Hello from sunny London!
So, I decided a few weeks ago that I wasn't going to try to keep up with the blog whilst on holidays, and then I was too lazy to even write an update to that effect. Here is that update! I will be back in Australia in two weeks, and will begin again then. Having the task hanging over my head was stressing me out a bit, and since the point of the holiday was relaxing, recovering and rejuventating, I thought it would be a more efficient use of time to just indulge in laziness, and get back to writing when I am back in my usual environment.
But, I have still been reading and thinking a lot- particularly about the way that I approach this whole issue of how best we can reduce our impact on the environment. One book I am reading has been really turning my thinking upside down.
The main premise of this collection of essays I am reading "Do good lives have to cost the earth?"* is that the current environmental crisis (crises?), is actually an opportunity for us to reconceptualise what "a good life" is. Advertising tells us that a good life is one where you are incredibly rich, and have the trappings to prove it. You can choose to jet off to whichever city/island you like, in your designer clothes, or you can spend a night in (and escape all those envious eyes) with the family in your huge house, watching a mammoth plasma screen.
These images are designed to keep us on the hedonistic treadmill of consumption, by tricking us into thinking that goods=happiness. While actually, a British study reported in the book shows that people living within their environmental bounds** were as happy as people who were consuming (overconsuming) at a conspicuously (extremely) high and environmentally unsustainable level. Once on the hedonistic treadmill there are the stresses of keeping up with new technology/wanting more real estate/better holidays etc. which often involves working longer and harder, and relaxing, spending time with the people you love, less.
So, one way of turning this around is to start with a definition of 'a good life', that is based on research, and not what the advertisers want us to think!
The book defines this as having three elements-
A good life...
1. Has many positive emotions- optimism, hope, confidence, trust, comfort, mindfulness, contentment, joy, pleasure, pride, satisfaction, serenity...
2. Is full of interest and challenge,
3. Is engaged in pursuits and interests that are in service of something beyond the individual.
and do you need a plasma screen for any of that?
It's a call to focus on the things that actually make us happy, and by doing this reject the culture that leads us to place such high value on constantly upgrading our homes, clothes, electronic goods, holidays, etc, which is how we overconsume and a very large part of how we are damaging the world around us.
This is not a new idea, there have been movements like this for a while, but it just makes so much sense to me. The happiest I am is when I am with my friends and family, or riding my bike, or gardening, or painting, or generally creating. Another account of this is from the No Impact Man blog, which I highly highly recommend. This post is about how they entertained their daughter during the year where, to reduce their environmental impact they turned off almost all electronics (they did many other things), including the television.
The doing nothing thing comes in as one author's advice for achieving happiness, - to stop. Stop moving for a while, stop working so hard, stop buying, stop wasting, just sit still and think, appreciate the weather wherever you are, play with your friends/kids/parents.
I think further along he said we have to stop shopping and start partying, which I also like.
So... as I have been in the past, I am going to try to show the positive outcomes (other than reducing impact) of living simpler and greener, because it is really really fun. I get pretty excited when I come up with new ideas. and you may have read how excited I get about public transport. Writing this makes me very happy, actually! and I can't wait to get back to Brisbane and plant some vegetables! My holiday project (I've been catching a lot of trains) has been to make brooches and a scarf out of reclaimed tapestry wool.
I'll be back to the weekly things soon!
Love Anna
PS. Another reason I am so excited about coming home to Australia is because I think I am coming home to a better country than I left, now that our parliament has apologised to the Stolen Generations. This is such a huge (fantastic, exciting) step in our history, and I am so proud of us. I can't wait to see what happens now! And I'm not going to wait, I'm having my say in it, through GetUp. We have a prime minister listening to the people! lets talk!
* Simms, A & Smith, J (eds). (2008). Do good lives have to cost the earth? Constable & Robinson Ltd, London.
** determined by a statistic that says if everyone on earth was consuming at the same rate we would only need one earth to support us. To put this in context, currently people in the UK on average are consuming at a rate that would need three earths to support if everyone on earth was consuming at that rate. (sorry- it's a bit confusing, this is why I didn't put it in the body of the post).
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