Gorgeous!!! Perfect way to clear you head after work.

Great ideas. We've got a lot of other wildlife around and my place too. I'm sure he'd enjoy that.

Purposefully constructing my life and orientating my actions in a way that resists the emergent inclination of our modern society to add complexity to life without compelling benefit. Simply put, seeking happiness through simplification.This can look different for everyone. For me personally this means closeness to nature, friendship and conversation, minimizing my financial obligations which minimizes my need to work, limiting screen time and unhelpful technology, striving to be present and appreciative, slowing down and enjoying stillness, caring for what I have, releasing myself from pressure to be someone else's "better" while remaining ambitious toward exploring my passions. These are just a few aspects that come to mind.

I carry a Leatherman Squirt PS4 in my pocket every day. It's tiny and doesn't add bulk to my pocket but is super handy and I use it all the time. Has spring loaded pliers and tiny scissors, a small straight blade and file, and both a flat Phillips head and broader flat screwdriver.

There are scanning apps that automatically crop the photo, let you make multi page PDFs, and automatically upload to your cloud of choice or directly to your computer. This has made it super easy for me. I've tried a few and settled on the one-time paid version Genius Scan and it works well for me.

Lol this is very true 🤣. Point taken

I like the idea of trying to come up with categories to fulfill. That'll also make it easier to balance what we get each of them. Thanks!

Oh this reminds me I was thinking he'd like the Magic Treehouse series. I've heard good things about those books

Lol you're absolutely right

I've got this on my radar, he's already interested in going out at night to see the stars and moon with my constellation AR app, but I'm gonna save for a future Christmas, thank you!

This is a great idea having a physical representation for an intangible gift, thank you!

Good idea he loves that kind of stuff!!!

Great idea!

Southern United States

Nothing currently. Been kicking around trying out OBOD or one of the other druid organizations in the USA. Options severely limited here in the rural southern United States, aka "The Bible Belt." Unfortunately I feel like I have to stay fairly closeted to avoid persecution.

How beautifully written and happy Samhain to you all. All my love to all of you, those who have passed away, those who are yet to come, and the Wheel for continuing to turn!

I was following Light Phone for a long time but ended up not pulling the trigger. For me the hard thing to reconcile was whether ditching my smartphone would really make my life simpler or not. I really value having a good camera in my pocket to catch special moments instead of having to plan to take a camera with me. GPS maps means I don't have to think about getting where I need to go. Having apps for banking, utilities, etc. Helps me take care of things on the fly and not have to spend time sitting at a computer sorting my affairs.

But smartphones have that temptation to mindlessly scroll reddit, watch YouTube, and Google things you don't really need to. Sometimes having to use our restraint can be draining, so having a detox is definitely worth it. I'm happy for anyone who's found what works for them to simplify their life and be more present and happy.

I say one thing about smartphones though, they're getting to daggum big!!! I wish I could get a thin smartphone with edge to edge 4.5 inch screen. Small in my pocket, not big enough to entice over using, but capable for doing what I need. Someone make it!!!! Best ive seen is the iPhone mini 13. Might upgrade to that when my pixel 4a dies.

Thank you and Merry Mabon to you as well ❤️

For nonbinary decisions, You can also tell it to roll a die of any size, like a d10, d20, or a fair dice that doesn't mean exist like a D7. You can also just have it pick a number between X and Y, but thats not as fun haha.

I didn't really get that sentiment from the article. To me the author seems to emphasize the importance of religion/spirituality as important for providing an "existential orientation," although that point is somewhat obscured by their flowery, albeit precise, language. Though they do wrap up with that odd citation about having a cultural council, which seemed a bit out there for me.

Great article that discusses a lot of the good and bad of living an agrarian lifestyle. Simple definitely does not necessarily mean easy, but it can be rewarding by both qualities.

Something that comes to my mind is that you can definitely live a purely agrarian lifestyle like it were the 1800s or older as long as you take the lifestyle lock, stock, and barrel with it's benefits and hardships; people have been living this way for ages. But, I think what most people want are the benefits afforded by this lifestyle (the simplicity, feeling close to nature, working with your hand, etc) but to also enjoy the modern luxuries we're accustomed to (like technology, healthcare, etc), but it's really difficult to make this lifestyle support these desires.

What's worked for me is a hybrid lifestyle. I have a small house and a little land, I raise a big garden and my wife cans, so we grow most of our own food, but it's not a business, though we sometimes sell to a local restaurant and on Facebook when we have extra. We work really hard and try to be frugal, but we both also work part time jobs to make money, which gives a better return on investment for our time than we can get trying make it Simple living lifestyle support our modern needs. So we incorporate modern life employment to make simple living feasible and comfortable, but strive for simple living to make modern life minimized and tolerable.

Have a great day everyone!

I actually download that app a while back but haven't played with it yet! This sounds awesome! Ill definitely put time into learning to use it. Thank you!

Maybe there's a good middle road. come up with, say, 3 breakfast plans and 5 lunch plans that you rotate between. For what it's worth, my breakfast is a bowl of pecan granola with homemade almond milk and some fresh berries (usually blueberries) with a cup of coffee. For lunch I have an OM mushroom protein shake to drink and eat a roasted red pepper hummus sandwich with a spinach salad topped with olive oil and vinegar and a side of carrots/cucumbers/apple or something else from the garden.

Now that I think of it. I guess I do change things up a bit. So could have some staple items and them some items that you change for variety, but it's not overwhelming like planning a whole meal. Like how I change my granola berries and my lunch side fruit/veggie occasionally

I used Google Lens. never used it much when I first learned about it, but once one of my friends pointed out it could identify plants, animals, all kinds of stuff, I've been using it on my adventures to identify all kinds of stuff. If you're way out and don't have service you can even use it on photos to take later when you get home!

Playing Crosscode on a recommendation from a previous post when I was looking for an SNES style action RPG. It checks almost all my boxes. Great 16 bit graphics with smooth modern physics, lots of action, fun characters, skill trees and fun items, puzzles, satisfying combat. I'm having a great time with it!!!

Ive started eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch every single day and supper is my wildcard that changes every day. I also have standard snacks that I have in hand that doesn't change (like apples and grapes). To be clear, I am not a dietitian, and I'm not positive this is particularly healthy, though I do try to make my breakfast and lunch as healthy as possible I've found be streamlining those two meals has really cuts down on my decision fatigue and so I feel less burnt out only having to plan for the next week of suppers. It also has made me enjoy deviations from my routine much more, like when eating out. I go grocery shopping every Tuesday after work. Shopping weekly, but not on Saturday or another popular day helps avoid the crowd AND Monday is when my grocery store gets it's weekly shipment, so everything is fresh and lasts all week. I hope this helps!

Thanks for sharing this. Hopepunk and grimdark are terms that we're not on my radar at all, but now reading about it I can look back and see the subtle difference in storytelling. Seems to me the difference come through not from the atmosphere of the work, but in the source of determination of the protagonist, favoring hope in humanity over bleak fortitude. There's certainly lu carryover lessons for real life, that identical situations can be approached with different sources of motivation.

I hear you, and I've really enjoyed our discourse. I think we're about 95% on the same page here, but you know how difficult trying to clearly communicate through text can be. I'm not sure I agree that how a society treats someone is more important than their internal sense of self worth, and that may be our sticking point that we can't reconcile, but I'm not saying your wrong. That point is completely defensible, but not how I see things.

For what it's worth, conversing with you has added value to my life and expanded my perspective. Though we've never met, and I'll most certainly never shake your hand or look you in the eye, I value you.

I wish you and anyone reading this to be well and have peace 😊

Thank you for your well put reply, and I agree, your position is not without roots. Though, I'd like to humbly suggest that your points may actually support the notion that runaway modern capitalism does not effectively determine a person's value. I would argue that the fact that a paragon can struggle economically and a grifter can swindle their way to high fortune shows that capitalism does not equitably reward good and punish evil. Therefore, a person should not allow their financial status (the value capitalism has assigned them) to be the measure of their personal value.

On the point of the system's undervaluing of people and their work (which is absolutely true) making it harder to lead a simple life, I'm not sure the two are connected. Being compensated well makes things much much easier, but that doesn't make things simpler. A person can live a very modest life that is simple, tranquil, and full of joy. Someone can also be extremely wealthy and ambitious with a fast paced life full of complexity, stress, and anguish.

I'm very sorry that youre feelings stuck. It's frustrating and it absolutely can feel patronizingly when you're struggling for better and someone tries to placate you with platitudes. But, the gift of simple living is that by appreciating the little things, removing stressful complexly, and slowing down, anyone in any situation can have more peace and happiness in their situation, even if it doesn't get better.

Warmest wishes my friend and be well.

I find that I tend to spend a lot on just about everything I buy 😅. I have a lot of check boxes for the things I buy, like being ethically sourced, environmentally friendly, fair trade, look for B certified, etc. Consequently, I try not to buy very much. I'm sure I'm probably being taken for a chump with "green washing," but that's on them, not me.

In particular, I find that I spend more on food because I try to buy local and support small producers. I also try to get BIFL items when it comes to tools and things notice that I use frequently.

This perspective sounds like relationships are a transactional affair of reciprocy. I am very sorry if this has been your experience with people ☹️

I find the current tone of the comments in this thread rather upsetting. It feels like a lot of people are arguing to refute OPs position that a person's value is not determined from their material productivity. If this is you, I think you might be in the wrong community. I don't think this is a point of debate in the simple living community.

To say that a person's value is derived from their productivity is to say that you do not value the person, but what they produce. This can be interpreted as viewing a person as a Means to any End, rather than an End in themselves. For me, viewing people as Ends in themselves is a foundational pathos of Simple Living. The idea of valuing people, relationships, love, time, above wealth, material, prestige, speed is what simple living is all about!

Well wishes to you all 😊

Like others have said, try to have a place for everything, but I have a couple of caveats. I have a spouse and two young children, so having a specific spot where everything always goes is not really feasible. I try to restrict things to specific areas, like specific drawers/boxes/containers for it's if a certain kind. This keeps clutter out of sight, and having a policy that every item lives within some kind of container allows me to control how much space I want to allocate to a category of items. For example, my kids love figurines and action figures; they have a box for those type of toys, and once the box gets full, they have to let go of some if they want to get something new.

We also have areas in our house where things are allowed to be "parked," but the parking lot has to be cleared everyday, so that every day begins without clutter/chair. These are mostly our flat surfaces, like the eating table, kitchen counters, coffee table, etc. Part of our nightly routine is to run around for 10 minutes cleaning off these spaces.

Great post and reminder! I find myself sometimes tempted by the trap of seeking simple living/minimalism/environmentalism/general earthiness by doing silly things that aren't practical. Like just the other day I was thinking about getting rid of my awesome Braun razor ive had and loved for years and buying a simple safety razor instead to simply my life more. How silly. There are certainly times when there are actions needed to be taken to align our lives with simple living ideals, but sometimes we can feel a need to continue to search for changes to be made and it becomes a never-ending pursuit. Sometimes the only real change needed is our perspective!!! Just give yourself permission to let life be simple with just how it is.

If you read the article, it tells you that they collect recyclable material, then provide to firms which produce products from the usable material, and the remainder goes to landfills or is incinerated. I think the punchline is that by reducing their waste production and developing a better waste management system, they've been able to clean up their island.

I'm totally with you on the camping chair. I consider it a nonnegotiable luxury. Jetboils are awesome. Could cut some weight by swapping out the bear vault for and Opsak Loksak. I haven't had any problems with critters being attracted since using that and it weighs nothing. I do put that inside a more durable sack and hang up in a tree. Another luxury item I like to take is a hand chainsaw. Very little weight and makes cutting down bigger sticks much easier and safer. Overall sounds like a great setup friend!

For the hiking parts, he likes to roleplay along the way that we're on an adventure to slay a dragon or rescue a lost donkey (not sure where that one came from). when we get to camp I try to involve him in everything like pitching the tent, making the fire, fixing supper and whatnot.

Other than that I just let him work thru and embrace boredom. There's certainly an adjustment for him from normal high stimulation life (we have him in daycare), but after a while he starts settles down and stops asking what time it is or what we're supposed to be doing and starts making up games for us to play, watching ants and beetles do their thing, exploring, poking the fire, throwing rocks in creeks, etc.

I do like to take a few versatile toys, especially when I take my 2 year old as well. They have a lot of fun with a few tennis balls (which are great because they're hard to loose, soft, and never go flat), a handful of my old pokemon figurines, and maybe 2-3 palm sized construction vehicles.

Getting my 5 year old into backpacking, so we're easing into it by visiting state parks locally in North Carolina. So far trips to Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock have gone well, so planning some trips now to my ol stomping grounds in Western Carolina

I use a Synology NAS to back up and sync everything. There's a high up-front cost with this option, but there are a lot of benefits and they have great apps for accessing stuff. The argument can definitely be made that it's more cost effective to just pay for a secure cloud service subscription, but it's nice to self host, plus now I have 16 terabytes of space and can run my own services like bitwarden and Plex for zero cost!

When we build our house I didn't have the budget for landscaping, so I decided to just let whatever native plant wanted to come in to claim to soil. I've been very pleased with my whole lawn begining nothing but clover ❤️ When people visit they advise me that I need to do something about it. I don't get it. Why put in work to make something grow there that doesn't want to and fight off a wonderful little plant that has volunteered to fill the niche?

Bonus: I love the carpet of white puffball flowers they make and all the bees and butterflies it attacts. Better to let nature do as it will than fight against it ❤️