September
Living with much less than what is the norm in our society makes so much space, time and energy available for other pursuits. Wearing the same outfit every day means that I spend only a second deciding what to wear. Having only one bag means that I don't need to worry about where my essentials are and if I have forgotten something. I spend very little time on cleaning, laundry, organising my home. I use free time for reading, writing, walking, cooking, being with nature and my loved ones, immersing myself in activities that feel meaningful.
These days, I've been thinking about our own theory of degrowth transformations. It has six elements:
- Less and more: degrowth is not only about reduction, but it is a dialect of reduction and growth. We need growth in, for example, alternative organisations and lifestyles, empathy, solidarity, care.
- Four planes of being: material transactions with nature, social relations, social structures, inner being. Even when we think about one plane (say, material transactions with nature and wishing that some industries did not exist), we need to think about how it affects all the other planes (say, fellow humans loosing a sense of meaning and belonging if some industry disappears).
- Scales: from human psyche to the transnational level.
- Sites: civil society, state, and business.
- What transformations are guided by: gentleness and care. Our capacities for love, self-transcendence, empathy, compassion, solidarity, right actions and so on. We were very much inspired by humanism.
- What transformations should tend towards: harmonious co-existence with the self, fellow others (humans and non-humans), and nature.
These elements originally come from my work with my partner and our own definition of degrowth. We define degrowth as "deep transformations occurring on all four interrelates planes of social being, on different scales and in all sites, guided by gentleness and care, towards a society co-existing harmoniously within itself and with nature".
I've been wondering if we missed something and which parts of this theory I want to dive deeper into. It is interesting to observe how my everyday life intertwines with my academic work. It is humbling to see how my everyday actions and sustainability practices (e.g., living with less than 50 personal possessions, 10 items of clothing - though now it is 9, excluding many categories of products and services from my consumption) are just a small part of sustainability transformations.
And while it is humbling to contemplate the scale of transformation, it is also fascinating to see how transformations unfold in the smallest of actions.
The other day, I was walking in my neighbourhood. We received a gift of several incredibly warm days in Copenhagen. As I was walking down one of the streets, I saw that some fellow humans put out buckets with fallen apples that they wanted to share with their fellow humans. It's a tradition that exists in both Sweden and Denmark. I love it. I picked up an apple with thin light green skin. This apple had a scent of early autumn. Absolutely magical and intoxicating.
In the morning, I walked past our local byttestation. It's located in the recycling area of our building. Fellow humans often share furniture, books, glasses, vases and so many other things. Sharing, borrowing, using things together are excellent sustainability practices.
