288

 Living with even more furniture

My ideal mode of relating with furniture is living without it. I lived without furniture in Finland, and it felt wonderful. I did it for several reasons. One was ecological. Furniture, like anything else, requires materials and energy to come into being. It's possible to get second-hand furniture too, and perhaps I would choose this option if I didn't have other reasons. So another reason is aesthetic. I love "empty" spaces. Yet another reason was spiritual. I wanted to feel free and move much. I wanted to move my body and be able to move places. When I was leaving Finland, it was so easy to take everything with me in a backpack and a tote bag. I also felt that I didn't need furniture. I enjoyed sleeping on the floor and working from the floor. I didn't need storage because I lived with very few objects. 

When I moved to Denmark, I moved in with my fellow human. He wanted to live with furniture. Luckily, we prefer similar styles and both of us practise ecological living and minimalism. We decided to meet in the middle, to welcome the chairs and the lamps he had in his previous apartment and buy a few items from Danish businesses, made from certified wood. We wanted to buy once and keep these objects forever. We welcomed a bed frame, a tøjstativ, a table, and a bench. The table we use for work and when we eat. While I liked how everything looked, I still know that I would have preferred to live without furniture.

When my fellow human's child started to visit us more often, she would sleep with us in our bed. There is not enough space for three persons, so we agreed to get another bed. The bed is not specifically for children but it's very low, and the child likes it a lot. 

Because there are not many objects in our space, the space doesn't feel cluttered. But this unfolding of events made me contemplate compromise and how one's sustainability practice changes when relationships and circumstances change. 

287

 Learnings

I will be turning 35 soon. When I was 5 or so, I thought that 35 is old. I was so wrong! I notice changes in my body. It takes longer for me to recover from illnesses. But I embrace this process of ageing. I would not want to be 20 or 25 or 30 again. 

In this entry, I want to capture many of my learnings. Much of what I have learned I have captured in my academic articles. This entry will be somewhat different, but still with a focus on living in, and with, the world more harmoniously and authentically. 

Something that I realised is that my life's journey is not linear. When I was still at school, I thought that after school I would go to a university, settle somewhere, get a job, at the same time meet the love of my life. I would work for many years, build a life with a fellow human, and then retire together with them. In reality, I moved much. I've lived in 5 countries. My career path has not been linear at all. And meeting someone I fell in love with was not at all what I expected. 

I love what I do as an academic, but above all I realised that my main career in life is that of being a good human being. By good I mean kind, caring, empathetic, honest, authentic, trustworthy, capable of self-transcendence. Setbacks on my academic path do not hurt. If I had to compromise my spiritual growth or commitment to being a good human, then I would be very unhappy. 

I have learned to spend quality time with myself, to honour and appreciate it. To embrace introversion. To have internal dialogues. During these dialogues, I realised what I wanted to be, what mattered to me the most, how I wanted to relate with the world, including nature, fellow humans and non-humans, and myself. 

Self-care is absolutely central. Some fellow humans asked me if it at some point becomes egoism. I do not think so. I have realised that I must take good care of my mental health in order to serve nature and fellow humans and non-humans. 

I have learned to see some words, commonly perceived as negative, as something very positive and beautiful. Vulnerability is good. Not knowing is good. Asking for help is good. I realised that idleness is good. At times, I do nothing. When a fellow human asks me what I am doing, I often say "nothing" without feeling shame and guilt. Simplicity is good. In fact, simplicity has become one of the core values in my worldview.

My practice of voluntary simplicity and zero-waste is not perfect, and I'm ok with it. I grow every day. At times, I make mistakes. 

I have realised that there is no end goal of my growth process. I find the meaning in this process itself. There are things that I do and I complete them. For example, I write up my academic works and my book manuscripts. But more generally, I do not expect to ever be able to say "I've finally grown spiritually". It is interesting that the education system is often all about goals. It does not prepare humans for journeys. There is too much finality. Grades, completions, outcomes, met or unmet objectives. 

There are around 8 billion of my fellow humans. Every one of them is a unique individual. I learn from those fellow humans who have wellbeing (of nature, humans, non-humans) in mind. I have learned to avoid investing my spiritual energy in those who do not. On my journey, I have heard, for instance, that my academic work will never be published, that it will not be published without a particular man (!), that I have to choose between my career and my relationship. At those times, I usually went to see nature. The sky, the sea, trees, rocks. None of those viewpoints mattered in the grand scheme of things. My fellow humans in academia, especially those in the very beginning of their academic journey, at times ask me how to not care about what some fellow human being thinks. My advice to them is also something I have been doing for a long time. I keep a small stone I brought from Sweden with me. The stone is a fellow being whose presence is no less important or significant than the presence of another fellow being.

I have realised that wonderful ideas are everywhere. Academic papers and books are not the sole source of my knowledge. I am inspired by fellow humans in various social movements, by non-humans, by practitioners. For inspiration, I usually do not read books or articles. I spend time with nature. I read books and articles when I feel that I need a fellow human's gentle presence or guidance or input. 

Time is so important. I've been practising extreme minimalism for many years. At times, I was earning more than I was spending. I asked myself what (apart from donations) I would do with the money. My fellow humans often asked me that as well. I realised that I would buy myself time. I could take some time off employment to focus on work. On writing creatively, on care work, on my spiritual practice.

I am not living for the future. I do not think that life starts when retirement starts. I would not even want to retire in the common sense of the word, to live like many baby boomers do. I want to practise zero-waste and write until I die. 

When I contemplate the future, I sketch my dreams rather than goals. Dreams are so important to me. It is interesting that dreams and dreaming often come across as scary words for fellow humans in business schools. When I think in terms of dreams, fulfilling something feels like fulfilling my dreams rather than ticking some items off my list or "meeting goals", which feels mechanistic. 

At times, I rest and I am proud of it. I am trying to avoid filling my days with stuff. In fact, I try to have no more than 1 or 2 meetings in one day. And when I am there, I am fully present with the fellow humans I am meeting. Approaching time this way means I have free time to meet fellow humans who are interested in my work. 

I realised that it is ok to change my mind. 

Treating fellow humans equally is essential. In academia, I often notice that professors are treated better than, say, PhD students because PhD students are not seen as "useful". They are unlikely to offer funding or publishing opportunities or be useful for networking. This attitude is something I cannot accept. 

I spent much of my childhood in a remote, rural area with many non-human beings. For many years, I was ashamed of talking about non-humans in business schools and seeing them as fellow beings. Thankfully, with new materialism, deep ecology and other strands of thought, attitudes are changing. But overall, I have learned to embrace my perspective. It is on me to develop it and communicate it, but not on me to change it. 

I do not compare my journey with anyone else's journey. Everyone has their own struggles, and at least I know mine well. I would not want to live like another fellow human. I am very happy with my life and the kind of human being I am. 

I do what I love, rather than what I think someone else would like me to do. 

In terms of sustainability, these are my learnings:

I see sustainable living as a journey, not a shift. A journey that takes time and is imperfect. But there are practices, principles and habits that are helpful. One of the most helpful tools for me was developing a "sufficiency list". It's a playful list of objects that make my life genuinely comfortable. Doing this autoethnography helped me a lot too in reflecting on my own practice and struggles. I always encourage my fellow humans to do something like this. Naturally, it does not have to be public. I made it public because I use it as my data in my academic work, and I believe in transparency of research. 

Living with less feels wonderful. I have not experienced any downsides of voluntary simplicity. Perhaps apart from some men saying that I am not trying hard enough to be attractive to them. This is right, since becoming attractive to men is not the meaning of my life. Living with less creates harmony, helps me avoid overstimulation. I can make much better choices in every domain of my consumption. Importantly, I can save some money to be able to withdraw from employment for a while, if I so need for my spiritual growth. 

Something that helped me is identifying clearly the principles that I live by (such as harmony, simplicity, sufficiency, care, gentleness). Many find capitalism difficult to navigate because of various pressures such as to sell one's labour or to consume. Identifying concrete principles will not immediately bring capitalism to an end, but it can help a human being live within it better, with more integrity, more authentically, while of course also transforming social structures. For example, if I am unhappy with overconsumption, I do not want to simply complain that it exists. I want to practise extreme minimalism, wear the same thing every day, walk barefoot, avoid branded goods and so on. If I am unhappy with competitiveness within academia, I will collaborate with my fellow humans. I will meet with students rather than only with professors.