may seem frighteningly ignorant or (ahem!) self-righteous, they also are capable of a creative thought or even a kind deed now and again. We need to keep this in perspective. I have thought about this a lot since 09/11...

The world is not black and white. A consideration for moderation in all things doesn't seem like too much to ask.

Down from soapbox; tossing $.02 into hopper.....

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@Hotmail.com), November 30, 2001.