Some Thoughts On The Good Life

To my way of thinking, rushing around is antithetical to living the good life. But what would it look like if the rushing wasn't there? Would it be like a perpetual vacation to a plush resort in the Carribean or on a Greek Island? Would money be a concern? Would it be easier or harder than you have now?

So one question comes up as to what that rushing is all about and is there anyone "out there" who has really come to terms with the pursuit of money and who has also found a way to live "the good life?"

A few months ago I was introduced to the writings of one such couple, Helen and Scott Nearing and one of their books is appropriately named: The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living. The edition I have also contains another of their books, equally appropriately named: Continuing The Good Life. I'm still reading the book in a leisurely manner and am in no rush to finish it since it keeps feeding me wonderful thoughts and images and possibilities.

The book was originally published in 1954, the year I entered high school. Their formal journey began at the height of the Great Depression. They left their professional life in the New York Area at a time when "society was gripped by depression and unemployment, falling a prey to fascism, and on the verge of another world-wide military free-for-all; and entered a preindustrial, rural community" by buying a run-down farm in the Green Mountains of southern Vermont.

By way of their intent, they "thought of the venture as a personal search for a simple, satisfying life on the land, to be devoted to mutual aid and harmlessness, with an ample margin of leisure in which to do personally constructive and creative work.

They started with a set of goals (they were very focused), a timetable, a willingness to get their hands dirty, and the wish to not be consumed by "things." But what really caught my attention was their attitude towards money and food and time and not going into debt.

They had a series of rules or guidelines. One was that they grew as much of their own food as possible. They were vegetarians so that made that task somewhat easier. When they had enough food for themselves and for the non-growing season (remember it's Vermont where they start their adventure) they would give away the food. They take delight in talking about how they had bountiful crops from their pole bean plants and they would fill baskets full of fresh beans and go into town and offer them to people for free. People tended to be hesitant to accept them, but when they found out that there were no strings attached they did, and were appreciative.

They were entrepreneurs in the sense that when they ran into a problem, they would look for a way to solve it and would, in a sense, start a business. For example, when they were building one of their stone homes they had difficulty negotiating a steep and oftentimes muddy road. So they bought a piece of property which a neighbor had no use for (and thought was useless) and started pulling out gravel from the property, sold some of it to the town for road repairs, bought a truck to move the gravel to pave their own road and then when that was finished, sold the property to another resident in the area at essentially the same price they bought it for. There's a lot more to that story which gives glimpses into their character and how they were clear that they were not trying to make any money at anyone else's expense. I would say they were living the principle of: "win-win or no deal."

Their work schedule was equally interesting. They worked 3 hours a day. I'm not sure about Saturday but I do know that they took Sunday "off." You read it right! Three hours a day. Period. It was their choice if they worked the 3 hours in the morning or the afternoon, and it could vary according to weather, or whim. They took three hours each day to read or write or walk or talk, or whatever, but no work during that time.

In their book they talk about how they had frequent visitors. The rule was the same for their guests. Everyone worked for 3 hours. One of the problems they ran into was the "city folk" wanted to continue working once they got into it. But the Nearings would insist on the house rules - 3 hours per day, and that's it.

Their built their sheds and houses, gardened, gathered wood, had a sauna, collected maple syrup, etc.

There was one other particularly important and fascinating practise they followed. They kept close financial records (they actually kept careful records of all their endeavors) and they estimated how much actual money they would need to live their lives for that year, and when they had enough food, and enough money for expenses for the year, they stopped working for the rest of the year.

I'm sure it helped that they didn't have any children. I have my doubts that they carried any insurance. They were clearly healthy - he died at 100. That's a story in itself. And they travelled when they wanted and they had earned their yearly quotas of food and money. To my knowledge, and this is equally significant, they carried no debt.

I have always found it helpful and valuable to meet someone or read about someone who is actually doing something that others talk about but never seem to actually get around to doing. Thoreau talked about it and lived it for a year or so and thankfully wrote about it for all of us to enjoy and dream and wonder about, but the Nearings actually did it and showed how they did it and left their footprints in words so others, if they chose, could also set out on a similar path.

Do you think it could be done in this age? Would you welcome the opportunity? Would you be able to handle the hard work and the slower pace? Would you feel good about yourself if you didn't buy as much as you buy? Or travel on a whim? Could you tolerate the apprehension of not having money set aside for "retirement?" Would you need to have more put away for a rainy day? And perhaps most importantly do you think that you would have to move away from where you are now and move "out there" somewhere? So many questions.

For some further thoughts on Homesteading you can find a brief thread on the Forum at Pathtofreedom.com.

I would love to hear anyone else's thoughts or experiences around this topic.

Walden Pond - Walkabout

It's been thirty years since I last visited Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. About all I remember of that visit was that there was a small hut and a pond, and that it had something to do with a writer called Thoreau. Looking back it is like I was going through the motions of "seeing something" mostly for the purpose of checking it off on the list. I thought then that I was seeing everything with such clarity. Now I am amazed at how naive I was, and how the invisible blinders blocked the deep sense of appreciation which the location warranted.

Since the day was in my mind an officially designated "Walkabout Day," I walked from the train station to Walden Pond, altogether about 2 miles. It was a near perfect Fall day which made it easy to be in no rush.

First stop was in the Shop at Walden Pond. The T-shirts caught my attention the most. Loved seeing Thoreau's sayings printed on different colors: "Simplify, Simplify;" "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them;" "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes." I took one other to heart for the moment: "Do not trouble yourself much to get new things," and managed to get out of the shop with all my money still in my pocket.

The replica of Thoreau's single-room hut was a short distance away. Outside was a bronze sculpture of the man - it looked to me as if his clothes were made of tree bark. Perhaps the artist was trying to convey the strength of the natural man. I loved the simplicity of the hut, 12 feet by 15 feet with a window on each side, one door in the front, and a stone fireplace for the back wall, with a wood box to the right of the fireplace. There was a single cot, a desk and chair, and a round table with another chair. The wood burning stove had pots for cooking on the top. I could see a reflective person walk into the house and easily live there - Thoreau did for 2 years. Some books, perhaps a radio, definitely no television. It is a dwelling to come back to and to live around. Perfect for "the woods."

The pond, longer than wide and with several small coves, is beautiful. The water is very clear. An easy 1.7 mile walk circumnavigates the entire pond. It took me 2 hours to finish the walk, what with carrying on conversations along the way and meditating at Ice Fort Cove.

Perhaps the most enjoyable conversation was with a pilgrim from Virginia who had driven up that morning, starting his pilgrimage at 2 in the morning. We spoke of cultural differences, the pace of life in America, the epidemics of diabetes, hypertension and consumerism. I asked if he wanted to walk along with me but he gently deferred preferring to walk alone. Of course: it was his pilgrimage; mine also, but I also learn through these conversations.

The surprise came when I saw a sign pointing to the original Thoreau House Site. It was a quiet "shrine" surrounded on three sides with low hills. Out the front door and slightly to the right was a view of the pond. I didn't have a compass with me but I was curious if the door fronted due east.

There was a plaque there which said it all: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Walden

Off to Boston Walkabout #2 tomorrow, with a twist.

The twist is that after I get to Boston, I am then going to Concord, Massachusetts and then from the commuter train station, I am going to walk to Walden Pond and "take in" where Thoreau built his cabin and hung out for a year. I'll walk around the pond and find a suitable time to "grok" it all out. I'll do my meditation there tomorrow instead of at the pond. I'll let you know how it turns out.

And to whet your appetite and mine, drink of the following from Master Thoreau himself:

Walking - ("Walking" began as a lecture, first delivered at the Concord Lyceum on April 23, 1851, and many other times, until it evolved into the essay published in the Atlantic Monthly, after his death in 1862.)

"The length of his walk uniformly made the length of his writing. If shut up in the house, he did not write at all." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I WISH TO SPEAK a word for nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and Culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make a emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization; the minister, and the school-committee, and every one of you will take care of that.

[2] I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainte terre"—to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a sainte-terrer", a saunterer—a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which indeed is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit (1) in us, to go forth and reconquer this holy land from the hands of the Infidels.

[3] It is true, we are but faint hearted crusaders, even the walkers, now-a-days, who undertake no persevering never ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours and come round again at evening to the old hearth side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return; prepared to send back our embalmed hearts (2) only, as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends,(3) and never see them again; if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk.

[4] To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, or rather an old, order—not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or Riders,(4) but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the rider seems now to reside in—or perchance to have subsided into the Walker—not the Knight but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate—outside to Church and State and People.

[5] We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practiced this noble art; though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to be received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence, which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from heaven to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. Ambulator nascitur, non fit. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can remember, and have described to me some walks which they took ten years ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half an hour in the woods, but I know very well that they have confined themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make to belong to this select class. No doubt, they were elevated for a moment as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they were foresters and outlaws.

for the complete essay: http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking.html

Disentangling from the habitual pull

It's one thing to think about making a change, it's another thing to do it. But the real development comes when we expand on the initial movement, and then continue on that path without getting lost in all the distractions.

For example, I have been thinking about creating and stepping into a less hurried and a more simple way of living my life. The thinking started a while ago and periodically I come back to it in my thoughts. There was then a progression where I started talking about it with others who have made the transition. Then came the critical part: how to continue on the journey in a more systematic way.

Here was the question: Do I make radical changes essentially all at once or do I make one change, watch for it's effects and then build on that. I opted clearly for the latter but left open the possibility that after following through with the "smaller" parts that at some point a "sea-change" event or moment may spontaneously present itself.

I look at it like the landings on D-day but without all the aggression. There were multiple landings at different locations and each one could help to boost the success factor, but if any one didn't materialize, the others could still move forward. In my mind there is a sense of purpose and a sense of mission with this process; but I've dropped the aggression. Compass readings to explore, yes. Force, no.

Here's the reality, however, no matter how appealing the new process may be, there is the force of habit which wants to pull you back into the old style. Everyone who has ever gone on a diet knows this. If it wasn't food, it was cigarettes, or alcohol, or buying. No matter what the dependency / addiction, the pull back towards the old pattern is always there. Maybe the D-day analogy is helpful here also. The bigger the initial wave, the bigger the undertow. The more forcefully something is pushed forward, the more forcefully do the counter forces attack back. From the outside, the pushback is from others who don't like or support the change. From the inside it the ease of unconsciously performing all the old patterns which slip beneath the radar which then deposit us back in the old patterns all over again. That's why the stealth approach holds more promise when it comes to following through.

Initially I chose the behavior captured in the mantra at the top of this blog. Then I decided to not buy a cup of coffee on my way to work in the morning. Then I started to think about how much pocket money I tend to walk around with, and I decided to carry instead only a few dollars. I noticed that with each of these decisions and actions there came a sense of freedom. In my mind the skirmishes were quite small. The victories were also equally small. But with the changes came an unexpected sense of freedom.

It reminds me of a quote I saved a while back, by Thoreau: "...for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let down."