Category: philosophy

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

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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

Ben Franklin by Walter Isaacson

Isaacson is a bit of a genius himself.

Recently he’s written biographies. I enjoyed his biography of Leonardo da Vinci (2017). And loved his biography of Steve Jobs (2011).

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life is good too. But not as good.

Ben’s life story was simply not as controversial as either Jobs or Leonardo da Vinci. As a result I found Isaacson repetitive regarding his few faults.

Ben Franklin regarded himself as a working class man. A printer. Yet became one of the most glamorous and famous people of his time. (1706-1790)

I admire him as an American polymath and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. 

He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia‘s first fire department and the University of Pennsylvania.

Like Gandhi, his real goal was to make life better for as many as possible.

Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism  …

He’d be horrified by the GOP and their toddler President in 2018.