Category: philosophy

living off-grid for $80 / week

Jill Redwood lives in East Gippsland, Australia where she built her house almost 30 years ago.

She prefers to be really self-sufficient, having an orchard, a garden with vegetables and an animal farm which provide almost everything she needs on a daily basis, without having to frequently drive one hour and a half to the nearest town.

Moreover, with regard to energy and water supply, she uses solar panels and a waterwheel.

Living entirely off-grid, on around $80 a week and surrounded only be animals, Jill happily says: „what more do I need?”…

Good Home Design

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

I’m not much into self-help books.

But many people I admire follow Tim Ferriss. I finally got around to starting his classic book …

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich 

The evangelizing rah-rah turns me off … as does the focus on money while claiming not to care about money.

On the other hand, Ferriss does have some very good ideas. For example:

  • take more and longer vacations while young enough to enjoy them
  • work from inexpensive foreign nations, if you can, while earning hard currency
  • focus on strengths, instead of trying to fix weaknesses
  • Rid Yourself of Material Possessions
  • Sometimes Less Is More

Here’s my buddy Josh. He’s a digital nomad working online from a series of inexpensive nations — most recently Guatemala, Nepal and Vietnam.

related – my own philosophy of Voluntary Simplicity

The Year of Less by Cait Flanders

Needless to say, I was attracted to this book because of my own philosophy of Voluntary Simplicity.

Less is more.

Cait was quite a normal person. In debt, like normal people. Her life cluttered with possessions she never used, like normal people.

How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store

When Cait Flanders was in her early 20s, she found herself $23,000 in consumer debt. In order to turn her life around — and get out of debt — she set out on a mission to address some of the root causes of her over-consumption.

Flanders’ memoir, The Year of Less, documents how through a self-imposed shopping ban, cutting back on eating out and drinking and de-cluttering her life, she rediscovered happiness, health and financial security.

In her own words, Flanders explains how she changed her life and wrote The Year of Less. …

CBC

Amazon

Follow your Bliss

Joseph Campbell taught me this life principle:

“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

For me that means DO the things I like best. Avoid the things I like least.

That includes people. I believe in Freedom of Speech. And also Freedom from Speech.

For example, if you support Trump I NEVER want to speak to you again for the rest of our lives.

A year alone on an island in Patagonia

Author Bob Kull seems to be a jerk.

It’s not easy to argue with one review I read – Unfocused drivel by an unlikable author.

On the other hand, his diary kept me going. The philosophical ramblings were circular — and I ended up learning nothing.

But the day-to-day physical challenges were interesting. The technology he used fascinating.

This was actually Ph.D.  research. And he defended his dissertation in 2005 at UBC.

Years after losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle crash, Robert Kull traveled to a remote island in Patagonia’s coastal wilderness with equipment and supplies to live alone for a year.

He sought to explore the effects of deep solitude on the body and mind and to find the spiritual answers he’d been seeking all his life.

With only a cat and his thoughts as companions, he wrestled with inner storms while the wild forces of nature raged around him. The physical challenges were immense, but the struggles of mind and spirit pushed him even further.

Amazon