Living More with Less

[eauclaireliberal]

This past Sunday, I attended the second session of a seminar in Eau Claire called “Simplicity Classes.” This thing is based on the beliefs of the Quakers; the primary goal is “Living More with Less.”

I don’t plan on attending any more of these things. This was my wife’s idea and for $20 you get a book of various articles and quotes about living simply. 99.999% of my wife’s ideas are wonderful, thoughtful and intelligent. This isn’t one of them. In fact, she has stated her desire to stop going to this as well.

Imagine if you will, several white Americans meeting once a month in the basement of a Friends church for two hours to discuss their problems of possessions…and being very guilty about it. It’s like a twelve-step group for mass-consumers feeling soulless for mass-consuming. “Step One: We admitted we were powerless over being a mindless bunch of morons when steel-studded SpongeBob Squarepants dildos become the blue-light special at K-Mart.”

What a crock of shit. Only in America could someone come up with this. When you think about the fact that millions of people worldwide don’t have a bite to eat, the fact that you have some kind of emotional distress over having cable television, internet and gas-guzzling cars seems quite asinine.

So it shouldn’t be any surprise that we have things such as eating disorders, breast enlargement procedures, kids on behavioral enhancement drugs, psychotropics, and California-style colonics to refresh ourselves physically and spiritually.

You have to give credit where credit is due: Sam Walton was a genius; he and the current board of Directors of Wal-Mart has Americans by the heart and the balls. They probably don’t buy the same overpriced and worthless junk that their customers do, because they know how the shit-laced brew is cooked. And speaking of Wal-Mart, they are currently brewing a good deal of anger with the Mexican people over plans to build another one of their Super-centers on sacred ground. I guess they came up with the rationale that if hiring Mexicans illegally in their locked stores in Hog’s Balls, Oklahoma in the middle of the night is going to stir controversy during a time where America’s jobs are in danger, better to bring it to Mexico where they can pay employees 15 cents an hour anyway.

I’m well aware that there is plenty of crap in my house that I really have no use for, and I plan to spend some time going over it all and throwing most of it away. Who knows-I might just come up with a few empty rooms in my house to help my wife and I realize that we didn’t need to throw away twenty bucks on a book of fruity new-age verbiage to tell us that we have too much possessions.

[Zorra]

1. "Live simply so that others may live".

Consumerism is destroying the environment. Bottom line.

Campaign To Starve The Beast:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2600099&mesg_id=2600099

[deek]

4. "Live simply so that others may simply live"

great quote

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Your wife was onto somethign though

Let me elaboarate

If we want our country bakc we will have to go the route of the founding fathers

Yes you to can participate in a boycott and NOT buy most of the junk for sale...

If enough of us switch buying habbits to mom and pop stores and don't consume during Christmas, guess what, they will notice

Tehy may not count the votes, but hell they will count the dollars

[IrateCitizen]

3. Living simplicity isn't a crock -- although this seminar wasn't it

Living simplicity isn't built around the idea of feeling guilty about your possessions. Rather, it's about analyzing the possessions you have and the purchases you make to determine if you actually gain a commensurate degree of fulfillment from them, or if they cost you more in money and life energy than the fulfillment you get in return.

In essence, it's an effort to concentrate on the things that matter in life, to unencumber yourself from being dragged down by your possessions and the energy it takes to maintain them.

That is more of the essence of the Quaker philosophy, as far as I understand it. I'm sorry that this seminar was so useless for you.

As something more in line with what I've just described here, I suggest you read the book Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.

[eauclaireliberal]

5. RE:

Living simplicity isn't built around the idea of feeling guilty about your possessions.

I know that part. The group itself is what prompted this rant.


In essence, it's an effort to concentrate on the things that matter in life, to unencumber yourself from being dragged down by your possessions and the energy it takes to maintain them.

That is more of the essence of the Quaker philosophy, as far as I understand it.

And it is a very good one: Quakers don't seem to have the problems we do. I agree with this philosophy, just not sure how it is that this message will go in the long run for people set in their ways.

BTW-I'm pretty sure that the Friends are not printing and profiting from this book: It was published by some company in Minneapolis, but the seminar is free. It doesn't add up.

[Robroy]

6. The more you learn, the less you need.

n/t