Comfort in a Post-Modern Age

Part of the quandry of civilization is that to have it - you have to progress. Part of that progression is in material things. One of the questions would be 'how much is enough?' and another "how do you stop a culture from progressing in material accumulation?" Has a culture ever survived that had an answer to that?

Sorry, Ernie, didn't mean to take a whack atcha.

Don't have many luxuries here. Just glad to have the basics.

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I believe in God's willingness to heal.

Cyngbaeld's Keep Heritage Farm, breeding a variety of historical birds and LaMancha goats. (It is pronounced King Bold.)

There are a lot of things that existed in the past that served no real purpose other than conspicuous consumption. Alcohol (beyond the realm of medicinal use) and tobacco come to mind. They are no different than the energy drinks or other such consumables of today that have no real edible value.

There are a lot of things I enjoy today that I know would not be available in a post modern world. I think that there is a somewhat likely possibility that I may live a good portion of my life in a post modern world. I live simply in preparation of it but I won't stop enjoying listening to music on an Ipod now or stop going to see a movie because it may not exist later. I like being able to turn on a light (I lived 6 months without electric lighting) and having a well lit room. I have chopped down quite a few trees with an axe but as long as I can afford gas for my chainsaw I'll use it.

If it's affordable I'll enjoy it while I can, once frivolous luxuries become expensive or not available I'll adapt and suspect most other people will do the same.

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http://www.xanga.com/shackman A blog about whatever

Seems like it all goes back to knowledge to survive if things change. And then the mind set to be content with it, even if not so happy with conditions.

Not to give up today, if living within your means; but be aware of the possible tomorrows/

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"Live your life, and forget your age." Norman Vincent Peale

i don't know that i believe that.

i think that in europe, the peasants that were treated at chattel (movable property, ie, virtual slaves), then they were used to short lives due to the way they were treated. 30-35 yrs was probably average for those peasants.

in other areas of the world, where free people lived without being enslaved in one way or another by elites, they lived much longer than that. eg, the hunza, okinawans, among other groups, regularly have a decent percentage of the population live to 100+.

as i noted on another thread, there was a research project done to determine what were the similarities between the various long-lived people. a 20 minute presentation was done summarizing the results, which is very interesting.

Would you like to live to be a 100?
some of the habits of long-lived people are a healthy diet low in sugars and fats, eaten in moderate quantities, and regular moderate exercise that was part of their life, not an "exercise regime." eg, one of their examples was the okanawans, which sit on the floor, and so even the elderly get up and sit down many times during the day, each time getting a little bit of exercise. they don't set aside 20 minutes a day to run on a treadmill, they just get simple exercise in their life from the way they live, walking, gardening, etc.

i think the US/western diet is killing us -- too much fat, too little nutrition in highly processed food, too many preservatives, and too little exercise for most people. and trying to "bolt on" an exercise regime, instead of including it naturally in life, makes it more difficult. think of all the people that drive their car to local gym, wait in their car for someone else to leave to get a closer parking spot to save themselves an extra 75 ft walk, always take the elevator, etc. all these "comforts" are in fact killing us, albeit slowly.

i've read accounts of westerners visiting india in the himalayas, and suited up with parkas, heavy hiking boots, and being passed by a simple monk walking barefoot in the snow wearing only a thin robe.

much of our "comfort" is more status symbol than actual need. i've stayed in nice hotels (eg, marriott) for business, and i've stayed in european youth hostels when travelling on my own nickel. with the exception of 1-2 places that had sagging mattresses that gave me a bit of a backache, i never slept poorly due to the mattress in youth hostels vs nice hotels.

of course, everyone has their own sensitivies too. i can't really sleep well unless i'm flat, so even in a business class seat i can't sleep because it doesn't fully recline. but i sleep fine in a european train on a couchette, which is flat, albeit with little padding and not much width. each person will have a different list of things that are a problem, and things that are not a problem.

--sgl

Well said. Due to horrible joint pain that could NOT be relieved by modern mattresses that promised comfort, I began sleeping on the floor atop a folded sleeping bag. I was surprised to find that within 2 weeks my joint pain had gone completely. No more back pain, knee pain or neck pain that those pricey mattresses claimed to relieve but did not.
With the cooler temps I found the need to be off the floor a bit. I began studying what people of traditional societies slept on. I opted for a heavy dense futon mattress, which I have on the floor. I am sleeping better on this than I have on anything else. Lesson learned? Being a conformist is not only pricey but can be painful as well.

WV we espouse the same point of view . My dh and I are also cutting back. We ditched the pricey cell phones with the all inclusive monthly plans. We cut the cable tv. I got a Lehman's hand washer after the water pump went out AGAIN on the electric one. The clothes dryer is gone. The clothes line and folding floor dryer will suffice. That big energy hogging stylish refrigerator is out and was replaced by a smaller one that uses a fraction of the electricity. The dishwasher was yanked out and given away. The propnae tank went back to the propane vendors. We now heat with wood full time. The electric lights are going later this year and will be replaced with oil lamps. We are cutting out those things we thought we had to have because everyone else has them. Our goal is not partake of conspicuous consumption but to live a simple quiet peaceful life and to live it well within our means.

There we go. Now we're back where I had tried to go. I guess that's the problem with the internet as a communication tool as opposed to a shared cup of coffee around a table.

Luxury versus need IS a very old conversation. Adam Smith even concluded that an economy simply cannot progress unless man desires beyond his basic needs, simply because those basic needs are so easy to acquire. The driving engine in his mind was the desire for wealth in order to show it off. He said, "the chief enjoyment in riches is the parade of riches."

From the book I'm reading now, (The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfillment in Early Modern England), this is something that has plagued Western man since at least medieval times, which is the earliest our civilization has writings on the topic. If I were more familiar with Eastern literature I might be able to go further back with other examples.

A certain level of luxuries will be easy to satisfy in a post-modern time. A pail of fresh-picked berries. Cream straight from the cow. Warmth against the cold winter. The sight of children playing in a spring meadow. What level of world collapse could ever take those away from me? The iPod, the internet, Starbucks coffee, or strawberries in February .... those are the at-risk luxuries.

tamilee - while doing all that, do you sew and knit for your clothing? Or just the thrift stores? Read books and what do you do for news, other than internet? Are either of you working at what would be considered a 'regular' job setting? How do you accomodate that?

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"Live your life, and forget your age." Norman Vincent Peale

I work, but in a non-traditional setting from my home. My husband is an artist and is semi-retired. I do buy my clothes, on sale. One year I buy shirts to make a certain number the next I buy jeans.
News, I watch it on the net as part of my job. Yup, I get paid to watch the news and discuss it with the person i am teaching.

Thanks for the info.

Good that you get paid to Net and discuss.

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"Live your life, and forget your age." Norman Vincent Peale

Tamilee,

Rock on.... Some people don't understand where the wife and are are headed... We had to put cutting the electric off for a while as we are adopting two children. We both sew, she can knit and crochet, I can't knit but do crochet... We are looking for a good loom for a good price so that we can loom our own fabrics. We raise out own food in the garden and have plenty of meat and eggs in the barn. Too bad we aren't neighbors... I often dream of living on a very large parcel of land with neighbors over equal minds. I am always looking for tool from the past, plows, buck saws, wood working tool with no cords...etc....

Some people enjoy the hustle and bustle of a convenient lifestyle, personally I like working hard at slowing down. Hard work in the garden with manual labor makes a lot of sense to me. My wife was laid off late last year and will not be returning to work, we have almost everything paid off (exception... very small mortgage)

I swear if I could figure out how to make a profit farming, I'd never work again away from the farm.... Think of me as a mix between Charles Ingals and John Walton....LOL

Another question - wvstuck what type of employment were you doing when you financed/bought/saved and paid for your place?

I love reading about what some of you are doing, but the now is good/great -but the story of how you acquired the place to go off grid, have it paid for, and then can down size more so you can get out of the 'race.

so HOW.

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"Live your life, and forget your age." Norman Vincent Peale

I think I understand you Ernie. I was at a retreat this weekend and the thing to learn about was "Joy"--how to get it, why you don't have it, yaya. The thinking was we are(I will just say) happy because God takes care of us and we go to heaven when we die. My wrench I threw in was "Happiness happens" (yes, just like "poop happens", kinda), that it(or the best most enduring kind perhaps) exists outside of reasons for it existing, reasons like we are fed, warm and no one is coming with machetes today.

We were supposed to write down things that give us joy, I wrote stuff like fire(heh), climbing a mountain, hard manual labor, people, motorcycles, running, people, nature, storms, listening to the wind , watching tress grow, but the biggest was (simply)opening my eyes in the morning to live another day, whatever comes. Ha, all "wrong" answers, not "spiritual" enough...but God is NOT my Santa neither. And somehow I think the best kind of joy/happiness just is, no reason, senseless and random, chaotic and wild and undeserved--just comes out of nowhere/nothing.

(Now I have to confess that I was enjoying being a thorn to the bible study leader, all the other ladies are more open minded and down to earth, but this lady is uppity and like a "professional" Christian who graduated from seminary and has the cred, but it perturbs her I rebel against her cherry picking of bible verses--context! ha, I read the full paragraph--and she turned green when I brought up Thomas Merton. Is that eeeeeeeevil? It was cool that another old lady took to heart what I said about climbing mountains and this morning she went with me to climb the big dune, she didn't think she could do it and knew it would be hard, but she wanted to feel the joy at the top, and she did)

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THE BEGINNING IS NEAR
5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

SO if our shelf life is 35 years, why do women go through menopause?

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THE BEGINNING IS NEAR
5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

Ernie,

Like many others, I like my luxuries, but don't need them. However, given a host of health problems, when the pharmacies close down because society has fallen apart, I doubt I'll be around too long. But ya know, I can sure enjoy life (without a dryer, cable, dishwasher or ipod) in the meantime.

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Marvelous Madame
Be kind to others. You do not know what burdens they are carrying.

It's a glorious thing to recognize your own mortality and accept it. God bless you for that.

I'm a long-term planner and that causes me some grief and stress. I should just accept more day to day but it's just not my nature.

One of the most significant "comforts" that I KNOW I could live without if I had to is a flush toilet. I am a big fan of the sawdust bucket toilet concept a la The Humanure Handbook. Having studied the microbiology of water and sewage in college, I am NOT afraid of composting my own waste. It's extremely commonsense, as opposed to flushing waste "away" in water treated to drinking standards.

That said, flush toilets are extremely convenient in my urban setting, so I'll keep mine for now, lol.

To the person who asked why women have menopause if our design life is about 30-35 years.

Good Question!

Another poster disagreed with the example of long lived people in another country in the modern era.

I'm talking about us looooooong ago. I mean, as a species before modern era and before civilization.

The best information out there, and it is pretty good, shows that most early humans had significant wear on the joints, long bones, and facial joints by the time they were early adulthood. Biologically early adulthood of modern standards around 17.

Changes in the shapes of the pelvis show that females more than likely went into puberty and were capable of reproduction very early, as in 8-10, possibly before. Pelvis configurations that show females carried offspring to term at ages as young as 10 in surviving skeletons, again probably even before. Tooth eruption (which has also slowed some since then) still shows them having not had all permanent teeth erupted yet clearly carried to term.

Menopause also appears to have slowed significantly for us. There are items like specific bone thinning and other items that show up in surprisingly young women based on bone sutures. Very few women who might have shown themselves as post menopausal have been found so getting to that age, even with a much earlier onset, appears to be pretty rare. Severe arthritis isn't usually found in many joints, but the joints in which it is found, it is truly severe particularly for such young people.

The human body is pretty remarkable, but the bones are essentially those of a modified quadraped rather than a true biped. It leaves several weak points that are subject to intense wear, like knees and the lower back.

The body you live in now is the product of much more evolution that our ancestors. In some ways it is better (our joints are becoming a bit finer and more flexible) and in many ways much worse (we are much weaker overall in joint strength, bone strength, sturdiness and even some of our senses). It is our improvements in living and medicine that let us live so much longer. We just don't wear them out as fast.

If you take a review of the literature, you'll find that even when the bones can be very precisely found via many methods, the age of the person themselves can be very difficult. We tend to want to say they are much older than later studies show them to be. Mostly because they aged so quickly and so dramatically at such young ages.

So, basically, when I say our bodies as they are only have a "shelf life" of 30-35 years, I'm speaking of us as a Human Animal, living in the way in which we originally developed in the wild. The fact that we've doubled that span and for many, even tripled it, is a true testament to our ingenuity and strength of will and mind. And a good reason to have a nice mattress

Those modern primitives that live very long lives are something to look toward for inspiration and information, surely. There were probably pockets of people in some places in the long ago that did better too. In general, they didn't though. There is something to be said for being able to have year round nutrition of decent quality, shelter over your head in the winter and sufficient clothing for the climate.

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Christy
Growing Human
http://growinghuman.blogspot.com

When wearing narrow lenses of hate and ignorance, is it any wonder one finds it difficult to see clearly? - Me

I think this is a very interesting subject! A while ago I posted on a different forum about needs vs wants. The discussion was really about the benefits "culture" we have here in the UK but I was quite frankly amazed at what people felt they had the "right" to own. They were listing their needs as flat screen tvs, satelitte dishes, computers and cars - these are physically healthy people living with full access to buses and trains?! And ofc they wanted all these things for free because they aren't earning.
I think we have become way too material and the focus is on looking like you are successful when we should be focusing on family and community. I love simple living but it is interesting to note that in disaster areas they not only send food, water etc but also toys for the children. Small articles that you couldn't say were necessary to living are at times very important to mental well being in a time of stress.