Living with less
In the past couple of days, I was away from home. I did laundry when I came back. As I was hanging the items on the drying rack, I was thinking: my wardrobe is almost empty. It is so because I live with 10 items of clothing (including everything apart from socks, underwear, shoes, bags and the scarf). Oftentimes, I just pick up fresh clothes directly from the drying rack rather than from the shelves. It feels incredibly light and empowering. Empowering, because I feel that I am enough and agentic (power-ful to influence my own life and, of course in small ways, the world around me). I am not deficient in anything as corporations would lead me to believe. This mode of living is not something that unfolded overnight. I stepped on this path when I moved to England (I was 20), which I also saw as an opportunity to connect with myself and figure out how I wanted to relate with myself and the world. Now I'm 35.
These days, I'm reading Seneca's letters. Many of the things he writes about "poverty" resonate with me. Before I continue, I want to note that my reading of Seneca is that by "poverty" he means "frugality". If we read it this way, his writing becomes more useful in today's world. Poverty is never good. It's not something to strive, or make excuses, for. Humanity must do everything it can so poverty doesn't exist. This is because poverty is associated with extremely negative outcomes for humans (children and adults), including worse physical and mental health, increased mortality, unequal opportunities and many more. Poverty also leads to negative outcomes for non-humans and nature, as it drives fellow humans to do things they would otherwise not have done, such as overexploitation of nature. While poverty is obviously bad, frugality is a beautiful principle and a practice. By frugal I do not mean "cheap". When I think about frugality, what comes to mind is focusing on essentials, making things last, honouring one's time (e.g., avoiding wasting money).
Seneca writes, for example: "when alarm of fire is raised, they [the poor] look around for the exit, not for their belongings." He also writes: "If you want to have time for your mind, you must either be poor or resemble the poor." It resonates with me. In my own practice, I notice how focusing on essentials and living with very few possessions frees up time for growth and thus becoming a better person. And thus a better friend, partner, teacher, researcher, neighbour, citizen, activist, and so on.
Recently, my partner gave a talk about post-growth and the wellbeing economy (which I didn't attend). Usually, when I talk about my research, I mention my autoethnography. This time, he decided to also use our lifestyle as an example. He told me that a fellow human asked him how we can publish "so much" when we try to live a slow life and avoid obsessing over our careers. My fellow humans at times ask me the same question. I think we write academic works and publish them because we love our research. It's an outlet for our creativity. But we also prioritise some things over others. We absolutely de-prioritise consumption and accumulation of stuff. We have very few possessions and thus very little to care for. We avoid shopping. But we also avoid networking, presenteeism, meetings and workshops just to "show our faces", and most conferences. There is a belief in academia that one must attend certain conferences and network a lot. But it's not the law of nature. We try to live according to our values and see how life unfolds.