by Larry

Try Not To Need

Inspiration comes from the strangest places sometimes. I was watching a segment of Orson Welles’ “Around The World…” series the other day in which he interviewed various luminaries about their philosophies and methods. He spoke with Raymond Duncan, a craftsman and artist whose philosophy and lifestyle were the essence of simplification for over 50 years. A certain quote stood out for me. It came when Orson Welles asked Mr. Duncan if he could reduce his philosophy to a statement. Duncan responded… “I try to make all of the things I need. And I try not to need the things I cannot make.” Ambitious, but admirable. I can’t imagine in this time of inexpensive everything from China and other places that we would really need to make too terribly much. But from a craftsman standpoint, time taken in the artistry of creating a useful thing or appreciable thing like artwork, is time well spent, and time spent on the craftsman himself, which was another of Duncan’s essentially communist philosophies that the development of the worker is more important than the work itself. While I agree that the development of the skills and talents of people is critical, the work itself, unless done purely for the pleasure or development of the craftsman, is critically important too, otherwise the work is selfish and limited.

What I took from it then, applied in my own life and to this project, is my own simplification… “I will try not to need the things I do not truly need.”

by Larry

Overpacking As Regret Prevention

My wife and I are about to begin our six month adventure in Europe and, since we have a little time during our layover in NYC, I thought I would take a few minutes to write about our packing difficulties and likely overestimation.

Spending six months on the road is a daunting thing for which to pack and plan. Lisa has been a trooper in the trip planning department but the planning of the packing itself has been a study in the alternation between excess and oversimplification. I have been trying to account for not only the standard day-to-day living, but for the hiking, snorkeling, amateur filmmaking, and serious photographic equipment that should be brought to avoid the sentiment expressed in the title, regret for not having brought the one piece of kit that would have enabled a certain activity.

As a result, I’m sure we have packed too much stuff. For a six month trip, a large suitcase and a backpack each seems reasonable, until you consider the nearly two-hundred pounds they collectively weigh. But as a rule I’m the guy who likes to be prepared and hates to regret not bringing something that would be hard or expensive to purchase at the destination. I usually err on the side of “yeah, I’ve got several of those just in case”. Especially when we decided to do a eurocar purchase/buy-back. Having a car encourages all manner of evil overpacking.

That said, even the relatively large amount we have was an exercise in essential gear only discipline that can only be a good for me. Or, perhaps, I’ll be writing soon to complain about something I left behind. Time will tell.

As we sit here in the airport waiting, after a miserable move and a frantic week of final preparations, I’m just glad to have made the go/no-go decisions and have them behind me. I think we have the right stuff, but maybe too much of it. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the gear actually just gets in the way. There’s a purity to backpacking travel. The simplicity helps you focus in the place.

We are not backpacking. Perhaps we will be by the time we return.

by Grant

Less “Poo” For A Better “Do”

The documentary “Affluenza”, a conversation with my brother, and finally an article from NPR convinced me to try something you might find disgusting. I went several days without shampooing my hair.

Actually, I went two weeks or fourteen full days without shampooing. I did wash my hair everyday. I just didn’t wash with shampoo, I used water and more than normal scrubbing and rinsing.

Come to find out shampoo is good at cleaning, but not good at moisturizing. Shampoo strips your hair of essential oils which keep your hair healthy and prevents it from drying out.

Here’s my old routine, shampoo for cleaning, conditioner to counter the bad effects of shampoo, then hairspray to make my unhealthy dried out hair stay in place.

My new routine is to shampoo once a week and wash with water the other six days. No need for conditioner or hairspray, because my hair stays hydrated and managable. That’s two things shampoo can’t do.

If your going to try to use less “poo”, be patient. Your body is over producing oils to compensate for the continuous stripping of oil in your hair by the shampoo. So give your hair some time to slow down the oil production, get into a routine, and your hair will get used to more peaceful times.

In conclusion, reducing shampoo use totally eliminates the need for two other products (conditioner and hairspray) and leaves your hair healthier. I know my hair has never been healthier.

by Grant

The Garage Purge: It’s Our Stuff Or Our Cars

Several years and a house ago, my family and I had a two car garage. In that garage was a wall to wall heap of our stuff. We had boxes, bags, shelving units, and other stuff that couldn’t fit in or on any bag or shelf. It just sat there and sat there.

Once in a while someone would venture in to add to the heap or to find something in it. The finding almost always failed, “I know I have a utility knife in here somewhere”. I could only find flat head screwdrivers when I was looking for Philips or visa-versa.

The result was, our second biggest investments sat out in the weather, our stuff sat unused in a cool dry place and I repurchased anything I couldn’t find. How pathetic. We must be insane, because the garage in our current house is also filled to the brim with stuff. What are we thinking?

Anyway, there have been times when the garage did get cleaned and purged of the stuff. Those were some of the happiest days of my life, no really. All of a sudden, I could find things the things I really wanted and that had a practical purpose. I let go of most of those books “I want to read someday”, school papers, the vintage microwave “just in case we need it”. So many excuses. So many emotions and fears of letting go. We made all that investment in “stuff” we hadn’t used in years.

This is a wake up call to all you with attics, garages, basements, spare rooms, and storage units filled with stuff to “purge baby purge”. I for one will be performing a Spring Purge this coming weekend.

A few words of advice, don’t buy stuff if you don’t really need it, if it’s garbage to you it’s a treasure to someone else, and if it’s hard to let go , then “take a picture it will last longer”. Less let’s you live more.

by Larry

“I’ll Feel Better When…”

I caught myself regurgitating an old unsatisfied sentiment this morning while speaking with my wife. I said “I’ll feel better when I can X” or “I’ll feel better when we get to X”. It doesn’t matter what stage X is specifically, it’s the sentiment that I don’t like. It’s the feeling of not being there yet and wishing this fear-imposed limbo away. It’s the sentiment of falling short of goals or believing that a significantly better life is over the next hill, while thinking in parallel that the current valley is filled with misery.

While I believe there is a recommended dose of aspiration, and that even a very high dose can be a healthy and natural thing, finding myself in a mental rut and clinging to the thought of the next valley as a way out, an escape, is more of a bleak reaction than I should expect from myself. Instead why don’t I spend more effort focusing on now and doing the best I can on pieces of the projects I have before me, with satisfaction in my current state and productivity, rather than constantly measuring the distance between my long range goals and the patch of ground on which I happen to be standing at any given moment?

It seems to me, as I reflect on past accomplishments, that not only was the destination a satisfaction, but the struggles I overcame to get there have a special place in my heart as well. If I can’t review each element of the past with savor, the journey somehow seems cheaper. Instead I can look back with fondness and laugh at the obstacles and challenges I faced, and find pride in the improvised methods I employed to overcome them.

With this is mind, as most of the obstacles are before me in my current pursuits, I can savor the struggle, enjoy the resistance, and focus on the moment a lot more than I am, and be better for it, and by simple choice I feel better now.

by admin

What’s It Mean?

This is not a new way of thinking. The phrase “less is more” has been said for decades to describe the pure beauty of simplification. But this site and community is dedicated to making that sentiment a reality. How better to make it real than to move it beyond rhetoric to true integration into our day to day existence. Many have found wisdom by finally realizing that living with less actually allows us to live more.