Wednesday, November 30

Life Simple

I've been spending a lot of time with a friendly Brazilian called Edwardo, who's been traveling for 8 years. Something that came up was that traveling shows you how simple life actually is. What do we really need to be able to live?
  • warmth: clothes and shelter
  • nutrition: food and drink
  • healthcare
  • friendship
Tell me if I've missed something. The traveler's life (as I've so far experienced it) involves planning on going somewhere, buying the ticket, getting there, beating the touts on the way to a hotel, dumping your bags, and then...whatever. Eating, drinking, chatting, reading... it's quite simple, really. When I think about my life in Leeds it was nothing like this. Meeting, work, another meeting, event, more work, meet somebody, go out, sleep, more more more, planning career, earning money, paying bills... It was a lot of fun, but all of that seems so hectic now.

Life is simple. So far, it seems that human life is the same wherever you are. Everybody wants friends, to be healthy, and to have fun, and money to enable things to happen. Gross simplification, but conceding big cultural differences, the basics don't really seem to change.

And so mortages and life insurance and DVDs and too much food and drink and new things and too many cars and faster broadband ETC may be nice, but they are certainly not necessary.

The simple life is good.

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5 Comments:

Blogger Carl said...

Interesting stuff. I'd like to do the simple life thing - but temporarily, I think...

30.11.05  
Blogger kit said...

Why only temporarily?

This is something I'm wrestling with.

1.12.05  
Blogger Carl said...

Because I think I like my comforts too much...!

I suspect if I were to do without them I'd feel differently.

1.12.05  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

yo k... spent most of the summer thinking about a 'lifestyle of simplicity'... but guess what happened? got caught up in life again.. sigh.. how i long for a simplistic life. sounds lie you are havin an awesome time.. so jealous but so glad for you at the same time! enjoy, and be safe and healthy.. love fellow k

2.12.05  
Blogger kit said...

K, so good to hear from you! What are you donig now? I think Dave has got a point about impacting the world. I thought about getting married to a girl in Laos and thereby getting Lao citizenship, and living off nuts and berries until the end. But, and this is related to the discussion on buddhism, something in me wants to engage with normal people in the West, my home, to make a difference there that will benefit people all over the world.

So maybe the challenge is to live more simply in the context of our everyday lives, as opposed to ejecting ourselves from society altogether (almost).

3.12.05  

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