JONTILLMAN.COM | part of the problem since 1976

Ask ten people what Simple Living is, and you’ll likely get eleven answers. There are probably as many answers to that question as there are people who say that they are living simply. Given that it is, at base, a very individualistic thing, here is my answer:

At it’s core, Simple Living is probably the wrong term for what I am talking about, and may be too limiting, too given to stereotyping, to be a good umbrella term for most of the people who have attached it to themselves for lack of a better one. Simple Living, Homesteading, Frugal Living; all of these are used almost interchangably, much to the dismay of those who have actually cleared their own land and built their own cabin, pioneer style, and feel a special priviledge to the term “Homestead”. As Daniel Quinn wrote in Beyond Civilization, “There is no one right way for people to live.”

Simple Living, or Simply Living, as I like to call it, is for me, an act of philosophy and art. It is my attempts to remove all of the layers of abstraction that modern life has thrown up between me and the actual physicality of my daily life. It is attempting to live more directly; not just “close to the earth” but close to all of the things that make up my surroundings. It means thinking about, recognizing, and removing those things from my life that exist solely to create layers of abstraction in my life.

It is much more about an approach to life than it is about any particular outcome or set of tools to reach that outcome. For me it is any act that brings me closer to direct participation in the mechanisms of my daily life, whether that be where my food comes from or how my clothes are made, and by whom, or in what kinds of entertainments I indulge in.

Too much attention has been paid to certain mechanics of Simple Living and the underlying philosophy has been obfuscated, as much by those claiming ot practice it as by those criticizing practitioners as cheapskates, bums or crazies. Simple Living doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that some people grow some of their own food or make their own clothes, or reclaim things you think of as trash for their own purposes. Simple Living is the philosophical drive behind those actions. It is the way of looking at the world that enables them to see thousands of uses for things you think of as used up. Don’t get caught up in the minutiae of Simplicity. Instead, seek always to become more connected to your own life and to exist fully in it. It is, after all, the only one you get.