What are we really upto?

Time and again, questions keep popping up (from within and outside) as to what are we really up to? Are we running away from city, development, people? Are we trying to prove something? Who are our ideals?

These are not very easy questions to answer and we need to keep answering them and refining our answers, more for ourselves than for others. I’m making a beginning below.

We’d like to lead a simple life. Simplicity, however, does not mean that we consume bland food, wear whites or travel third class. Simplicity does not mean compromising. Simplicity is to live without complicating life. Simplicity can be achieved and enhanced by straightforward thinking, by being conscious of the complex and vicious circles we tend to get entangled in trying to allay fears, satisfy greed, increase conveniences or feed egos.

We’ll refrain from exploiting natural resources, including human beings. Eco-friendly house, low carbon foot-print, pleasant interpersonal relationships are important, but there is no hardline fundamentalism to maintain them. Using or consuming natural resources is imperative, but we need to be conscious of not getting into the arena of exploitation.

Having fun is very important for us. There is however, a thin line between enjoyment and (sensory) pleasure and we’d like to be conscious of this line.

We’d like to move towards self sufficiency of food. It appears to be a longish journey and I’m not bent upon being completely self-sufficient in food. What I’m particular about is that we should reach a stage, where we don’t need to buy food against money. We should be able to barter excess food, which we can grow (given our ability and suitability of geography) for other items, which we can’t or would not like to.

Trading is necessary and so are norms in trading. Interdependence is inevitable and also desirable. Being dependent upon the skills and gifts of others makes me humble and grateful. This humility causes me to provide my skills to others with a sense of service. It also makes me grateful as a service provider as well. It helps me see how I can improve my service. Trading is thus a cyclical process of receiving with gratefulness and serving with humility.

Unfortunately, has become a part of our being as a race to compare our skills & gifts. The value of the skill is arrived at on the basis of scarcity of the skill / gift. A manual farm labour is valued far less than a doctor because doctors are scarce. Value is also arrived at on the basis of how badly the service is required. Consequently, a pyramid structure is created in a society. The most scarce service providers whose services are in high demand are at the top, viewed as more valuable than the rest.  This is probably the root cause of exploitation. We’d like to be conscious about this as we live interdependently. This is very much relevant for interdependence within family members.

We may end up making our life seem inconvenient. We may also end up getting inferior results than what we’d have if we were to continue with our earlier life. But we refuse to be judged or be compared with someone who isn’t living the life we are.