About a month ago, I wrote about identifying when we have enough; the point where acquiring more has no appeal whatsoever. As I stated then, I think that place is probably unique to each of us, but it’s becoming more important than ever that we find our way there for the sake of our sanity as well as the planet.
On another level, I’ve come to realize how closely this is related to one of the goals of the permaculture garden: minimizing outside inputs. Our lives and communities can either be places that care for themselves in closed loops of efficiency (“relocalization“) or they can be – as most are now – places that are utterly dependent on endless inputs from outside: food, fuel, goods, stuff.
If we’re focused on the acquisition of stuff and status, we have no choice but to buy our lives in this way. Most of us march off to work every day and toil long hours to pay for the trappings of our existence. It’s a very expensive and, these days, uncertain way to live.
Instead, what if we took stock of what we have and simply worked to get rid of the excess? Unless you’re a 20-something fresh out of school, you probably already have just about everything you need for a nice life. If you’ve been working for awhile, you have a roof over your head, food in your tummy, three lifetimes of clothing and shoes, transportation, plus a few luxuries even.
All those “inputs” into your life have already been acquired. Do you really need more?
Maybe it’s time to think like the sculptor who has a lovely block of marble in front of him. He knows that if he removes just enough of the material – not too little, not too much – he’ll be left with something that is just right: a satisfying creation of his own making.
That’s a lovely metaphor for downshifting our lives, don’t you think?
That’s where I’m at. I have lots of stuff already. Much of it I don’t need or want anymore. My job now is to separate the useful from the excess. In the process, I’m finding a lot of whatzits: things I knew I had but I’d either forgotten about or just plain misplaced. Many of them are still useful to me and I’m overjoyed to find that a) I already own it and b) I don’t have to spend money on buying another one.
I can’t live with just 100 things. That wouldn’t work for me at all. Just the fact that I have a garden – which minimizes my outside inputs of food from far, far away – means I need a bunch of “stuff”. But I need the right stuff, and generally speaking, only one: one pointed shovel, one rake, one lawn mower for killing my lawn and so on – tools for harvesting the natural energies that are already flowing through this place.
The same goes for my art.
Look around your life: how many outside inputs have you already purchased? Do you really need more? Or, like the sculptor, would your life, your family, and even your community be better served by living a life of subtraction, working a little less and making time to enjoy what you already have?
Till next time…
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