Share two things you're doing to live a G-lifestyle...other than eating Raw Vegan :)

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Permalink Reply by Gil on March 24, 2008 at 10:03pm

Yeah, I have definitely decreased my road time and try to pool whenever possible. I have switched to energy efficient bulbs and I try not to use any unnecessary electricity during daylight hours. I try to make sure that all energy vacuums (surge protectors) are turned off before I step out. And, I haven't used a plastic bag for groceries in months now.

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Permalink Reply by Kristen's Raw on March 29, 2008 at 2:51am

Here is a great essay by Paul Graham. I love the example he gives about his friend buying clothes and the exercise she goes through.

Stuff

July 2007

I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff
they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.

It wasn't always this way. Stuff used to be rare and valuable. You can still see evidence of that
if you look for it. For example, in my house in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms
don't have closets. In those days people's stuff fit in a chest of drawers. Even as recently as a
few decades ago there was a lot less stuff. When I look back at photos from the 1970s, I'm
surprised how empty houses look. As a kid I had what I thought was a huge fleet of toy cars, but
they'd be dwarfed by the number of toys my nephews have. All together my Matchboxes and
Corgis took up about a third of the surface of my bed. In my nephews' rooms the bed is the only clear space.

Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. We overvalue stuff.
That was a big problem for me when I had no money. I felt poor, and stuff seemed valuable, so
almost instinctively I accumulated it. Friends would leave something behind when they moved, or
I'd see something as I was walking down the street on trash night (beware of anything you
find yourself describing as "perfectly good"), or I'd find something in almost new condition for a
tenth its retail price at a garage sale. And pow, more stuff.

In fact these free or nearly free things weren't bargains, because they were worth even less than
they cost. Most of the stuff I accumulated was worthless, because I didn't need it.

What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition wasn't the difference
between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an
extremely illiquid asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so
cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way you're ever going to
extract any value from it is to use it. And if you don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will.

Companies that sell stuff have spent huge sums training us to think stuff is still valuable. But
it would be closer to the truth to treat stuff as worthless. In fact, worse than worthless, because once
you've accumulated a certain amount of stuff, it starts to own you rather than the other way
around. I know of one couple who couldn't retire to the town they preferred because they couldn't
afford a place there big enough for all their stuff. Their house isn't theirs; it's their stuff's.

And unless you're extremely organized, a house full of stuff can be very depressing. A cluttered
room saps one's spirits. One reason, obviously, is that there's less room for people in a room
full of stuff. But there's more going on than that. I think humans constantly scan their
environment to build a mental model of what's around them. And the harder a scene is to parse,
the less energy you have left for conscious thoughts. A cluttered room is literally exhausting.

(This could explain why clutter doesn't seem to bother kids as much as adults. Kids are less
perceptive. They build a coarser model of their surroundings, and this consumes less energy.)

I first realized the worthlessness of stuff when I lived in Italy for a year. All I took with me
was one large backpack of stuff. The rest of my stuff I left in my landlady's attic back in the
US. And you know what? All I missed were some of the books. By the end of the year I couldn't even
remember what else I had stored in that attic.

And yet when I got back I didn't discard so much as a box of it. Throw away a perfectly good
rotary telephone? I might need that one day. The really painful thing to recall is not just
that I accumulated all this useless stuff, but that I often spent money I desperately needed on stuff that I didn't.

Why would I do that? Because the people whose job is to sell you stuff are really, really good at
it. The average 25 year old is no match for companies that have spent years figuring out how
to get you to spend money on stuff. They make the experience of buying stuff so pleasant that
"shopping" becomes a leisure activity.

How do you protect yourself from these people? It can't be easy. I'm a fairly skeptical person, and
their tricks worked on me well into my thirties. But one thing that might work is to ask yourself,
before buying something, "is this going to make my life noticeably better?"

A friend of mine cured herself of a clothes buying habit by asking herself before she bought
anything "Am I going to wear this all the time?" If she couldn't convince herself that something
she was thinking of buying would become one of those few things she wore all the time, she
wouldn't buy it. I think that would work for any kind of purchase. Before you buy anything, ask
yourself: will this be something I use constantly? Or is it just something nice? Or worse still, a mere bargain?

The worst stuff in this respect may be stuff you don't use much because it's too good. Nothing
owns you like fragile stuff. For example, the "good china" so many households have, and whose
defining quality is not so much that it's fun to use, but that one must be especially careful not to break it.

Another way to resist acquiring stuff is to think of the overall cost of owning it. The purchase
price is just the beginning. You're going to have to think about that thing for years—perhaps for
the rest of your life. Every thing you own takes energy away from you. Some give more than they
take. Those are the only things worth having.

I've now stopped accumulating stuff. Except books—but books are different. Books are more
like a fluid than individual objects. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand
books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a local celebrity.
But except for books, I now actively avoid stuff. If I want to spend money on some kind of treat,
I'll take services over goods any day.I'm not claiming this is because I've achieved some kind of zenlike detachment from material things. I'm talking about something more mundane.

A historical change has taken place, and I've now realized it. Stuff used to be valuable, and now it's not.

In industrialized countries the same thing happened with food in the middle of the twentieth
century. As food got cheaper (or we got richer; they're indistinguishable), eating too much
started to be a bigger danger than eating too little. We've now reached that point with stuff.
For most people, rich or poor, stuff has become a burden.

The good news is, if you're carrying a burden without knowing it, your life could be better
than you realize. Imagine walking around for years with five pound ankle weights, then suddenly having them removed.

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Permalink Reply by Solo Runner on April 12, 2008 at 9:23am

Hello All,

The bag thing is a big deal, I would forget my bags all the time. So I told my self if you forget your bag, then you will have to buy a new one, it only took seven time and now I never forget. I also no longer use paper coffee cups, I again had to buy several car ones and now that is what I use. I compost daily. I grow my own vegetable and use only organic products. Started collecting rain water, we get so much, it is shame to waist it.

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Permalink Reply by jules on April 12, 2008 at 11:43am

hia christine,

i love this site as , just as i'm working i get interupted by an email then some beautiful thoughts. over the years i've done some out of the ordenry things, aspeshaly living in posh parts of london, like emptying the plastic bags that have just been filled up for me, and putting shopping in myback sack, it used to get themevery time. i can just see you going into a coffee shop asking for a take away coffee in your own mug.you are an insperation to me , thank you. there is a great film that has just come out in the u.s. called garbage worrier, made by a frend of mine, called olliver hodge, he has put his hole life into it, it is worth looking for it on the net, bying a copy, and getting fully inspiyered, he needs people to by it, as he has got his house on the line to get the message out there, it's a probaly going to be a cult film,around the world, collecting rain water is part of it. i think it will speek so much sence to every one on this site. lovejules

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Permalink Reply by D-ra on June 3, 2008 at 11:46am

excellent post

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Permalink Reply by meleakua on May 24, 2008 at 4:05am

what a wonderful group! i'm always looking for ways to g-up my life & community!

here are a few things that i do to help ground myself in positive g-action :)

*use 'the keeper' menstrual flow catcher (and give the blood back to the earth instead of the sewage system.. hoorah) and 'gladrags' instead of tampons & pads
*use old newspapers, magazines, etc. to wrap gifts & make envelopes
*prefer sunlight, moonlight & candlelight over electric lighting

i know that's three things. what a rebel! i just couldn't help myself :)

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Permalink Reply by meleakua on May 24, 2008 at 4:09am

oooh and i'm also going to start recycling old clothing into new clothing... once i figure out how to get my new/extremely old sewing machine up & running!! i think i'll probably recycle old clothing into many things, actually...

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Permalink Reply by sunnied on July 24, 2008 at 11:02am

I ride bike to work and take the stairs to my 10th floor apartment (unless I have my bike with me).

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