You can live in a consumerist society and not get completely sucked in by it all. You don’t have to own a car, you don’t have to keep buying a bigger house. You don’t have to buy the latest gadgets / clothes. Plenty of middle aged hippies in my street (although Cambridge is not exactly middle of the road normal).

Hmm.. no you don’t have to own a car, but they can really help you get a lot out of life. Like many things, it’s what you do with it that counts.

Owning a car doesn’t have to mean stretching yourself to afford a prestige car so you can sit in a traffic jam on your 30 mile commute to your soulless job, as people seem to think.

It can, but it can also mean keeping a cheap but decent runner so you can get out to the wilderness once a month, or road-trip across France etc etc.

You don’t have to have the latest gadgets, no, but a decent budget smartphone is a great way to stay in touch with your friends and family cos we’re always told they are what’s important.

brooess – good points there! Especially about spending your time learning (rather than TV or FB), and volunteering to help others.

But, work / jobs aren’t always a bad thing. I’m fortunate to have a full time job that is mentally stimulating, where I spend my time with a lot of great people, and in a small way contributes to ‘social good’. Rather than avoiding work, maybe it is better to focus on spending your time on work that you enjoy, and provides other rewards than only money?

Other than that, it is quite simple – buy less, experience more! If we all lived just a little bit more by that principle, I think we would all be a bit happier – it doesn’t have to be a case of “all or nothing”.

I was recently asked what I wanted for my birthday – simple answer: time spent with the people I love, outdoors in the hills and playing on the beach, laughing lots 🙂 As the saying goes – “one life, live it … now!”

BillMC – I have a copy of “the high price of materialism” from the library so will be reading that over the coming days (probably weeks knowing me). Looking forward to it. Too nice a book to take away with me for a muddy weekend of bikes though!

I definitely own ‘more stuff’ than I need but there is a balance. I’ve done the live in the car thing and it has helped me be better balanced.

I think it’s possible to be happy and not overally materialistic but still living the ‘regular’ life. It’s important not to over stretch yourself, be it financially and work/life balance.

I’ve previously worked in a field where all my customers were multi millionaires to billionaires and I learnt alot of lessons from them. Some of them completely overstretched themselves while others really knew how to enjoy themselves and had a good work/life balance.

I think at all ends of the spectrum you get people who simply don’t know how to enjoy themselves and when not to fall foul of the social pressures of a consumerist society.

I think it comes down ultimately to whether you are risk averse or prepared to take a gamble. The wealthiest people I know took a gamble, failed several times but eventually did well. I imagine I will follow a more steady path, in the knowledge that the bank balance will never be huge but the risk of it being nothing will have been much lower throughout my/my family’s life

There’s a timing thing, i took massive risk but at the time it seemed like nothing really, now though if you profiled me i would be quite risk averse. Things change.

I’m going to be honest here, but going travelling in a van for a year or so doesn’t, to me, represent an idealisitc rejection of consumersist society. By all means do it, I’m sure it will be fun and a great experience. But it used to be called a ‘gap year’.

I have a 1 year old child, a wife who is working part time and a mortgage I can barely afford. It is funded through a 50 hour working week of pure misery.

I find a good cry helps.

Kryton57 – Member

Excellent, thanks. FWIW yes you can change
Ikea blinds instead of £3 grand curtains ?

My brother’s friend sold his house , bought a motorhome and buggered off to Europe in the autumn of 2013. Him and his wife spent winter in the bottom of Spain and sent pictures of themselves sun bathing in January.
They now live permanently on a caravan site in Kent where they clean the toilets for a free pitch.
Living The Dream.

There was a Ewan McGregor film I watched some time ago and this quote always stuck with me:
“Our good fortune allowed us to feel a sadness our parents never had time for.”
I think it’s just about finding a balance (not that I think I’ve got there).

?? What Brooess said.

Malvern – I am getting rid of most stuff before I make the move to my van, I have already reduced my furniture to what I need for the short term, I will be storing some sentimental stuff at a friends, photos and the like, but I don’t want ‘stuff’ to define me.

This guy is a bit of an inspiration for my plans. My work have a shower in the basement so I can use that once I move from my flat.

Sazter, the fact that you ‘don’t want stuff to define’ you shows that it probably doesn’t anyway. Know just what you mean – although my vain pursuit of less stuff and more zen is more a practical fight against magpie/hoarding tendencies. I could easily ‘justify’ a double garage full of second-hand bikes, bike stuff, art materials/art books. It would go someway to defining me as an art nut who is a bike nut. Or vise-versa. Or simply a hoarder. It’s weird, don’t (never have) covet showey-offey fast cars or branded clothes – yet will obsess for ages over owning a certain vintage penknife, torch or old bicycle. Also gadgets. If Ihad the money I could spend a fortune on lightweight camping stuff and cameras.

But after ‘making do’ for so long (and having no immediate plans to go lightweight trekking) – I’d now be happier spending that money on something/someone else. When I ran for the hills I lived on £50 a week, which is loads if you have access to hot water (kelly kettle) and cheap food (Morrisons reduced section) and – most importantly – kind people who let you camp in return for a few hrs work or even for free. My mobility was/is impaired by arthritis damage – so spent a lot of time lying down in a tent, doing exercises, overcoming pain. But it helped me in the long run. Helped me regain sanity, lose weight, reduce pains, become more mentally flexible.

I didn’t have a bicycle with me so bought a gate-sized 90s Saracen Rustrax for £10 – came with free rattling B/B. It got me about. It also ameliorated some of my perfectionist tendencies about cycle maintenance. I (literally) let the car die in a field as had knowhere else to store it and relied less and less on it as money dwindled. It finally got to the scrappie in limp mode. I love not using cars, it brings adventure back to everyday stuff…and doesn’t pollute.

Overall my getting away from ‘modern life’ was initially a result of personal conflict. Marriage failing, widespread mistrust owing to two successive insane/dodgy business partners, health failing, all not helped by prior commitment of 18 months of 18hr days to a ‘lean’ startup business that typically involved all day/night working indoors looking at a screen.

Something had to go. I didn’t flee to the sticks with any idealist fantasies, it was a flight on a shoestring.

Needed to get somewhere away before my head blew a gasket. Planned to go camping for a few weeks in the winter but was gone for 18+months. Have since learned that less stuff and less business/marital stress is what I needed. Some people thrive on those things – not me. Am still working on the marriage – and it is much better 🙂

(Time spent on iPad is creeping up again. Need to watch that)

Of all modern life’s afflictions I am convinced that addictions to computers are the most soul-sucking/time-stealing. Cars next. This goes for work and play. I am addicted to the internets. Needs sorting.

Now, about these boxes in the shed…wtaf do I do with this Batavus chainguard that is the wrong size for current chainring setup, yet could maybe come in useful should we ever move somewhere less hilly? Landfill? (gnot gnice) or the endless Ebay ad? We just keep on throwing crap away don’t we? Recently moved into an old (medieval) cottage and quickly realised that they had zero storage except for woodshed and a few little shelves in the kitchen for jars etc. Underneath the filth and damp it feels nice and zen until our hundred cardboard boxes arrived.

Ye gods…I could get by with a smart phone, utility knife, two pairs of trews and tees, shoes, clippers, shower bag, towel, toothbrush, reading specs, one bicycle, painting box and brushes. That’s all!

But… wait…would need phone-charger, cables, case, winter tyres, daylight lamp, spectacles case, helmet, panniers, locks, keys, tool-kit, touring bars, multitool, wet-weather gear, hi-viz, bike lights, chargers…Muc-off, GT-85, box of rags, floor pump. And somewhere to keep it all.

Every single thing we own seems to exponentially grow other ‘stuff’. All stuff needs a supporting cast of stuff and a graveyard of boxes and packaging stuff. All this stuff lives in my head. Last time I walked on the Gower peninsula – seems it lives there also. There was two-foot deep of un-recycled stuff carpeting Three Cliffs Bay. Horrible shite.

Whilst living in a tent mid-winter would sometimes go to the supermarket cafe at opening for some porridge or the odd sausage sarnie. I could cook my own porridge or sausage at the tent but the cafe was warm and bright-nice! I’d choose a magazine to ‘evaluate’ at the table, then read it carefully, not to crease it, then put it back on the shelf unscathed. The magazine was (invariably) entitled ‘Stuff’ – usually had some ‘shopped miss perfect on the front cover, displaying wares. Felt like reading a 1950s publication albeit with flashier graphics/typefaces.

Yet the song remained the same – ie an endless procession of sparkly carrots to make us feel *just* unfulfilled enough to dedicate our entire lives to earning/borrowing enough cash to purchase ‘new improved’ versions. And without ever questioning if we really wanted/needed them in the first place. Or if this stuff would ultimately decrease erode or steal away our time spent discovering anything about ourselves/our skills/our relationships? Living with less stuff is not necessarily idealistic, neither is living the life that suits you. Idealistic is living up to an ‘ideal’. I now think it unwise to try and maintain a material ideal at the cost of never finding what it is that we are suited to doing. And what suited is in the past may soon change, for health or other reasons.

Alan Watts struck me with – ‘what is it that you want to do?’ I remembered being a kid and asking myself that question, yet at some point it changed to ‘what do you want to buy’? And ‘do?’ became simply ‘what can I do to buy X?’

*Edit. Sorry for walloftext ramble 8)

[video]http://youtu.be/KSyHWMdH9gk[/video]

And what Brooess said. Agree wholeheartedly.

don’t apologise, i enjoyed it 😉

had similar experiences in a way – not as extreme though. While working as a self-employed music producer, i had to pare down my outgoings hugely. Found it quite liberating; I didn’t have any stuff so I didn’t have any insurance (my studio is in a bank vault); i wasn’t worried about my stuff being nicked because it was all cheap and crap, i couldn’t engage with the consumer merry-go-round, etc etc.

one time i went into town to buy socks or whatever. had hardly been into a big town centre shop in months, and it was funny – i found myself coming down an escalator in debenhams, looking onto a shop floor absolutely chocka with bright spangly clothes, racks and racks everywhere, every variety. i felt like a bumpkin in the big city for the first time, like something out of a shit hollywood comedy. i found it actually a bit shocking – the extravagance, the knowledge that people would be buying this stuff for £20 a pop and then wearing it once or twice on a saturday night. which was a weird sensation.

i felt faintly reassured that i had drifted so far from the regular consumer lifestyle.

these days i have a job and a house and a coffee grinder. but i still ride my 1993 Giant 🙂

Malvern – that was a great read, I have been reading these posts and feeling a bit silly recently, it is now the time I need to hand in my 2 month notice on my flat, I have found someone to adopt my chinchilla and it is all starting to feel a bit real. And it’s scary, especially with the doubters telling me I am crazy, or living a fantasy. Had a wee moment last night and this morning, my OH is being very supportive but ultimately we both believe that the sacrifices I have to make now will be worth it for the adventures.

Call it a gap year, call me crazy, whatever, I need to try something that is not this, right now, here. I need change and this is how I am going to change my life. Short term, long term, who knows, but I am going to try it and see what happens.

Now do I sell a bike or keep my fs and ht? Thinking a stop in Morzine would be greatly enhanced with my fs… but my bank balance would be healthier and my ‘stuff quota’ lighter with just one bike, one Hornet to rule them all.

Picking up on a couple of words you’ve used.

“sacrifices”: why not good riddance to bad rubbish? you’re not happy now right?

“fs or ht”: one for you, one for the other half or neither.

“supportive”: but not with you all the way. I’ve never seen any of the women from whom I separated geographically again. I’m married to the one who got on a bike and rode off into the sunset with me. Supporting you in what you do isn’t the same as a shared dream.

“Morzine”: unless you’re hoping to find work there, Morzine is part of your old life when you want a new one.

If you’re going to let go, let go, holding on with one arm will hurt more than hanging on with both. A proper break involves letting go of town, country, girl/boyfriend (unless they go with you), profession (unless you do it in a totally different environment/language), sporting ambitions and any other baggage that will hold you back or slow you down.

I will be storing some sentimental stuff at a friends, photos and the like

Isn’t there a little bit of irony in requiring friends to be the corporate slaves and own the house that you’re keeping your stuff in whilst you do you own stuff?

The wealthiest people I know took a gamble, failed several times but eventually did well.

Equally, there will be plenty of very poor people who took a gamble, failed and never did well. Don’t equate gambiling with doing well, it requires a certain point of view/idea/ethic.

Edukator – Sacrifices – the main one being living in a van in Glasgow over winter. Not the ‘stuff’, I don’t see that as a sacrifice! 🙂
OH has a hybrid and I took her mtb-ing once so far and she did not enjoy it, but have planned another try, so will see how that goes, but if it fails again I will probably take my ht and her hybrid so we can get about places and either store or sell my fs.
She is with me all the way, I meant supportive of my mini meltdown! 😀
I have never been to morzine, but was hoping to spend a day or two riding the trails just to see what all the hype is about. Suggestions for other places to ride in Europe are very welcome!
She is coming with me. 🙂

breatheasy – yes, but he offered and I helped him build his bikes and shed table, taught him how to fix bikes and he might join me for some of the trip so it’s all good. He owns his house and is happy with that.
My whole family work in the gaming industry except me. Maybe this is my way of being like them?!

Morzine is in the northern Alps which have the advantage of being close to northern Europe but have northern alpine weather. I suppose if you normally live in Glasgow that’s an improvement but I like being a bit further south. There’s good biking in many places, we were (spectating and pottering about) at the World Cup Enduro in the Sierra de Guara, Spain last weekend, sunny and dry if a little rocky under tyre. I prefer somewhere with sea and mountians. This guy is nothing to do with me so it’s not plug, just an idea.

Madame spent years on tourers and race bikes before slowly getting into MTB. Do really simple stuff to start with and she’ll enjoy it. Ladies aren’t often encouraged to race around muddy tracks on bikes as kids so have a lot more learning and confidence building to do than blokes – blame her parents. 😉

I’m still trying to work out why you want to be in a van while your OH is in a cosy flat but sometimes I’m a bit slow. 😕

Will look at places further south too, but I think I need to tick the morzine box too, just because I can.

Our first attempt at taking her MTBing was the green and blue at Glentress, she looked at berm baby and told me where I could go! Going to try and find something between a green and that then! I am also a lady but I was encouraged outside to climb trees and ride my bike more I guess. I am still a big scaredy cat and it takes me ages to build up to drops and stuff, but I usually get there in the end!

She has a flat, but she also rents out her spare room and the flat is not really big enough for 3, and it’s not fair to bump the flatmate out on his rear because I have decided on a plan that involves leaving my flat. I will be spending about half my week there, it’s just not going to be fair to just move in. 🙂 There is logic in all of this, deep down.

Sometimes I’m even slower than I thought.

That’s ok Edukator, I hope that if you met me in person you’d realise! 😉

liking the cut of your jib o.p.
And Malvern riders post is great too.
Hurrah.

wtaf do I do with this Batavus chainguard

Send it to me? 🙂

NB this doesn’t mean I’m brazenly materialistic.. I just fear for my work trousers every time I ride my commuter as ethical non polluting transport for daily life… 😉

one Hornet to rule them all

😀

Gah, just realised the above link to the Alan Watts lecture has a bunch of God stuff stealth-edited on the end.

Striving and searching for happiness in life will always be futile.
Whether this is fully integrated in a consumerist society or living apart from it all, you are always left with yourself.

Accept that unhappiness, discontent and emptiness will be forever present in your life in varying degrees.

Sazter, hope you enjoy Kasser. He invited me to 2 CCFC conferences in Boston and I introduced him to a Cambridge prof, they did mad battle and then became friends. There’s a bit of footage of him online and he’s over here occasionally, speaking at party conferences or working on green issues. I got frustrated in the end with Americans’ reticence to talk about class and inequality which seemed to me, on an analytical level, like fighting a boxing match with one arm manacled.

Accept that unhappiness, discontent and emptiness will be forever present in your life in varying degrees.

This is partly why modern consumerism is successful, as it helps distract us from the existential void inside.

Saying that I do know some people who have dropped out of society and they seem genuinely content.

You don’t need to drop out to be content. Get somewhere small but well insulated to live, get an allotment (cheaper than a big garden plus you can give it up). Wear your clothes till they’re holey. Get rid of the telly. Ride bike more and car less. Spend more time doing nothing to let your brain wander and work differently. Treat your local environment as if you’re on holiday. Don’t eat processed food. Make stuff. You will find your powers of concentration and immersion expand considerably and your ‘need’ for consumer items diminishes.

Every single thing we own seems to exponentially grow other ‘stuff’

This.

I’d love to get into windsurfing, snowboarding, paragliding/paramotoring along with biking. The thought of all the stuff that would generate and storing it/looking after it gives me the heebiejeebies. I content myself with biking and accept I don’t do that other stuff.

I used to do work for a fairly wealthy couple with three kids. They had the most horrific double garage. Enormous but totally filled with hoarded furniture/camping/skiiing/ biking/ watersports/golf/gardening stuff in a massive jumble. It stressed me out just fighting in the door to get a tin of petrol for the strimmer.

Anyone want to buy a Tallboy LTc or a nice steel 29+ bike?

I used to do work for a fairly wealthy couple with three kids. They had the most horrific double garage.

This also now extends to the lower middle-class. On the estate where I live, everyone seems to open their garage or double garage on the same day in the Spring to have a bit of a tidy-up. I’d estimate over 80percent are no longer functional garages but monuments to the 5 minute wonder.

Which reminds me I’ve got two windsurfer, various sized sails and all the other bits I haven’t used for over ten years, and won’t because my shoulders aren’t up to it anymore. At least every bike has been used at least once in the last year.

There’ a fair bit of extreme stuff in the Tom Hodkinson book, which with a mortgage and two kids doesn’t cut the mustard – for example being too lazy to pay the bills and incurring the resulting fines wouldn’t work, although I don’t disagree with the capitalist reflection behind the mechanics of it that he makes.

However, reading it and reflecting upon my start on the journey of mindfulness makes me realise I’ve achieved a change of mindset to many things he suggests and is in the thread. For example the boot- sale of anything spare in my double garage 🙂 , which resulted in the purchase of an easel/chalk board combo for the kids which we’ve enjoyed using together. I spent some time – whereas I used to wait until I could do this on my own – with my 6yo helping me mow the lawn and trim the hedges together. He really enjoyed “helping daddy” and we had some good conversations about how spider webs work and other stuff. We made pizza’s last night totally from scratch with our near-3yo helping with the dough and both putting on thier own toppings, it was great.

So I’m totally convinced that in the pursuit of materialist objects theres a danger of losing the past skill, knowledge or learning by internet rather than practical experience. Again, he’s bike racing in two weeks, so next weekend I’m going to teach him how to wash down, lube and prepare his bike properly pre-race.

Furthermore, I work in a materialistic corporate and I’ve finally achieved the Nirvana of not giving a toss about what it is my colleagues own, drive or have.

Its very refreshing.

BillMC – I am not ‘dropping out’ for good, just a reset break. I already reduced my life a bit, I currently live in a small flat in a renovated high rise, it is super insulated and eco-friendly, my bills etc have plummeted. I still have a tv, but it only gets used for the odd hour whilst I am waiting for people/things to happen, it doesn’t have an aerial, I just use netflix. I only drive to take my bike to places otherwise I walk or cycle, I bmx the 5 mile round trip for work each day, this makes me happy as I feel like a kid every time I get on the small wheeled, pathetic braked bike! I avoid processed food and have done for a couple of years now, I enjoy cooking so that’s easy really.

I see this next phase as just that, a reset for the last few years, a long holiday more than anything else, but along with the holiday part I am shedding the unnecessary and frivolous and learning more about the world.

I am happy, I am not seeking happiness, I am seeking adventure.

Sounds good. There are a lot of improvements you can make by simplifying things, cutting spending and avoiding/reducing debt. I’ve virtually given up buying stuff (26′ x 2) and just spend money on travel. Hodgkinson is in a privileged position (bit of a trustafarian I suspect, he’s now returned to London) but his book is funny, well researched and gives a few interesting pointers. Some of the US stuff on voluntary simplicity is so worthy and right-on you would vomit. But then making your own way is surely what it’s all about.
Adventure can also be had on your doorstep. I once surfed for a fortnight in and around Phillip Island and quite frankly got bored. Alienating work generates a need for extreme sports but when the work is no longer there, adventure can be found on a different scale.

Re Tom Hodkinson, didn’t he just move back to the big smoke?

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/tom-hodgkinson-why-i-m-packing-in-my-rural-idyll-for-london-9012338.html

^. Enjoyed reading that, and a lot of it rings true:

Some mornings I have driven 50 miles before I’ve even sat down to work. Far from being eco-friendly, the countryside can force you to consume vast amounts of fossil fuels.

And the fuel bills — oh my God! Our house has no central heating: we rely on an old Rayburn, plus log fires and electric radiators. While this is romantic and fun — the Rayburn is comforting, and there’s nothing like a wood-burning stove to bring joy and warmth to the home — it’s unbelievably expensive. The cost of heating oil has doubled over the past 12 years. But my income has shrunk. That’s a double whammy: our electricity, oil, log and gas bottle bill comes to more than five grand a year, which officially puts us in fuel poverty. We’re actually looking forward to living in a smaller house with much lower energy bills.

After living in this old cottage for just three weeks have discovered is already cold enough to get through half a bag of coal a night. Even with oil prices low it doesn’t make me happy to think of the thousands of litres projected for the winter. We have used stupid fuel just driving for groceries, getting madam to the useless, slackadaisical rural GP and also flat-hunting for somewhere more suitable/healthy. Looking forward to being nearer the town so that all groceries are retrieved by foot or bicycle, and double-glazing keeps the fuel bills manageable. Two moves in a month means that we have already downsized posessions on account of practicality/space. Looking fwd to a kitchen that is warm so can continue our plans of cooking all our own food 🙂

Malvern, I agree, I lived in a lovely flat in a converted mansion in the style of a castle a couple of years ago. I t was beautiful, the views were stunning and I planned on getting out on my bike and exploring the surrounding area. The reality was I never had time to ride, I spent my free time commuting, the castle was draughty and the calor gas tanks in the garden meant fuel was extortionate. I have some brilliant memories of the summer there and some nice photographs but I do not miss living there! My high rise flat is smaller, less photogenic, and has zero status quo, but it is warm, cosy, close to work and handy for transport, I would not go back to the castle life again!

I lived in a lovely flat in a converted mansion in the style of a castle a couple of years ago.

Friends used to live in one, their ensuite toilets would freeze solid in a good winter!

Tom Hodkinson’s escape to the country seems to have been financed by book deals from the City, so not exactly easy to emulate. As soon as they dried up he came crawling back…