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.