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Blog Archives
Highlights - Simple Living
Getting Bored – July 18, 2006
I’m working hard this week to finish off our magazines one week early
so I can take a vacation. So, in effect, I’m speeding up so I can slow
down. My normal speed of life is pretty frenetic, so slowing down is a
relative term. But I’m searching for a more long-term slower rhythm,
trying to make changes in my life and my work so I can be bored.
Boredom, I theorize, can be a good state – ultimately leading to
creativity and productivity, as I wrote a few years ago in Life
Learning. I think that’s because boredom creates some space for peace
of mind to creep in.
Usually an efficient multi-tasker, I’m not good
at being bored, typically trying to fill up the empty moments with work
or random activity, to speed up the slower pace. So on this vacation,
I’m going to try to dilute the adrenaline, to let go of my to-do list,
to practice doing nothing for awhile, to try and get bored. I guess the
process is a bit like learning to meditate – being patient with
yourself until it becomes second nature.
I am not sure why I’m so careful to avoid
boredom, although I suspect it has something to do with all those
earnest clichés I heard as a child, which turned me into a doer rather
than a “be-er” (which, in itself, isn’t such a bad thing.) Like
idle hands being the devil’s playground and an idle mind being the
devil’s workshop (or was it vice versa?) and the need to make hay
while the sun shines. But as an adult, I know that the word “bore”
has another definition that involves tunneling through something, so
I’m using that analogy to get to the other side of my dedication to
work and to find that elusive peace of mind. Gotta get back to work now.
Posted: 2006/07/18
3:20 PM
Downshifting – April 29, 2005
Whether you call it voluntary simplicity, slow
living or downshifting, the idea of getting out of the retrace and
living more meaningfully is catching on. In the
UK, this is the end of
National Downshifting Week. Conceived and organized by writer and
self-described downshifter Tracey Smith, it has been, by all accounts, a
great success. Smith wrote to say that she has been traveling all over England
this week helping people find ways to live more simply, less stressfully and more
sustainably. The website is full of things
individuals and families can do year round to downshift. Smith says she
plans to take Downshifting Week international next year.
Posted: 2005/04/29 10:58 AM
Assembling a Life – October
24, 2004
As we encounter the second adulthood of life, as
Gail Sheehy puts it in her book New Passages,
many of us become interested in slowing down the fast pace of our lives
or at least looking for the soul in our busy days. So clearly, I’m not
part of the target market for a new twist on prepared food that involves
quickly assembling a meal at home from various precooked components
bought at the grocery store. Think whole beef pot roasts and meat
loaves, organic veggie stews and bean soups, pre-cooked in their own
gravies and sauces, and ready to re-heat at home in the microwave. The
assembled meal might also include pre-sliced and pre-spiced, ready-to-heat garlic
bread with cheese, and pre-washed and pre-cut ready-to-steam broccoli
and cauliflower pieces. It’s admittedly a far cry from take-out pizza,
fast food hamburgers or the old standby for those with no skills, time
or inclination to cook – Kraft Dinner.
This trend is described in detail
by writer Philip Preville in an article in
Enroute magazine. (Thanks to a reader for drawing it to my attention!)
And Preville does point out that “home meal assembly” is especially
a hit with the under-35s who are crunched for time but still feel the
need to somehow participate in meal preparation.
My first thought on reading the article was that
this supposed biggest food trend of the last decade has its opposing
trend – the Slow Food Movement, which is
dedicated to preserving the taste and general pleasure associated with
good food. Of course, slow food may be merely a reaction to fast food.
And perhaps its following is made up of contemplative midlife folk like me, rather
than the more frenzied under-35s.
However, on second thought, I focused on the part
about needing to participate in meal preparation. Perhaps people miss
those home-cooked meals of their childhood – even if, like me, they
didn’t experience many of them. Maybe they yearn for the camaraderie
of group food preparation and long to savor the pleasure associated with
gastronomy. Maybe the home
meal assembly and slow food trends are really two different aspects of
the same thing – a return to an understanding that food is much more
than something to shovel into our mouths to give us enough energy to
keep running the rat race.
Unfortunately, scratching this itch in this manner
isn’t exactly the best choice in terms of nutrition or the
environment, since these made-for-assembly meal components generally use
more salt and preservatives, as well as more packaging, than their raw
state counterparts. I think of my mother, a 1950s “homemaker” who
embraced every new “instant” food as it came on the market, from
powdered mashed potatoes to Jello, even though time wasn’t a
constraint, with a tiny home to make and just one child. I think, also,
of myself, who (in typical overblown reaction to my own upbringing)
managed to tend a vegetable garden, bake bread from scratch, dice
vegetables and soak beans for long-simmered stews, and more...all the
while tending two home-educated children and co-running a publishing
business.
So the ability to feed ourselves well doesn’t have to depend
on the amount of available time. I suspect that cooking skills and
priorities are more important factors. Oh, and could the corporate world
be, once again, pushing us along the road toward assembling our lives
(and our food) rather than creating them? The Enroute article mentioned
Canadian research that shows that food manufacturers are doing their
part to speed up the decline in people’s cooking skills. Fortunately,
one of the projects of the Slow Food Movement is to protect food
biodiversity – not only food animals and plants that are disappearing,
but also products, dishes and skills.
Posted: 2004/10/24 11:24 PM
In
Charge of Ourselves – October 12, 2004
When my husband Rolf and I started publishing our first magazine Natural
Life back in 1976, the focus was on “self-reliance”. That being
the back-to-the-land era, many people understandably misinterpreted the
concept to mean “self-sufficiency” and were disappointed at the tiny
size of our vegetable garden and that we didn’t have chickens running
around the publishing office. The two concepts are related, but quite
different. The dictionary definition of “self-reliance” is
“reliance on one’s own capabilities, judgment, or resources;
independence”. “Self-sufficiency” is defined as “the ability to
provide for oneself without the help of others” and, in some
dictionaries, has the qualifier of “having undue confidence” or
being “smug”.
Our mission has always been to provide readers with
information that will encourage them to question the status quo and
hence make their own authentic choices about the food they eat, the
things they buy, the amount of natural resources they consume, the way
they educate themselves and their children, and so on. Or, in a word, to
be self-reliant. Our meaning is in tune (aside from the 1840s gender
bias) with that of Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay entitled “Self-Reliance”,
where he wrote, in part, “There is a time in every man’s education
when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation
is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his
portion....”
That sense of the importance of each of us crafting our
own authentic view of the world still underlies what we are about almost
30 years after we published that first issue of Natural Life
magazine. If you are self-reliant, you realize the dangers inherent in
educating children in schools...and aren’t afraid to try the
non-institutionalized path. If you are self-reliant, you refuse to
believe at face value the spin that politicians put on health care, or
protecting our food supply and our energy resources...and you do your
own research and work together with your neighbors to build positive
community alternatives. If you are self-reliant, you take ownership of
your own feelings and emotions...and replace blaming others for your
anger with a decision not to be angry.
Yes, it takes time and effort to question conventional
assumptions. (And beware: questioning one assumption leads to another,
and so on....) But my own journey toward self-reliance has shown me that
doing so can make life far simpler, much less destructive and very much
happier.
Posted: 2004/10/12
11:13 AM
Finding
Balance – October 9, 2004
I have been chatting with a friend about making lifestyle changes. She
was feeling guilty because on a recent road trip, she had stopped at a
fast food outlet’s drive-through window. She approves of neither the
politics nor the food at this restaurant, but was hungry and it was the
only place accessible and open. Nevertheless, a week later, she was
still beating herself up over the incident and seemed on the verge of a
self-imposed frenzy of deprivation in order to compensate for her
perceived backsliding. I told her that living lightly on the earth is a
journey, not a destination...a process not a product. There is no right
way, just a commitment to keep moving in the right direction (and not
worrying about the odd little sidestep).
I’ve been on this path for
over 30 years, but still the contents of my closet would outfit two or
three families, the number of books on my shelves would furnish a small
town library, and I love my morning latte. The way I see it, healthy,
sustainable living is all about finding a graceful balance. For
instance, I’ll gratefully eat turkey with friends this Thanksgiving
weekend, because the joy of sharing and caring is more important to me
than sticking rigidly to a vegetarian diet. Finding balance along a
challenging path means living mindfully, – knowing
who we are, where we came from, where we are going and why. That
awareness helps keep us focused on the larger goal of reducing our
negative impact on the planet while living a healthy lifestyle...and
enjoying our lives along the way.
Posted: 2004/10/09 11:38 PM
Shopping
– September 16, 2004
Further to my September 12 blog about magazines dumbing down organics, a
reader pointed out a magazine phenomenon that I find even more
disturbing. I’d noticed ads for new magazines that seemed to focus on
shopping, but hadn’t paid much attention. Then came this reader’s
email, hot on the heals of an article on the subject in the latest
edition of Masthead, a magazine industry trade magazine.
And as I looked around, I realized that shopping magazines are sprouting
up everywhere. Three launched in Canada this summer alone, all based on
a concept that apparently began in Japan a number of years ago. Rather
than insult the magazine genre in which I work, I would rather call
these publications “magalogs”; they are really catalogs disguised in
the shape and format of a magazine. Take a magazine, remove the
editorial, and you have Lucky, Loulou, Wish and Fashion
Shops. (No, I’m not going to link to them...you can google if you
are curious.) Oh, and did I say that people actually pay for these
publications? They’re big
and fat (Loulou’s first issue was 200 pages), full of ads (of course),
pretty and glossy. And popular; according to the Masthead article where one editor was quoted as saying
they are very serious about being superficial, they are circulating
hundreds of thousands of copies.
So
are the young women who are the market for these publications
really that enthusiastic about ostentatious consumption and aesthetics?
Yup. That is exactly what Montreal-base polling firm CROP found last
year. And how about these numbers from Toronto-based Environics Research
Group? Sixty-six percent of females versus 60 percent of males say they “love” to
buy consumer goods. In my research I found something else
interesting...a 2001 British poll that 52 percent of women say they
enjoy shopping more than sex.
There
are lots of theories about the reasons for this frightening infatuation
with consuming, and why it is happening in parallel with a trend toward
simpler living (maybe the former is driving the later, or maybe the
latter is, as I wrote on the 12th, just a passing interest).
But much of the drive to shop must be fuelled by advertisers targeting
increasingly young children. At least that’s what Juliet
Schor says in her new book entitled Born to Buy: The Commercialized
Child and the New Consumer Culture (Scribner, 2004).
Posted: 2004/09/16 1:45 PM
Dumbing
Down Organics – September 12, 2004
I’ve
just been reading the newly redesigned edition of Organic Style mag,
published by the venerable Rodale Press.
They’ve got a new editor who says her upbringing was an example of bad
organic style. Her parents were apparently into organics, alternative
medicine and other “hippie” (her word) things before it was stylish
(no white sugar, flour or rice, for heaven’s sake). In her attempt to
be – and have her new employer be – seen as cool, all she ends up
doing is highlighting the fact that what was once considered to be
fringe has now become fashion (not to mention coming across as downright
churlish about her family). Eco-chic is the buzz word these days. If
Organic Style’s advertisers are any indication, the eco-chic
organically stylish woman drives a mini-van, works out on a treadmill,
visits South Carolina, is on the South Beach Diet, drinks gourmet
coffee, removes unwanted body hair with wax, and eats Post’s Frosted
Shredded Wheat cereal. Huh?
OK,
so maybe I’m over 50 and my magazine is almost 30, while this editor
looks 20-something and her magazine is barely 3. Or maybe I’m just
curmudgeonly middle-aged and/or jealous that they have more ad revenue
than we do. Or is this a good example of the watering down of all
things “organic”, “natural” and “simple”?
Now,
I’m happy that millions of people are saying a loud “No!” to
genetically-altered food, junk food, pesticides and gas-guzzling SUVs.
I’m thrilled that demand for organic food is growing so fast farmers
have a hard time keeping up. When my husband Rolf and I started Natural
Life magazine in 1976, we joked about how we’d be happy when natural
living (and all its related aspects like natural learning) became such a
common concept that we’d have put ourselves out of business. It hasn’t
happened yet, but one
part of my brain cheers the fact that such words and phrases are now
commonplace...OK, chic. However, such hopeful trends have their dark
side too. While I am all in favor of what author Paul Hawken has called
“natural capitalism”, the pursuit of profit often has the side
effect of dumbing down the concept it is exploiting. So although it may
not be the publisher’s intention, magazines like Organic Style (and
Real Simple to name another) are eroding the
authenticity of the very concepts they are promoting. And they are
insulting their readers at the same time. Watering ideas down in order
to make them palatable to the general population is just as unnecessary
as adding sugar to otherwise healthy prepared foods. Ever tried to buy
soy milk or supposedly “natural” and even “organic” cereal that
doesn’t have added sugar?
However,
the media is not alone in this. As the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has recently pointed out in an
important essay
by organic farmer and author Eliot Coleman, big corporations respond to
the consumers’ concerns about what they are doing to their health and
that of the planet, they buy out the small organic companies, monopolize
retail outlets, and work with government bureaucrats to lower organic
standards. The OCA estimates that everything sold in supermarkets will
be labeled “organic” in 20 years...but that word will be just
another meaningless marketing word by then.
So
what is needed? A large dose of authenticity. Educated, sophisticated
consumers who won’t stand for “organic lite”, who will buy from
local organic farmers rather than supermarkets touting any old imported
product they can slap a greener label on. Consumers who will support
businesses that operate on the principles of Fair Trade and
sustainability. Consumers who are happy to buy second-hand and
small...or not at all. People whose sense of well-being isn’t based on
having the newest, most chic whatevers and for whom living a more
healthy, sustainable lifestyle doesn’t mean just flashing back to the days
of ponchos, peasant blouses and psychedelically painted VWs. Oh, and who
read publications that don’t allow the information they provide to be
compromised by a hell-bent drive for profit without principles.
Posted: 2004/09/12 11:49 AM
Simplifying – August
20, 2004
On days like today, when I’m restless or stressed or pondering a
problem, I clean. Putting my belongings in their places helps me find
order within. As I clean out desk drawers and closets, I clear away the
cobwebs in which my brain has become entangled. I shed possessions like
midlife bone mass, purging the mistakes of the past along with old
dishes, teenage love letters, polyester shirts that I haven’t worn
in decades and hundreds of books that I keep around...well, just because
I like to have them around. As I simplify my surroundings, I uncover what is really
important in my life. I take a deep breath, stretch the pains of tension
out of my shoulders and remember to savor life at this very moment.
Since I
have spent much of my life revisiting the past or anticipating the
future, being in the present – no matter what I am doing – is, for
me, an important part of doing more with less.
Posted: 2004/08/20
4:46 PM
Laziness
– April 20, 2004
Few
things seem to trouble parents more than the possibility their kids
might be lazy. I guess it’s the legacy of that old Puritan Work Ethic
(and you don’t have to be part of any particular religion to suffer
from it!). Like our current style of schooling, which is based on
it, the belief that hard work makes you a better human being dates back
to the Industrial Revolution. It might have been a useful tool for
factory owners trying to make their employees productive, but it can
actually be counterproductive today. Those who can work smarter and more
creatively often get further ahead in today’s workplace. And they
certainly live happier, more balanced lives.
The Puritan Work Ethic is
especially damaging in terms of education, where work for its own sake
just doesn’t make sense. Students are often asked to put in long hours
in the classroom and doing homework, experiences that seldom produce
much real learning. What we call “play”, on the other hand, often
results in a great deal of learning and other creative activity. The problem for many adults is
their lack of trust in children’s innate ability – yes, their drive
– to learn. As a result, they mistrust what seems like inactivity,
forgetting that our brains can be very active while our bodies are at
rest.
Oh, and that fear of growing up
lazy? Kids who are able to pursue the results of their own interests and
passions work harder than those who are made to do meaningless work.
That just makes people aimless and unproductive.
Posted: 4/20/2004 1:56
PM
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