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Recording a video as an extreme minimalist

Edit: since writing this post, my partner and I discontinued our collaboration and thus deleted the channel on the video-sharing platform.

Over the past couple of years, since I made my autoethnographic data public, and my fellow humans started reading this page as a blog, I have gotten requests to do videos too, in addition to sharing my written entries. 

My partner and I have been discussing this for a long time. Both of us have been wanting to share our knowledge and practice with fellow humans far beyond academia (both of us are researchers). To share our knowledge with others has even become one of our new year's resolutions. The other day, we received yet another invitation from a fellow academic to present our co-authored book Deep Transformations: A Theory of Degrowth to yet another academic audience. In the past, we often used to say yes to such requests. This time, we decided to decline, and instead use our time to record a video for the readers of my autoethnography and other fellow humans from all walks of life interested in sustainability transformations.

Before we recorded our first video, we discussed the principles that would guide us on this journey. It feels important to us that both our videos and the process of their recording align with our mode of living and relating with the world. The only experience we have with video recording is recording lectures for our students during lockdowns a few years ago. 

I don't watch videos often, but there are some practices that I have observed and that I would like to avoid. There are also some practices that I see value in and embrace. 

Lighting: we live in Denmark where days are short in winter, and it rains very often. It's often cloudy, too. I celebrate this beautiful weather and don't want to use extra electricity on extra lighting. 

Editing: we want our videos to be natural and organic, so we will edit them very minimally. Not at all, if possible. I want to avoid special effects, unnecessary pictures and videos within our videos. This is because editing uses a lot of energy/natural resources. Moreover, videos are incredibly heavy, their storage is energy consuming. There is another reason why I want to avoid excessive editing: I live with sensory processing sensitivity, and I find watching videos with many special effects very difficult to watch. 

Self-presentation: I live with 10 items of clothing and own no makeup. My partner wears a uniform. We will avoid creating different personas for our videos.

Frequency: we do not plan to publish videos every day x or day y. It's a creative process, and it's important to me to feel that I/we have something useful to share. 

Growth: we don't have a concrete plan for our videos, it will emerge as we walk this path.

Script: I want to approach our video recording in the same way I approach lecturing. When I lecture, I don't write scripts beforehand and don't rehearse my lectures, because to me it feels important to be present in the moment, with my students. I usually have some bullet points though. In our first video I was looking rather much at my partner's laptop screen that was in front of us. And that's ok. 

Subscribing: There will be no "please subscribe to our channel". It's every human being's personal decision. 

Gentleness and care: these two words are central to our academic work. They are in our own definition of degrowth. I have written an editorial with the same name. These principles are also central to my practice. For this reason, I want to avoid recording videos that are not in line with these principles. 

Earnings: our channel where we will be sharing our videos is not designed to be a money-making enterprise, especially considering the principles that I've just shared. 

I disabled comments in my autoethnography because it's still my academic work. I cannot assume that my fellow humans who post comments here want their comments to be read, for example, by reviewers of academic articles. I hope that the comments below our videos will be the space that is missing from my autoethnography. Apart from the comment section, there is also an opportunity to reach out via my email address. You can find it here.

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A fellow human asks: Do you have an emergency kit for when/if you need to evacuate?

This is a very important question. Living an extremely minimalist lifestyle entails relying on so many systems and structures working perfectly. I rely, for example, on the cooperative supermarket nearby and on food always being available there, safe tap water, warm water, electricity, transport, pharmacies. I often take these systems and structures for granted. Denmark feels like a safe place. In the area where I live, Copenhagen, we are not exposed to extreme weather events, and most fellow humans in this area, I believe, do not feel that their life is in danger. Yet, many fellow humans in other parts of the world are exposed to extreme weather events and live in fear of emergency situations. I have lived in a rural area where winds could be extremely strong, which could prevent my family from getting food and having electricity at home. I have lived in an area that would often be flooded, and in properties where water could be turned off for a long time. 

Being prepared for an adverse situation is not an anti-minimalist practice. When I was at school, we had classes that covered various topics related to natural and human-caused disasters, survival, and health emergencies. I am supportive of such education. While I have not, so far, been in a situation where I had to use much of the knowledge I received during those classes, some of the knowledge I received (e.g., first aid) has been incredibly useful. Some of that knowledge was specific to the place where I used to live. Since then, I've lived in several different countries, and in every place where I lived, I wanted to learn more about both natural and human-caused emergencies that could unfold. And this is something, I believe, every fellow human could consider: giving oneself a gift of quality time learning about potential adverse situations in one's region. I think that it can be approached with feelings of self-love and care towards oneself and fellow others (humans and non-humans), not with feelings of fear and anxiety. To me it's always felt especially important to educate myself on these matters, as perhaps fellow humans who have lived in a particular country since birth might already have this knowledge. 

If I lived in an area where, for example, natural disasters were common, I would do my best to be prepared for such situations. I would still consider myself an extreme minimalist. 

As I live in an area that currently feels safe, I am prepared only for challenging situations but not, say, natural disasters. There have been occasions when I could not go out to get food and medicine for many days. I try to always have food at home that would last me and my partner a few days. At all times, I keep first aid supplies. I also keep extra hygiene products and prescription medications that I take. When I lived with non-human beings, I always made sure that I have enough food, medicine, and necessary hygiene products for them, too. 

My family and I used to live in an area where tap water would not be safe to drink and it could be turned off. My mother and stepfather always kept fresh water at home, as well as food, first aid supplies, and medicine, and they would talk to me and my brother about it. I'm very grateful for these childhood experiences, especially because such things were explained to us in a calm and caring manner. 

If I need to evacuate, I would only take my bag with me that has my id, phone and bank card. I live with very few items, and apart from the items that are already in my bag, none of them are essentials. I try to avoid being overly prepared and buy items that are not recommended by the local authorities. There are for-profit businesses that make money by capitalising on people's fears and anxiety. 

Here is some information from the Danish Emergency Management Agency (Beredskabsstyrelsen) regarding preparedness for crises (in English). Here is a checklist prepared by the same agency. I think that paying attention to special needs is incredibly important. 

Here is some information from the American Red Cross about similar topics.