'Are you working at the moment?' an old friend asks out in the water. There's a big lull between waves and we're just enjoying the conditions - it's warm, the water is clear, and when the waves come through it's fun and small. His wife is a teacher - I think he asks me this because she too is getting to the point that she simply can't anymore.

I explain I'm only doing the occasional CRT, and that we are broke, but I would rather be broke than work full time. He gets it. Many of us are at this age where we are fed up with working 'for the man', as it were, and wondering if the illusion of saving enough for retirement with the thought in the back of your mind that you might not even make it that far because you'll get cancer or the world will end or the asteroid will hit, well, that does something to your work ethic.

'It's a constant head fuck', I say. 'You're always telling yourself you don't need what other people seem to need. Holidays overseas. A new car.'

'Ah, this is luxury though isn't it?' he says, holding out his arms. I've known this guy for 45 years. We used to smoke joints and listen to Joy Division in the dark together. Here we are in the sunlight extolling the majesty of being on the ocean, like it's the world's most expensive, most luxurious thing - and that it's free.

It's another conversation about minimalism, though we don't use the word. It continues a dialogue I've had in response to The Minimalist Community's question this week which focuses on narrowing the three main reasons we try to live a minimalist life.

Resistance

Every since I was a teenager I resisted the narrative of consumption. Perhaps I was just highly literate and media savvy. Perhaps I'd read far too much science fiction that unpacked the manipulation of various authorities and ideologies. Perhaps I had an early interest in Buddhism that taught that attachment to things caused suffering. The older I got, the worse this resistance became, in a 'fuck you' kind of way.

Fuck you, capitalism, for packaging up everything single beautiful thing and making it saleable. Fuck you, dark consumerism, for making us believe we can be happy only if we open up our wallets. Fuck you, All the Systems, for making us work and work and work and work - for what? For some, yes, working is about fulfilment, passion, creativity - but for many of us, we are forced into earning just enough to put a roof over our heads and feed our family and then that's not even a guarantee you won't be let go at 55 and then, as a woman, be unemployable and living in a van on the edges of society because you can't afford anything else. Fuck you, class divide and inherited wealth and tax breaks for people with second homes and mining companies that blow up 40,000 year old art in the desert.

It's always made me feel a little ill, that my participation in this illusion keeps the monster fed.

So I resist in small ways. The less I subscribe, the more I am alive. It doesn't mean I'm happier, always. But there's a smug satisfaction that I am controlled a little less by the ideologies that drive the entire world.

Hedonistic Frugalism

I love this phrase and wish I'd invented it myself. It's from the book The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More by Australian authors Annie Raser-Rowland and Adam Grubb. I didn't read anything I didn't know, and gave it away, but I loved the title which summed up everything I'd learnt - it's possible to have a really fulfilling life of joy by embracing frugality as a source of pleasure rather than deprivation. I had always loved the simple things in life, finding it incredible that other people felt they had to pay for experiences and things to find joy. If you've ever seen shooting stars or watched a sunset it's that. You don't pay a subscription or a broker or a bank - but the experience feels rich and beautifully fulfilling.

The thing is, many of us have to find this joy in a forced frugalism - an increasing cost of living and often life circumstances mean we have to be frugal because we have no choice. And of course that's the case outside the 'west' as well where privilege isn't the norm.

Here's two examples - one, foraging for food. If you've ever gone mushroom hunting or picked wild apples from a tree, you'll understand the feeling of excitement and wonder. This is free? What an amazing thing! It's the same feeling when you grow your own food. It feels pleasurable to put good, healthy food on the table that you've grown yourself. A lot of us found this joy during COVID.

Another example is cycling or other sports where you're not paying a gym membership or paying for expensive equipment yet you're still enjoying yourself. My husband just built a bike packing bike from second hand things from Facebook marketplace. He showed it to the owner of a bike shop the other day, who'd spent 15 k on his own gear. He was amazed that Jamie had put a whole set up together for $600.

There's plenty of examples - enjoying a picnic or a pot luck with friends instead of eating out an expense restaurant, or getting a big stack of books from the library instead of buying them (sorry, book writers!).

Sometimes you feel like you're the richest person in the world, so long as you choose to see it that way.

Environment

Without nature, we are nothing. Buying into consumption cycles brings about our own death. This might sound dramatic but the more we buy into the wastefulness of maximalism, the more we strip the planet to feed this grand illusion of progress, the more it impacts our individual and collective health. It makes me nauseous. To resist makes me feel better.

To me, that's deeply connected to hedonism anyway. You don't live a less rich life for caring for the environment - it's not a sacrifice, it's a deep pleasure. Worms transforming kitchen scraps into rich soil, the thrill of finding a second hand jacket that's just the right size and vintage-cool, drying wild apples in the sunshine for sweet tooth feasts. These things sound minor in the grand scheme where big corporations are the real eco criminals, but what else can we do? Give in and be part of the destruction of everything beautiful and wild?

It's likely naive, but small acts matter - they create something bigger. Joy and resistance meld together, feed each other, grow something bigger. I'm not the only person that is beginning to, or has come to understand, that living well isn't living to a map set out by capitalism. We're starting to remember that every choice is power, and we don't need what they tell us we need. We have, for now, the ocean, the forest, the taste of wild blackberries. That is immeasurable wealth.

With Love,

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