Re-reading Walden
I went to my local cemetery, Solbjerg Parkkirkegård, to listen to the sound of leaves and to read. It can be difficult to find calm spaces in a busy city. My window faces a large and noisy road. As I was walking through the cemetery, I fell in love with the sounds. There are many birds, squirrels, insects. Fellow humans walk or run quietly. The atmosphere is majestic, unlike in the other nearby parks, Søndermarken and Frederiksberg Have.
I'm re-reading Walden, perhaps my most favourite book. No other book connected as deeply with my soul. In many ways, my own worldview aligns with Thoreau's. I like the emphasis on the individual and one's relationship with the world. It feels liberating. Like other fellow humans, I experience social structures. Academic institutions, migration laws and so on. But within those social structures (and not all of them are constraining), I feel that I have freedom to act.
One of the most important realisations on my journey has been that capitalism doesn't want anything. Capitalism is not a person, it doesn't have a mind and opinions. It is not upset with me for consuming much less than what is the norm in our society. I can live freely with 50 or so personal possessions, and that's ok. Most fellow humans who dwell in Copenhagen do not notice that I wear the same outfit every day. In academia, I have faced very few comments about this practice.
In my autoethnographic work I am always careful to say that my mode of living is not the mode of living fellow humans should adopt. There are different ways to practise sustainability. Growing my own food would certainly improve my relationship with nature. Living in an eco-community would too. Yet, if a fellow human is interested to try extreme minimalism, nothing should prevent them from doing just that. Many barriers to practising extreme minimalism seem psychological. 15 or so years ago, I was still wondering: am I preventing myself from expressing myself through clothing and makeup? Do I feel that I don't deserve to have objects? I could address such questions through genuine self-love and self-care, not through objects and services, but through realising that I am enough. Some objects make my life comfortable but I certainly don't need to reinvent myself. And consuming much less means I could also work less, thus have time to grow outside work.