Living simply not a new idea

I read yet another one of those editorials about the joys of simple living. You’ve seen them. Someone moves from the city to some bucolic spot in the United States or perhaps an attractive locale in another country. There they live in a small dwelling without all the amenities they were used to. They think of themselves as modern Henry David Thoreaus, and they are. Thoreau lived simply but took with him to Walden Pond (less than two miles from Concord on his friend Emerson’s land) his connections to people who still lived the way he used to. He was never hungry. I think Emerson’s wife did his laundry.  He had his books and pretty much everything his life up to then had equipped him with. As much as I like his ideas, he was not exactly a pioneer on the frontier.

The people who write about the joys of simplicity never move to inner city Washington or impoverished places in Latin America.  They take their expensive educations, their money they made elsewhere, and move to some place cheaper. Some of them move here.

I am not opposed to this. I am happy when interesting people from varied backgrounds want to live among us, but I question whether it should count as simplifying.  Most of the world’s people live very simply, but I don’t know of anyone who wants their brand of simplicity. It is called poverty.  Some know hunger. Some live with daily threats of violence. They have no opportunities for education or decent health care.

In the Shenandoah Valley there is a vast difference between the simplicity of downsizing, older Washingtonians and home-grown simplicity. The latter includes a woman I know who has experienced four job losses due to company bankruptcy or downsizing.  She is exhausted; she is not reveling in simplicity. The latter includes not only hard-working, frugal people with modest incomes but people who can’t find decent-paying work and have no health insurance.

I applaud doing without things you don’t need anyway, but many who live austere lives are doing without what they need. None of the people extolling simplicity would suggest that their own children do without a college education or good health care, but those things are expensive.

Much is being written lately about life being all in how you see it. Nothing is really good or bad. It’s just how you look at it. That was never said by anyone hungry. That was never said by a mother who could not take her child to the doctor. I hope the people who want my praise because they no longer have a car and so enjoy walking everywhere think about walking with two children in tow. What they have less of, as far as I can tell, is square footage in their houses, and a bunch of extra clothes no one needs anyway and expensive cars.  They also may have opted out of a system of corporate advancements. They know that if they change their minds, they may be able to get their old lives back.

It says something about this country that when anyone lives on less than they have available to them, it is an occasion for articles in magazines and newspapers. When anyone lives on the level that previous generations thought normal and unremarkable, they act as if they have made a major discovery and even write books about it. 

My grandmother used to go through antiques stores and marvel at the prices of ordinary objects from her childhood. Imagine thinking a beat-up wooden ladle is valuable!  I don’t know if she would be pleased that her way of life is being appreciated once again or disapproving of people who want applause for living the way she lived her whole life. She never did decide what she should make of those ordinary ladles with the big price tags. 

Patricia Hunt, of Staunton, is a chaplain at Mary Baldwin College.