The glory of the Simple Life

[Alea Jacta Est]

There’s no connectivity at sea.

Gonna be in Antarctica in two days.

When you cast off that last line, everything is much more simple. Everything.

 

[Huckleberry]

If some if you went back to the Dark Ages, you should be very worried if you weigh as much as a Duck.

 

[Ponder_MD]

Agreed. I think the sweet spot is living a personally simpler life while enjoying modern convenience. Spending more time doing rewarding things as opposed to living online is a big one.

Exactly. I use modern technology to live my simple life more effectively.

 

[teratos]

While we romanticize earlier times, let's remember that people died, a lot, from things that we now consider easily curable or fixable.

Still, I could live back aways. I'd rather be freer and die sooner than live to be 115 years old in the dystopian hell that we're sliding towards. What point is living if the quality is poor?

I wouldn't advocate eschewing all of our technology. People would find they are much happier with more down time and simplicity.

 

[Huckleberry]

If You want a simple life then You need to choose to live in the world but not of the world.

And I'm not stating just Secular vs Non-secular actions and activities but you choosing your path and not being guided by the distractions around you.

Too much luxury and ease makes you lazy and poorer in both wealth and spirit.

 

[28Shooter]

Nobody, myself included, is talking about forsaking all technology (Youtube has literally saved me thousands of dollars in repairs by showing me the way along with granting me access to the greatest music collection ever!) but the cost of technology has been jobs, human contact and interaction, undue speed and unreasonable deadlines on projects, and no escape or down time. Be honest, how many on here actually get to totally escape the job/work while you're on vacation? When I was working, we used to go camping for vacation specifically so I could escape the job...and then they invented cell phones. Anybody out there with a kid in college wondering what to do as a career, tell them to become an orthopedic surgeon specializing in hands - should be a busy field in the future with all the texting and keyboard tapping. Now let me get back to figurin' out how this wheel thing works...

 

[Ponder_MD]

There’s no connectivity at sea.

Gonna be in Antarctica in two days.

When you cast off that last line, everything is much more simple. Everything.

I've been to the North Pole. I'm jealous of you. How long will you be there?

 

[Ponder_MD]

...but the cost of technology has been jobs, human contact and interaction, undue speed and unreasonable deadlines on projects, and no escape or down time. Be honest, how many on here actually get to totally escape the job/work while you're on vacation?

It's a conundrum.

As we've shifted to the Information Age, jobs have become less physically arduous but more emotionally and spiritually draining. Corporations in their unending pursuit of increased productivity and lower operating costs grind workers into a fine powder. New technology and tracking tools alert managers when employees are not actively working. (key loggers, browser trackers, even mouse motion analyzers.) Constant connectivity has led employers to blur or obliterate the line between working hours and personal hours. The result is that employers get 24 hours of work out of you while only paying you for 40 hours. Employees have been slow to push back against this. It shouldn't even require unionizing.

My job as a security cleared defense contractor is a double edged sword- I cannot telework but neither can I be bothered when I'm out of the office. I cannot discuss anything on the phone, I cannot remote in.

 

[mpollan1]

I have worked both in the trades and as an IT professional. I was a process/data analyst and man was it hard to turn off and stop thinking about that crap. I slept much better when I was working as a residential HVAC installer/helper. To the poster(s) giving props to youtube and other WWW resources, hell yeah I too have saved mucho dinero by having all that info literally at my finger tips. Thing is, during simpler times if one had a brain one did not need that resource because well, things were simpler and easier to figure out and fix. Those that DIY today would DIY back in the day. Those that could not DIY back in the day would cease to exist. Darwin (and me) is OK with that.

 

[Alea Jacta Est]

I've been to the North Pole. I'm jealous of you. How long will you be there?

Three weeks

Drake Passage
Straits of Magellan
Tierra del Fuego
Falklands

All bucket list

 

[Huckleberry]

"Be good and you will be lonesome" - Mark Twain

“The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.” Albert Einstein

YMMV

 

[outrider58]

I'm sorry, the author is confusing two different words, simple and easy.

Modern man enjoys an easy way of life and leisure. It is far from simple. It is very complex. Think about the complexity of tasks required to place and receive a simple order to Amazon. Not very simple when you think about it. Easy, but not simple.

I don't have time to rewrite the article, I'm on my lunch break. Just a thought that occurred to me while reading "Simple"

The author, in my view, was incorrect.

Simple does not necessarily mean easy and easy doesn't always imply simple.

"...they use the words, but they don't know what they mean..."

 

[Virgil Co.C]

Amen to all. Moved off farm , got married , kids , good job making a living bought a house near Old Mill aa county. And I hate it . Kids had a taste of it and when we moved here they wanted to know why we moved into the city. Still makes me smile thinking about it. Yes my brother and his family would be in trouble . Us well we would be fat and happy . Always wonder what the future holds for grandkids. Sure wish they could have experienced the farm . Anyway it’s gone and I understand nothing goes on anymore probably be houses one day . I’m always told I was born in wrong century.

 

[Bob A]

Agreed. I think the sweet spot is living a personally simpler life while enjoying modern convenience. Spending more time doing rewarding things as opposed to living online is a big one.

And yet, here we are!

 

[CharlieFoxtrot]

I'm sorry, the author is confusing two different words, simple and easy.

Modern man enjoys an easy way of life and leisure. It is far from simple. It is very complex. Think about the complexity of tasks required to place and receive a simple order to Amazon. Not very simple when you think about it. Easy, but not simple.

I don't have time to rewrite the article, I'm on my lunch break. Just a thought that occurred to me while reading "Simple"

The author, in my view, was incorrect.

Simple does not necessarily mean easy and easy doesn't always imply simple.

"...they use the words, but they don't know what they mean..."

Well said. I thought that after reading the article as well. Plus the author doesn't take into consideration what the person has to do to earn the money to afford the car that drives him to the restaurant and then pay for the fish meal.
Even just the car part isn't "simple." Shopping for it, figuring out how to pay for it, maintaining it, registering it, making sure you have a license and keeping insurance on it. So modern life isn't simple. I think the best you can say is its the easiest it been as far as physical effort for the majority people.

 

[outrider58]

Well said. I thought that after reading the article as well. Plus the author doesn't take into consideration what the person has to do to earn the money to afford the car that drives him to the restaurant and then pay for the fish meal.
Even just the car part isn't "simple." Shopping for it, figuring out how to pay for it, maintaining it, registering it, making sure you have a license and keeping insurance on it. So modern life isn't simple. I think the best you can say is its the easiest it been as far as physical effort for the majority people.

Thank you sir. You get it.

 

[Antarctica]

Three weeks

Drake Passage
Straits of Magellan
Tierra del Fuego
Falklands

All bucket list

It'll be a great time. I loved my time there - best job I ever had. Crossed the Drake probably 50 times. Coming out of the straits is the worst part of the trip - it will get better when you get farther out. The atlantic slams the coast with nice squared up 20 footers that sent every newbie on board to their bunks sometimes (or worse).

Falklands are very cool too. TONS of shipwrecks there. They basically operated land based piracy for decades.

Thanks for jogging my memory. I've been to places on this planet that probably fewer than 100 people have been to.

Sorry for the hyjack

 

[Antarctica]

With no provocation from this thread, tonight I was out moving some vehicles in preparation for dropping some trees tomorrow (last ones in striking distance of the house), I stopped and looked up at the stars, and realized I hadn't really looked at them this winter at all.

Standing there in the cold (I'd been out a while), looking at my nice warm house while peeing in the yard, the following thought popped into my head....

"Damn it would suck to live in a teepee"

 

[Antarctica]

And as for connectivity at sea, when I started going to the ice, the best satellite comms we had was geosynch. We ran email twice a day, and no phone calls in or out unless was an emergency ($15/minute). We started getting iridium towards the end, and shortly after I stopped, they had full time internet.

I'm glad I was there before that.

 

[Melnic]

I would say that "back in the day" things happened slower.
The "Average person" in the US has more leisure time as a % of those 100 years ago.

Things however are not equal across the globe, there are still people living like we did here 100 years ago
Resource rich land and freedom of the gov'ment in the US enabled that.

The only thing that is consistent in this world is CHANGE.