Low Impact, No Publicity

Simple people 6

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I don’t dislike No Impact Man. He is more intentionally political than his detractors portray him to be, and I think his yearlong stunt of living without toilet paper in NYC has been eye-opening for a lot of people, and amusing for many others. I admit that the “happy green” genre of books that are appearing a lot now, exemplified by Sleeping Naked is Green (by Vanessa Farquharson), make me nauseous: a hot twentysomething journalist makes sacrifices such as “buying only green cosmetics” while traveling to eco-resorts by plane and making amends with carbon offsets.  But I was, until recently, a less ostentatious personification of the same middle-class green guilt, and I understand the way we anxiously try to bargain with our angry planet by promising to be better consumers. No one wants to admit that we may not be consumers at all in a few years.

What I want to point out here is that simple living, simple people, are everywhere, and always have been. We recognize the extreme varieties: back-to-the-land types, monastics, Mother Teresa and Ralph Nader, not to mention the homeless, addicts, that crazy lady who takes in all the stray cats. Really they live among us, quite unobtrusive in most cases, and most of them are sane.

My friend Catherine has worked all her adult life in administrative jobs, minimizing her material needs and ignoring most external definitions of success, in order to write poetry. She’s needed to get off the computer for health reasons lately, and is diligently working to set up a small business as a personal organizer (if you’re in Boston and having trouble finding your passport in that firetrap you call your office, check out Catherine’s services at ARoomofOnesOwnOrganizing.com). Another friend, Rick Zemlin, lives on $10,000 a year in San Diego. He feels that working more than 20 hours/week is unhealthy and leaves no room for his spiritual development, which is the focus of his very intentional life. Rick doesn’t write a snappy blog, or have a book contract that I know of, but his Facebook posts are honest and detailed. He did write a disarming article for his church newsletter, detailing his personal expenses, and he’s allowing me to cite it here.

Current Annual Personal Consumption Expenses

5,200 Rent & utilities (bedroom in a 2 bedroom apt. in high-priced California. House phone. No cell.)
1,500 Food (lacto-ovo vegetarian, with an emphasis on good nutrition)
100 Misc household and personal items
100 Clothes (thrift stores provide all of my clothing)
1,000 Health care & supplements (no health insurance)
750 Transportation (public transit fares & tennis shoes. No car)
500 Recreation (movies, eating out, retreats, coffee shops, etc.)
650 Travel: to see family & friends
550 Gifts consumed (items received gratis & low income medical discounts)
—– 10,350

I say disarming because Rick’s expenses are remarkably low. He has obviously given up much of what defines the rest of us, including owning a home and having children. But he has a special clarity and warmth, and he seems to be enjoying his life as much as anyone I know. Here’s Rick’s philosophy: “I believe we are each on a journey with our Creator, moving deeper and deeper into the gift of our lives—into the fullness of living. This core life purpose of living fully is joined by a second one, equally important: to help create a world where all are able to do so—a world in which all 6.8 billion of us can thrive. I see this thriving world as the Grand Dream that God holds for us. I believe that we are given all that we need to live into this vision for the world, and that because God is infinitely patient with us we will eventually arrive. It is our destiny, our home. It’s going to cost us, though. (And I think we will gladly pay ... one day.)” Read Rick’s full article here.

I learned a lot about the relative definitions of prosperity by living in Europe in my twenties. (Czechoslovakia, 1990-92, the Czech Republic 1992-95. Same town, same apartment.) When I arrived, shortly after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, a four-member family was typically living in a high-rise apartment with one or two bedrooms. No kudos to the repressive and corrupt regimes of communist Eastern Europe, but material prosperity was adequate, and no one seems much happier 20 years later now that they all have new cars and TVs and debt.

These friends, these memories of other places, and my own experiences of living out of a car or a backpack, are comforting to me now in moments when I’m anxiously scrutinizing the household budget, or wondering where that last 30k we need for the house is going to come from. I remember to breathe deeply and recite my mantra, “In the end, it’s six by six and nothing more.”

Andrée Zaleska is the co-founder of the JP Green House, and a community organizer who works for the Institute of Policy Studies. More information about the JP Green House can be found at jpgreenhouse.org.

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  1. amazingdrx Posted 11:42 pm
    04 Nov 2009

    That's the key to stopping the big biosphere killing dragnet of constant consumption. Quality over quantity. Poetry over propaganda. Simplicity and efficiency over energy "richness". Taste over supersize.

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  2. BB1978 Posted 2:24 pm
    05 Nov 2009

    Living the simple life is easier said than done. The monastic life is not a realistic option for most people. I would also add that if one thinks of retirement, $10,000 a year is not going to cut it. I don't know about you, but I do not like living below the poverty level. I've done that twice now, and it was not a good time.

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  3. joanbailey Posted 2:32 pm
    05 Nov 2009

    This article touches on a number of things that really resonated with me. The ubiquity of books like No Impact Man, and what they mean or don't mean, and I found it refreshing to have the efforts of those without book contracts lauded. Whether we like it or not, a less consuming lifestyle is where we are headed. The poverty line may change or drop, and so if you can manage now on less or by living simply it's for the best. You'll be a leader later on, I bet. And saving for retirement? Well, maybe living on 10,000 a year would let you retire sooner. Or maybe retirement won't matter in the long run.

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  4. liz-hearts-Earth's avatar

    liz-hearts-Earth Posted 8:50 pm
    05 Nov 2009

    One of my favorite phrases is "live simply so that others may simply live." Not that I do a great job at living up to that, I think I still do too much buying things I don't really need, but my outlook has changed so that I do truly pause before buying anything and think what the impact of that purchase may be. Am I supporting child labor? Am I supporting needless resource extraction? Will this just go in a landfill in 2 years? I think that those that can live on $10,000 a year in any town or those who choose the monastic life are making great personal sacrifice and deserve some acclaim. Not everyone can do that. But we all can think about the impact of our purchases and choose to ensure that what we own does not own us, and further does not make the world a worse place for it.

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  5. Noelle C Posted 6:52 am
    06 Nov 2009

    It is a struggle in our culture of massive over consumption. From infancy, it is drilled into our brains that the definition of success is to work as much as possible, make a lot of money, and get the most stuff. In the past few years, I've met and read some very interesting people who have very different ideas. My favorite mantra is by Henry David Thoreau: "I make myself rich by making my wants few.". I am trying to change my lifestyle to one of less consumption. I have kids and a home and (usually) want to keep them ;-). Our changes so far have been small. I've changed our food to local, organic, and mostly plant based, and make an effort to avoid individually wrapped items. Instead if buying 15 different toxic products the marketing industry has convinced us are necessary for a clean home, I clean with a handful of natural substances including vinegar and baking soda. This year for Christmas, we are searching for 1 or 2 high quality presents for the kids instead of a houseful of cheap, plastic toys (we're building a wooden doll house for my daughter). I've asked relatives to give 'doing' presents (a promise of an outing to a museum, park, etc.) instead of toys. And we've organized a 'secret Santa' for our many nieces and nephews, where everyone draws a name and buys 1 high quality toy instead of a cheap one for each child. I feel like these changes are only drops the ocean, compared with what needs to be done and I admire people like Rick Zemlin, who are able to live on so little.

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  6. katmainomad Posted 2:03 pm
    17 Nov 2009

    I don't think it is so monastic to live on about this much, I have frequently done it. As a grad student, I made about $1000/month, $650 of which immediately went to rent (which was cheap for the Berkeley area). For the 3 years before I returned to work after my child was born, our family of three lived on about $18,000 per year. My life was just as rich, if not richer, than now when I have plenty of money. I don't really buy more material items, but I do buy more expensive food (a bit more organic than I could before), am a bit more likely to go out for entertainment (cafe, the museum, the symphony, the pool, etc) with my friends instead of just meeting at one of our houses. And I now own a 4-plex where we live - so even though my 'rent' is the same as before, I pour all my extra money into weatherization and fruit trees and such. It was nice to just have the $8,000 lying around to insulate the foundation with 4 inches of blueboard, but I only have to do that once! I figure once my 4-plex is weatherized and permacultured to the point I want it in about 3 years my utilities will be so low and my produce needs so taken care of from the garden, that I should be able to live on about $10,000 for the whole family and have a rich life. A biggie, of course, is biking and walking instead of owning a car. Maybe I don't even need to save for retirement - My mortgage will be paid off when I am 65, and the rent I take in on the other 3 units will be my retirement (making a lot of assumptions about the future...as we all do when planning for it).

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Series Intro
In which we chronicle the creation of a groundbreaking eco-home 5
How we found 133 Bourne St., and how we almost lost it 3
Fighting climate chaos with a hammer and a heart 4
Getting to know the neighborhood -- through its trash 0
Fourth of July musings on symbols, patriotism, and identity 3
You and me and a billion tiny spores 6
Treasure hunting during building demo 1
Love in a time of cataclysm 5
The amazing promise and many challenges of passivhaus construction 4
Should Kuba have a puppy? 19
Puppies and bunnies and carnivorous eco-curmudgeons 7
The fight to save childhood 8
Therapy on the Titanic 4
Roselle's Rollicking Tale & Moral of the Story 0
The best part about climate change 1
Eve of Destruction (New Millennium) 5
Simple people 6
Slideshow: Reinventing the JP Green House 0
Home Economics of the JP Green House, Part 1 0
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