I will be attending a presentation by an old friend, Tom Barefoot, tomorrow night in Northampton on Gross National Happiness. It is happening at the Media Education Foundation offices at 60 Masonic Street, Northampton, MA at 7:00 pm. Come. http://www.gnhusa.org/ A group of Vermonters have been meeting to formulate ways to assess whether their communities [...]
Archive for the ‘Simplicity’ Category
Measuring Social Welfare
Posted in Ethics, General economic, Simplicity on March 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Again – Simplify
Posted in Energy policy, Simplicity, Transportation on March 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Every description of sustainability that I’ve heard includes some element of “live and let live”, translated into “live with a smaller ecological footprint”. In the business world, if you look at annual reports of the largest publicly traded corporations, nearly all dedicate some portion of their reports to proving that they are good corporate citizens, [...]
Busy? (Full plate or Room to Move)
Posted in Simplicity on September 18, 2009 | 2 Comments »
The “straight-ahead” optimist approach is that a glass half-full is a more appreciative way of describing life, than a glass half-empty. The implication is that one that prefers a glass half-empty is a pessimist, negative, ironically often stated as a condemnation of those that name a glass as half-empty. Both views contain a proposed norm [...]
Food (Living Lightly) – Family
Posted in Food, Simplicity on September 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Family/friends. To return to the themes of simplicity (efficient, inexpensive, building community, energized – healthy, secure/safe). We all have to eat. Lets eat together. When I’ve lived in communities (land, college, communal houses), we all ate together. One or a couple people prepared the food, and we all ate together. It took a bit of [...]
Food (Living Lightly) – Person
Posted in Food, Simplicity on September 6, 2009 | 1 Comment »
My body is my temple. My body is my tool/machine at my disposal. “Yeah sure”, if you looked at me. I weigh more than I need, and I hunger for more than I need. I’m not alone in that, but for me it requires some external structure of what I eat, when, how. I have to [...]
Simple person – simple community – simple planet
Posted in Ethics, Jewish reflection, Simplicity, Spirituality on August 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Live simply so that others may simply live”. A decade or so ago, an old acquaintance of mine, Vimala McLure wrote a wonderful book, “The Ethics of Love”, which was an elaboration/exploration of the practice of yama/niyama in three relationships: From/To “One”, From/To other individuals, From/To society. (She and another long-time friend Jody Wright are [...]
Poverty is not simplicity
Posted in Regional Economy, Simplicity on August 27, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I use the metaphor of a bicycle to describe health, physical health, financial health, psychological health. A bicycle is only stable if it is moving. Some adepts can retain their balance on a bicycle without moving, but I need to have my wheels turning at least some to keep from falling. Personal and community economy [...]
Simplicity as “Resistance”, Simplicity as “Transformation”
Posted in Simplicity on August 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
From some interpretations of Keynesianism, it is “patriotic” to consume. Even among some anarchist perspectives, it is socially beneficial to consume on products/services made within one’s community, an example of not hoarding, and of increasing the degree and ways that one is in active local relationship. The shift from passive “consumer” (affluenza) to active liver [...]
Synnergies
Posted in Simplicity, Transportation on August 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
You don’t find many economists advocating for simplicity. Many prominent liberal economists (Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, Robert Kutner) support the values of simplicity, but note that “if everyone did it”, the economy would be forced to change. The economy is like a bicycle. It needs to spin to be stable enough to move forward, to [...]
Living well
Posted in Simplicity on August 24, 2009 | 1 Comment »
In January, I lost my job of 8 1/2 years. Initially, due to bureaucratic foul-ups, I didn’t receive unemployment for 3 months. My family lived off of the equity in my house. We were forced to take a hard look at our situation. We dusted off a book that a friend had recommended three years [...]
