Simple lives

Less carbon dense, lesser wants

Daily musings #612- Wednesday, 5 October 2022

Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash

I never cease to wonder about the simplicity of the life that my dad lives. He is 92 and along with him is my aunt who is going on 87. But their wants and needs are very limited when compared to mine. And this though is not new. This would have been true even twenty years ago.

I am certainly privileged to live a carbon-dense life. But when I am here at my birth country, I keep pondering about how I adapt to life in a simpler form as I have no way of elevating the standards that I am in. I am accepting and participative in their lives as they are rather than introducing and forcing higher standards that they may or may not need and certainly what they are not looking for.

Simple food choice several times a day. No way to shower means participating by using a bucket of water and a mug to shower. A fifteen-year-old washing machine supported by drying clothes on a clothesline. It is not certainly “life” on the streets. There is internet and fiber to the box at that. An Android basic smartphone. A pass-me-down 10+-year-old iPad stuck in iOS 10 with the battery still working great.

Kitchen utensils that are a couple of generations old but not of the antique kind. Furniture that has not been upgraded in ages but is sufficient. And lots of little clutter holding untold memories that cannot and will not be therefore thrown away. Garbage and recycling with very little carbon disposal compared to so-called “developed” lives.

As a visitor here in their lives, I observe, adjust, accept, participate, partake, involve, and embrace all things as they are. And leave them in their gentle lives. Though I also leave with hundreds of unanswered questions to myself - to wonder, ponder, question, try to make meaning and perhaps find no answers at all.