the simplicity forum - garden of simplicity

Voluntary Simplicity has become a “modern classic” because it gives
voice to ways of living that are vital for building a workable and
meaningful future. As we awaken to an endangered world, people are
asking, “How can we live sustainably on the Earth when our actions
are already producing dramatic climate change, species extinction, oil
depletion, and more?” For a generation, a diverse subculture has
grappled with these concerns and, in the United States and a dozen or
so other “postmodern” nations, this subculture has grown from a
miniscule movement in the 1960s to a respected part of the
mainstream culture in the early 2000s. Glossy magazines now sell
the simple life from the newsstands across the U.S. while it has
become a popular theme on major television talk shows. More
significantly, surveys show that at least 10 percent of the U.S. adult
population or 20 million people are consciously exploring various
expressions of simplicity of living.

These changes are not confined to the U.S. and Europe. Around the
world, people are awakening to the sanity of simplicity as a path to
sustainability. A survey done by the Gallup organization in 1993 found
virtually world-wide citizen awareness that our planet is indeed in poor
health and great public concern for its future well-being. The survey
also found that it made little difference whether people lived in poorer
and wealthier nations—they expressed nearly equal concern for the
health of the planet. Majorities in most nations gave environmental
protection a higher priority than economic growth and said that they
were willing to pay higher prices for that protection.

Another revealing survey was conducted in1998 for the International
Environmental Monitor. Involving more than 35,000 respondents in 30
countries, the survey report concludes by stating their “findings will
serve as a wake-up call to national governments and private
corporations to get moving on environmental issues or get bitten by
their citizens and consumers who will not stand for inaction on what
they see as key survival issues.”

The push toward simpler ways of living was clearly described in 1992
when over 1,600 of the world’s senior scientists, including a majority
of the living Nobel laureates in the sciences, signed an
unprecedented “Warning to Humanity.” In this historic statement, they
declared that: “A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the
life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our
global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.”
Roughly a decade later came a related warning from 100 Nobel Prize
winners who said that “The most profound danger to world peace in
the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or
individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world’s
dispossessed.”

As these two warnings by the world’s elder scientists indicate,
powerful adversity trends are converging, creating the possibility of an
evolutionary crash within this generation. If we are to create instead
an “evolutionary bounce” or leap forward, it will surely include a
collective shift toward simpler, more sustainable and satisfying ways
of living. Simplicity is not an alternative lifestyle for a marginal few; it is
a creative choice for the mainstream majority, particularly in developed
nations. If we are to pull together as a human community, it is crucial
that people in affluent nations confront the choice of simplicity and
sustainability head on. Simplicity is simultaneously a personal
choice, a civilizational choice, and a species choice. Even with major
technological innovations in energy and transportation, it will require
dramatic changes in our overall patterns of living and consuming if we
are to maintain the integrity of the Earth as a living system. The
coming era of constraint can bring focus and energy to crafting lives of
elegant and creative simplicity.

Although the ecological pushes toward simpler ways of living are
strong, the pulls toward this way of life seem equally compelling. In
reality, most people are not choosing to live more simply from a
feeling of sacrifice; rather, they are seeking deeper sources of
satisfaction than are being offered by a high stress, consumption-
obsessed world. To illustrate, while real incomes doubled in the U.S.
in the past generation, the percentage of the population reporting they
are very happy has remained unchanged (roughly one-third). While
happiness has not increased, during this same period divorce rates
have doubled and teen suicide rates have tripled. A whole generation
has tasted the fruits of an affluent society and has discovered that
money does not buy happiness. In the search for satisfaction,
millions of people are not only “downshifting”—or pulling back from
the stress of the rat race—they are also “upshifting” or moving ahead
into a life that is, though materially more modest, rich with family,
friends, community, creative work in the world, and a soulful
connection with the universe.

Although simplicity is intensely relevant to building a workable world,
this approach to living is not a new idea. Simplicity has deep roots in
history and finds expression in all of the world’s wisdom traditions.
More than two thousand years ago, in the same historical period that
Christians were saying “Give me neither poverty nor wealth,” (Proverbs
30:8), the Taoists were asserting “He who knows he has enough is
rich” (Lao Tzu), Plato and Aristotle were proclaiming the importance of
the “golden mean”—a path through life with neither excess nor
deficit—and the Buddhists were encouraging a “middle way” between
poverty and mindless accumulation. Clearly, the wisdom of simplicity
is not a recent revelation.

Although simplicity has a long history, we are now entering radically
changing times—ecological, social, economic, and psycho-spiritual—
and we should expect the worldly expressions of simplicity to evolve
and grow in response. For more than thirty years I’ve explored the
“simple life” and I’ve found that simplicity is not simple. I’ve
encountered such a diversity of expressions of the simple life that I
find the most accurate way of describing this approach to living is with
the metaphor of a garden.

A Garden of Simplicity

To portray the richness of simplicity, here are ten different flowerings
of expression that I see growing in the “garden of simplicity.” Although
there is overlap among them, each expression of simplicity seems
sufficiently distinct to warrant a separate category. So there would be
no favoritism in listing, they are placed in alphabetical order based on
the brief name I associated with each.

1. Choiceful Simplicity: Simplicity means choosing our unique path
through life consciously, deliberately, and of our own accord. It means
to live whole—to not live divided against ourselves. This path
emphasizes the challenges of freedom over the comfort of
consumerism. A choiceful simplicity means staying focused, diving
deep, and not being distracted by consumer culture. It means
consciously organizing our lives so that we give our “true gifts” to the
world—which is to give the essence of ourselves. As Emerson said,
“The only true gift is a portion of yourself.”

2. Compassionate Simplicity: Simplicity means to feel such a strong
sense of kinship with others that, as Gandhi said, we “choose to live
simply so that others may simply live.” A compassionate simplicity
means feeling a bond with the community of life and being drawn
toward a path of reconciliation—with other species and future
generations as well as, for example, between those with great
differences of wealth and opportunity. A compassionate simplicity is a
path of cooperation and fairness that seeks a future of mutually
assured development for all.

3. Ecological Simplicity: Simplicity means to choose ways of living
that touch the Earth more lightly and that reduce our ecological impact.
This life-path remembers our deep roots in the natural world. It
encourages us to connect with nature, the seasons, and the cosmos.
A natural simplicity feels a deep reverence for the community of life on
Earth and accepts that the non-human realms of plants and animals
have their dignity and rights as well the human.

4. Economic Simplicity: Simplicity means there are many forms of
“right livelihood” in the rapidly growing market for healthy and
sustainable products and services of all kinds—from home-building
materials and energy systems to foods and transportation. When the
need for a sustainable infrastructure in developing nations is
combined with the need to retrofit and redesign the homes, cities,
workplaces, and transportation systems of “developed” nations, then it
is clear that an enormous wave of highly purposeful economic activity
can unfold.

5. Elegant Simplicity: Simplicity means that the way we live our lives
represents a work of unfolding artistry. As Gandhi said, “My life is my
message.” In this spirit, an elegant simplicity is an understated,
organic aesthetic that contrasts with the excess of consumerist
lifestyles. Drawing from influences ranging from Zen to the Quakers,
simplicity is a path of beauty that celebrates natural materials and
clean, functional expressions.

6. Family Simplicity: Simplicity means that the balanced lives of
children and families are of highest priority and that it is important not
to get sidetracked by our consumer society. In turn, a growing number
of parents are opting out of consumerist lifestyles and seeking to
bring enhancing values and experiences into the lives of their children
and family.

7. Frugal Simplicity: Simplicity means that, by cutting back on
spending that is not truly serving our lives, and by practicing skillful
management of our personal finances, we can achieve greater
financial independence. Frugality and careful financial management
bring increased financial freedom and the opportunity to more
consciously choose our path through life. Living with less also
decreases the impact of our consumption upon the Earth and frees
resources for others.

8. Political Simplicity: Simplicity means organizing our collective lives
in ways that enable us to live more lightly and sustainably on the Earth
which, in turn, involves changes in nearly every area of public life—
from transportation and education to the design of our homes, cities,
and workplaces. The politics of simplicity is also a media politics as
the mass media are the primary vehicle for reinforcing—or
transforming—the mass consciousness of consumerism. Political
simplicity is a politics of conversation and community that builds from
local, face-to-face connections to networks of relationships emerging
around the world through the enabling power of television and the
Internet.

9. Soulful Simplicity: Simplicity means to approach life as a
meditation and to cultivate our experience of intimate connection with
all that exists. A spiritual presence infuses the world and, by living
simply, we can more directly awaken to the living universe that
surrounds and sustains us, moment by moment. Soulful simplicity is
more concerned with consciously tasting life in its unadorned
richness than with a particular standard or manner of material living.
In cultivating a soulful connection with life, we tend to look beyond
surface appearances and bring our interior aliveness into
relationships of all kinds.

10. Uncluttered Simplicity: Simplicity means taking charge of lives
that are too busy, too stressed, and too fragmented. An uncluttered
simplicity means cutting back on trivial distractions, both material and
non-material, and focusing on the essentials—whatever those may be
for each of our unique lives. As Thoreau said, “Our life is frittered away
by detail. . . Simplify, simplify.” Or, as Plato wrote, “In order to seek one’
s own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday
life.”

As these ten approaches illustrate, the growing culture of simplicity
contains a flourishing garden of expressions whose great diversity—
and intertwined unity—are creating a resilient and hardy ecology of
learning about how to live more sustainable and meaningful lives. As
with other ecosystems, it is the diversity of expressions that fosters
flexibility, adaptability, and resilience. Because there are so many
pathways of great relevance into the garden of simplicity, this cultural
movement appears to have enormous potential to grow—particularly if
it is nurtured and cultivated in the mass media as a legitimate,
creative, and promising life-path for the future. As the culture of
simplicity develops, it will draw people toward it by demonstrating a
more meaningful and fulfilling way of life beyond modern materialism.
In turn, a vital foundation for nurturing the garden of simplicity will be
the flowering of new forms of human-scale community.

Simplicity and Community in a Stewardship Society

If given the choice, millions of people would choose new forms of
community that support simpler, more sustainable ways of living.
However, our current patterns and scales of living do not suit these
needs. The scale of the household is often too small and that of the
city too large to realize many of the opportunities for sustainable living.
However, at the scale of a small village, the strength of one person or
family meets the strength of others and, working together, something
can be created that was not possible before.

Modern neighborhoods with isolated, single-family dwellings have
been compared to tiny, underdeveloped nations where the potential
for community and synergy has yet to be realized. A new architecture
of life is needed; one that integrates the physical as well as social and
cultural/spiritual dimensions of our lives. Taking a lesson from
humanity’s past, it is important to look at the in-between scale of
living—that of a small village consisting of a few hundred people or
less. Great opportunity exists for organizing into clusters of small
ecovillages that are nested within a larger urban area.

To illustrate from my own life, my wife Coleen and I lived in an
ecovillage/co-housing community in Northern California of roughly
seventy people for a year and a half. One of the three organizing
principles for the community is “simplicity” (and the other two are
ecology and family). We experienced how easily and quickly activities
could be organized. From organizing fundraisers (such as a brunch
for tsunami disaster relief), to arranging classes (such as yoga and
Cajun dancing), planting the community landscape and garden, and
creating community celebrations and events, we participated in
several dozen gatherings that emerged with ease from the combined
strengths and diverse talents of the community.

I imagine that, in a sustainable future, a family will live in an “eco-
home” that is nested within an “ecovillage,” that, in turn, is nested
within an “eco-city,” and so on up the scale to the bio-region, nation,
and world. Each ecovillage of several hundred persons would have a
distinct character, architecture, and local economy. Most would likely
contain a child-care facility and play area, a common house for
meetings, celebrations, and regular meals together, an organic
community garden, a recycling and composting area, some revered
open space, and a crafts and shop area. As well, each could offer a
variety of types of work to the local economy—such as the arts, health
care, child care, a non-profit learning center for gardening, green
building, conflict resolution, and other skills—that provide fulfilling
employment for many. These micro-communities or modern villages
could have the culture and cohesiveness of a small town and the
sophistication of a big city, as virtually everyone will be immersed
within a world that is rich with communications. Ecovillages create the
possibility for meaningful work, raising healthy children, celebrating
life in community with others, and living in a way that seeks to honor
the Earth and future generations.

Ecovillages represent a healthy response to economic globalization
as they create a strong, decentralized foundation for society and a way
of living that has the potential for being sustainable for everyone on the
planet. Because they may range in size from roughly one or two
hundred people, they approximate the scale of a more traditional tribe.
Consequently, ecovillages are compatible with both the village-based
cultures of indigenous societies and with those of post-modern
cultures.

With a social and physical architecture sensitive to the psychology of
modern tribes, a flowering of diverse communities could replace the
alienation of today’s massive cities. Ecovillages provide the practical
scale and foundation for a sustainable future. I believe they will
become important islands of community, security, learning, and
innovation in a world of sweeping change. These smaller-scale,
human-sized living and working environments will foster diverse
experiments in community and cooperative living. Sustainability will be
achieved through different designs that touch people and the Earth
lightly and that are uniquely adapted to the culture, economy, interests
and environment of each locale.

Simplicity and a Sustainable Species-Civilization

In a shift similar to that nature makes—for example, in the jump from
simple atoms to complex molecules, or from complex molecules to
living cells—humanity is being challenged to make a jump to a new
kind of community and life-organization. A robust garden of
expressions will emerge from the combination of a culture of
conscious simplicity with new forms of community adapted to the
unique culture and ecology of different geographic regions. The great
diversity of approaches to sustainable and compassionate living that
emerge in the context of new forms of community will foster flexibility,
adaptability, and resilience at the local scale—qualities that will be
profoundly tested in the decades ahead.

Although human societies have confronted major hurdles throughout
history, the challenges of our era are unique. Never before has the
human family been on the verge of devastating the Earth's biosphere
and crippling its ecological foundations for countless generations to
come. Never before have so many people been called upon to make
such sweeping changes in so little time. Never before has the entire
human family been entrusted with the task of working together to
imagine and consciously build a sustainable and compassionate
future. As we awaken to this new world, integrating life-ways of
simplicity and new forms of community will be at the foundation of
building a stewardship society and promising future. Seeds of
simplicity, growing quietly for the past generation, are now
blossoming into a garden of expressions. May the garden flourish!

© Duane Elgin; Revised 3/07