I find the current tone of the comments in this thread rather upsetting. It feels like a lot of people are arguing to refute OPs position that a person's value is not determined from their material productivity. If this is you, I think you might be in the wrong community. I don't think this is a point of debate in the simple living community.

To say that a person's value is derived from their productivity is to say that you do not value the person, but what they produce. This can be interpreted as viewing a person as a Means to any End, rather than an End in themselves. For me, viewing people as Ends in themselves is a foundational pathos of Simple Living. The idea of valuing people, relationships, love, time, above wealth, material, prestige, speed is what simple living is all about!

Well wishes to you all 😊

I carry a Leatherman Squirt PS4 in my pocket every day. It's tiny and doesn't add bulk to my pocket but is super handy and I use it all the time. Has spring loaded pliers and tiny scissors, a small straight blade and file, and both a flat Phillips head and broader flat screwdriver.

This is such a clear and concise explanation of what simple living is ☺️. This is a great start for someone new to simple living and also a great refresher for refocusing those already embracing the lifestyle ❤️.

Thanks for sharing this. Hopepunk and grimdark are terms that we're not on my radar at all, but now reading about it I can look back and see the subtle difference in storytelling. Seems to me the difference come through not from the atmosphere of the work, but in the source of determination of the protagonist, favoring hope in humanity over bleak fortitude. There's certainly lu carryover lessons for real life, that identical situations can be approached with different sources of motivation.

Great article that discusses a lot of the good and bad of living an agrarian lifestyle. Simple definitely does not necessarily mean easy, but it can be rewarding by both qualities.

Something that comes to my mind is that you can definitely live a purely agrarian lifestyle like it were the 1800s or older as long as you take the lifestyle lock, stock, and barrel with it's benefits and hardships; people have been living this way for ages. But, I think what most people want are the benefits afforded by this lifestyle (the simplicity, feeling close to nature, working with your hand, etc) but to also enjoy the modern luxuries we're accustomed to (like technology, healthcare, etc), but it's really difficult to make this lifestyle support these desires.

What's worked for me is a hybrid lifestyle. I have a small house and a little land, I raise a big garden and my wife cans, so we grow most of our own food, but it's not a business, though we sometimes sell to a local restaurant and on Facebook when we have extra. We work really hard and try to be frugal, but we both also work part time jobs to make money, which gives a better return on investment for our time than we can get trying make it Simple living lifestyle support our modern needs. So we incorporate modern life employment to make simple living feasible and comfortable, but strive for simple living to make modern life minimized and tolerable.

Have a great day everyone!

If you read the article, it tells you that they collect recyclable material, then provide to firms which produce products from the usable material, and the remainder goes to landfills or is incinerated. I think the punchline is that by reducing their waste production and developing a better waste management system, they've been able to clean up their island.

For me there wasn't a specific event that caused me to turn to minimalism, but more of an evolution. A couple of years after I finished graduate school I found myself feeling lost without a clear goal of "the next step." In hindsight, I think I was probably depressed, but at some point decided to take inventory on what my values were and what brought me joy So I could focus on them, and all these things were not related to stuff. I noticed that my actions were not in line with pursuing my values and joys, e.g. working more to make more money to have more things that didn't make me happier. It was around this time that I saw the documentary on Netflix by The Minimalist (Josh and Ryan). If anything, you could call this my turning point. It resonated with me so powerfully! Now I had a name for what I was looking for, Minimalism. I then started researching the topic, found communities and bloggers about it, and realized I wasn't alone. Started forming my own philosophy for my needs discontinued cultivating the lifestyle ever since ☺️

This perspective sounds like relationships are a transactional affair of reciprocy. I am very sorry if this has been your experience with people ☹️

How about posting your pack list when you get done and folks can make suggestions? In the meantime, I have a bunch of little trinkets I take with me, but as far as "heavy" or bulking nonessentials I consider worth their weight:

• backpacking chair for sure
• pocket chainsaw
• Jetboil zip: compact, affordable, great for quick boiling to make coffee, tea, oatmeal, noodles, or freeze-dried food (especially so you can stay in the tent longer on cold mornings)
• shemagh- lots of uses as a scarf, towel, bag, etc
• Sawyer filter
• frogg toggs rain suit - cause getting drenched stinks

Here's some small stuff you might not think of that's great to have

• Paracord
• sawdust compressed fire starter
• gorilla tape and zip ties
• head lamp
• Moleskin for blisters and hot spots
• a small towel (if no shemagh-)
• plastic bags

Happy Trails!!!

Purposefully constructing my life and orientating my actions in a way that resists the emergent inclination of our modern society to add complexity to life without compelling benefit. Simply put, seeking happiness through simplification.This can look different for everyone. For me personally this means closeness to nature, friendship and conversation, minimizing my financial obligations which minimizes my need to work, limiting screen time and unhelpful technology, striving to be present and appreciative, slowing down and enjoying stillness, caring for what I have, releasing myself from pressure to be someone else's "better" while remaining ambitious toward exploring my passions. These are just a few aspects that come to mind.

Great post and reminder! I find myself sometimes tempted by the trap of seeking simple living/minimalism/environmentalism/general earthiness by doing silly things that aren't practical. Like just the other day I was thinking about getting rid of my awesome Braun razor ive had and loved for years and buying a simple safety razor instead to simply my life more. How silly. There are certainly times when there are actions needed to be taken to align our lives with simple living ideals, but sometimes we can feel a need to continue to search for changes to be made and it becomes a never-ending pursuit. Sometimes the only real change needed is our perspective!!! Just give yourself permission to let life be simple with just how it is.

This sounds awesome I'll look into it! I bet the folks over at the Degoogle Yourself community would like to see this. Not sure how to crosslink though.

I think it might be neat for the icon to be a simple (obviously) scene with some things people most often mentioned in those fun posts from r/simpleliving where someone asks, "what brings you joy in some living" or "what do you do to live a simple life." A cartoon of a sunrise, a hill green, with a tree and flower dots perhaps? Though, I know for me simple living means a strong connection to nature, but that's not universal of course. For any it's a cozy place, a warm blanket, a cup of coffee, and a good book. For others it means leaving a life of excess to living a scaled down life in a small dwelling, fewer expenses, and focusing on friendships and experiences.

Perhaps it's worth starting a separate discussion on what we view as the core tenets of simple living and find what themes unite everyone's interpretation of simple living to gain inspiration for an icon 😁

Sorry, I guess this wasn't really a straightforward suggestion lol. How about a sky blue circle with a yellow circle overlaying the blue circle near the top and color the bottoms 1/3 ff the blue filled circle a grass green color. So it's looks like the ground, sky, and sun 🌞

Glad to be here and looking forward to getting involved! I've always just been a lurker on Reddit, but something about lemmy makes me want to get involved. Maybe it's the smaller groups, but looking forward to seeing things grow ☺️

I didn't really get that sentiment from the article. To me the author seems to emphasize the importance of religion/spirituality as important for providing an "existential orientation," although that point is somewhat obscured by their flowery, albeit precise, language. Though they do wrap up with that odd citation about having a cultural council, which seemed a bit out there for me.

I've got this on my radar, he's already interested in going out at night to see the stars and moon with my constellation AR app, but I'm gonna save for a future Christmas, thank you!

I hear you, and I've really enjoyed our discourse. I think we're about 95% on the same page here, but you know how difficult trying to clearly communicate through text can be. I'm not sure I agree that how a society treats someone is more important than their internal sense of self worth, and that may be our sticking point that we can't reconcile, but I'm not saying your wrong. That point is completely defensible, but not how I see things.

For what it's worth, conversing with you has added value to my life and expanded my perspective. Though we've never met, and I'll most certainly never shake your hand or look you in the eye, I value you.

I wish you and anyone reading this to be well and have peace 😊

Lol you're absolutely right

Like others have said, try to have a place for everything, but I have a couple of caveats. I have a spouse and two young children, so having a specific spot where everything always goes is not really feasible. I try to restrict things to specific areas, like specific drawers/boxes/containers for it's if a certain kind. This keeps clutter out of sight, and having a policy that every item lives within some kind of container allows me to control how much space I want to allocate to a category of items. For example, my kids love figurines and action figures; they have a box for those type of toys, and once the box gets full, they have to let go of some if they want to get something new.

We also have areas in our house where things are allowed to be "parked," but the parking lot has to be cleared everyday, so that every day begins without clutter/chair. These are mostly our flat surfaces, like the eating table, kitchen counters, coffee table, etc. Part of our nightly routine is to run around for 10 minutes cleaning off these spaces.

I changed from working 40 hours a week to 32 hours per week (4 x 8 hour days) and it has really helped my mental health. Took some adjustment financially, but now I don't even notice! Highly recommend!