An inspiration for us all

For almost 40 years Ken Smith has shunned conventional life and lived without electricity or running water in a hand-made log cabin on the banks of a remote loch in the Scottish Highlands.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-59174870

Remarkable for sure.

Sometimes I have trouble understanding the desire to be so alone... but I think when you are surrounded by nature for long enough the feeling is perhaps more of connection to something greater than it is about the disconnect with other humans.

Perhaps?

Maybe both.

L. Johnson wrote:Remarkable for sure.

Sometimes I have trouble understanding the desire to be so alone... but I think when you are surrounded by nature for long enough the feeling is perhaps more of connection to something greater than it is about the disconnect with other humans.

Perhaps?

Maybe both.

I would be fine if I had a dog.

People have different personalities and some are genuine hermits.

Personally, I'm more impressed by people who live with/around others without succumbing to peer pressure to "buy more stuff" or the message "who cares if you use all that gas and electricity". They're the ones who's lifestyle can rub off on those around them. I've been doing that for a long time, starting with my very prim and proper co-worker who I convinced to hang her laundry - her excuse, "I can't let the neighbors see my underwear". I told her to hang her private stuff on a rack indoors, and hang her jeans outside - her neighbors have already seen her jeans!  She gave me the funniest look and a few weeks later, bought a rack!

Jay Angler wrote:People have different personalities and some are genuine hermits.

Personally, I'm more impressed by people who live with/around others without succumbing to peer pressure to "buy more stuff" or the message "who cares if you use all that gas and electricity". They're the ones who's lifestyle can rub off on those around them. I've been doing that for a long time, starting with my very prim and proper co-worker who I convinced to hang her laundry - her excuse, "I can't let the neighbors see my underwear". I told her to hang her private stuff on a rack indoors, and hang her jeans outside - her neighbors have already seen her jeans!  She gave me the funniest look and a few weeks later, bought a rack!

I was reflecting on this earlier today. Mankind (generally speaking) is a social animal, and I believe we are genetically programmed to want to show off - that social status is important to us. I've seen it even in the Permaculture community. There are those who go out of their way to be "more permaculture" than everyone else. The "keeping up with the Jones's" attitude is what drives consumerism. The need to have the bigger car, the better stuff. And we kid ourselves that we're not wrecking the environment - that everyone else is doing that. That someone else has to solve the climate change problem - or worse that climate change isn't happening at all or it's not anthropomorphic.

The best kind of drying rack is very common in England and looks like an inverted umberella without the material. The best bit is you can hang your underwear on the inside of the umberella, and big sheets on the outside so no one can see what's going on in the inside and it's very space efficient - which is very important in England since their backyards are typically very small.

Andrew Pritchard wrote:

I was reflecting on this earlier today. Mankind (generally speaking) is a social animal, and I believe we are genetically programmed to want to show off - that social status is important to us. I've seen it even in the Permaculture community. There are those who go out of their way to be "more permaculture" than everyone else

I have read about an Indigenous group for whom the ~ equivalent of Maslow's "self actualization" was what gained respect and it was the base of the pyramid, rather than near the apex. I'd like to believe that if we work at it, we can change the focus of that programming to something that will help permaculture and help the earth. Our current economic model which is dependent on the majority "keeping up with the Jones's" doesn't want it to change, so we need to celebrate people such as Ken Smith and Aaron Fletcher and there's a lady in the Pacific Northwest whose name I've forgotten, but I think we also need to take the next step and try to nudge people onto the first wrung of the Wheaton Scale if we're going to make progress.

Really enjoyed this post! Thank you for sharing!

R