Originally Posted by heywood
c'mon guys we're using the ultimate in western late 20th early 21st century communications systems..riding bikes that have come from centuries of materials experimentation and design that is the product of even more centuries of technology and advancements that have given us the ability to have "free time" that allows us develop and advance more. All those geniuses that have come before us and the engineers and scientist and labourers that figured out metal smelting and sidewalks and concrete mixing, etc..etc.. seem to being swept under the carpet by alot of posts on these forums.
I agree that most of the general western population don't have any clue about the concrete under thier feet or the light bulbs in there homes, but by dismissing all the wonderful things that our western society has produced we dishonor those brilliant men and woman that came before us.
I don't feel particularly "western" riding around on my Taiwan-made bike with Shimano components. :-O
To address your actual point, a bicycle and computer (the two things everyone on this forum can be assumed to use) represent to me the pinnacles of human engineering. The bicycle + rider is able to move more efficiently than anything else on earth, while the computer + programmer is able to do numeric analysis on dizzying orders of magnitude past what was once possible. And yet, for a few hundred dollars which can be acquired in the simplest ways (manual yard labor for example) these marvels may be had, and will last years for the computer and decades for the bike, with a little love.
A wheel has 36 spokes around a hub, but it is the space that makes it useful.
A cup is made of wood or of jade, but it is the space that makes it useful.
A home is made of brick or tyvek-sheathed 2x4s, but it is the space that makes it useful.
When I fill that space with objects, the usual couches and carpets and dining room tables, televisions, gadgets, and the like, I cannot use that space. It belongs to things. I cannot dance, twirl my staff or poi, do yoga. Most importantly, my environment is too complex to be calm, and so I have difficulty connecting to that calm inside myself. So I go through that environment keeping only the beautiful and useful, and I cultivate a home and workspace that is simple because it is transparently functional. With fewer objects I am free to arrange them associatively according to the flow of my work and play, until I have a space that is arranged to accomodate the landscape of my life.
A simple life, to me, is one where one lets habits and things go as easily as one acquires them. Ideally, we do and have only the needful, while the rest is allowed to flow by. This is simple living as (when) I practice it.