236

 Stains

In the picture above are reusable organic cotton tea bags. They used to be off-white when they were new, but over time they acquired these magical colours and patterns from chamomile and green tea. These tea bags can be machine washed at 40 degrees, but I don't machine wash them for several reasons. One is that washing them with only water is sufficient, in my view. They stay very clean and dry quickly. Another reason is that the washing machines in our building are shared, and some fellow humans unfortunately still use scented detergents whose smells linger. I also wouldn't want to buy a separate wash bag for these tea bags so they don't get lost in the pile of clothing. 

On my voluntary simplicity and zero-waste journey, I learned to embrace imperfections and see beauty in them. Imperfections such as stains, small holes, small cracks on cups and plates are good. Very often, when I see pictures of zero-waste objects, they look new. But it's so important to show what zero-waste living actually looks like. 

As for using tea bags made from organic cotton, it does take longer to wash them and fill them with tea than to use a conventional tea bag. I use them as I try to avoid, as much as possible, plastics in my everyday life. I find natural materials more beautiful and pleasant. I also find living with less plastic slow and more mindful. And using less plastic aligns with the kind of society I describe and advocate for in my academic work. There are serious environmental concerns regarding the use of plastics, see for example this UN report. 

235

 Career

Like many fellow humans, I have a curriculum vitae (cv). I keep it updated but I can't take it completely seriously. And here is my reason that I've shared with many fellow humans. There is one career that I've had since birth and will have until my death, that is of always becoming a good human being. That is, be caring, loving and harmonious in the domains of the self, the with-world (Mitwelt, including non-human beings) and nature (the place where I am, nature at large, and the cosmos). It concerns relations and practices. My academic work is only one part of it. It allows me to reach fellow humans via writing, teaching, and supervision. 

Thinking this way allows me to avoid identifying myself and my worth with the number of publications and citations. It allows me to take breaks when I need them, to focus on what feels right. Right now, it feels right to crystallise my knowledge in one book. 

My actual cv does not include descriptions of my relationships with the cosmos or my practices. But before I was in my mid-teens, I lived in a magical, remote area with much nature and not many fellow humans. I developed a close connection with nature and not so many close relations with people, as I knew my family and I would be leaving that area and we lived far from others.

Between my mid-teens and my late-teens, I lived in a large city. I visited the summer house at times, but not very often. The summer house was far from where I used to live. I was in society but I felt separated from nature.

From the age of 20 until my early 30s I lived in a small city in England. There I was looking for some balance between my social life and connecting with nature. But nature was not wild and raw, it was heavily transformed by humans. There were several parks but no forests. During those years, I intentionally stepped on a path of more ecological living, including vegetarianism, minimalism, voluntary simplicity, and zero waste. My reasons were ecological, spiritual, aesthetic.

Then I moved to northern Sweden. I felt oneness with nature there almost every day. It was a wonderful time of my life. I practised extreme minimalism but it was incredibly difficult to get zero-waste food. Many fruits and vegetables were packaged in plastic. 

Then I moved to southern Finland. I lived on a small island and went for walks around the island every day. I lived on the island from March until September, and it was magical to see the unfolding of different seasons. In Finland, I also practised extreme minimalism and furniture-free living. 

Then I moved to Denmark. Here I didn't know many humans and I was far away from wild nature. Instead of extreme minimalism, I began to practise minimalism. In Copenhagen it is easier to practise zero-waste. 

234

Spirituality

 As I'm working on my book, I notice that I use words such as spirituality, the universe and the cosmos so much. It's an academic work so it feels somewhat vulnerable to use these words. At the same time, I did not want to be inauthentic and focus on other, safer aspects of being and relating with the world. Earlier in my career I felt much less comfortable using words such as spirituality or the cosmos in my academic work. I was thinking, what if fellow academics would judge me? When I started writing this autoethnography and began diving into contemplations of various generative mechanisms behind living, e.g., a voluntarily simple lifestyle, zero-waste, extreme minimalism, I realised that it was absolutely necessary to be honest and transparent about the actual reasons. Perhaps a more elegant reason would be knowledge, saying that I learned more about ecological and social destruction and degradation, and these new knowledges inspired me to live differently. They surely empowered me on this journey. But the strongest mechanism in my case in not knowledge, it's a way of relating with the cosmos. Many of my decisions regarding a different pattern of consumption and being came about much earlier in my life when I knew much less about degradation than I do now as a scientist.