Practicing Plainness

When I moved out to the country 33 years ago, walking away from an urban, comfortable lifestyle, it was to seek a simpler, plainer existence. I have struggled ever since to articulate what defines my type of life, or even to describe in objective terms the nature of my simple practice. The term “simple living” is a very subjective one. One person's simple is another's sumptuous. One person's prosperity is another's privation.

In addition, the practice of trying to live plainly is an endless learning process. Just as a rich person never can fully say that he's arrived (there's always more money to be made), one who tries to live simply also never finishes the task. There's always more simplicity to learn. While the former way of life yields to endless greed, the latter faces an interminable process of self-examination, as well as an ongoing discovery of some deeper truths about the appropriate way to live plainly.

I have come upon several role models—who are my heroes—over the years, who have pointed the way for me; people who have championed the values of an unadorned lifestyle, such as Jesus, Gandhi, Socrates, the Buddha, Catholic Worker members, etc. What they have taught me is that a life of simplicity is also a moral life. But again, morality is a relative thing. One person's morality is another mendaciousness. One person's vice is another's virtue.

I recently read an essay in Aeon Magazine by Emrys Westacott, a professor of philosophy at Alfred University in New York, titled “Why the Simple Life is Not Just Beautiful, It's Necessary.” Westacott equates the good life with the simple life, which is an expression of morality. He makes the point that in earlier times a simple life was most often the only choice for many people. They did not have the option to live acquisitively. Our ancestors moreover considered simplicity to be a moral virtue.

In contrast, we moderns have access to many things: many luxuries that our ancestors could not have dreamed of. Our culture honors relentless growth; it literally drowns out simplicity. And simplicity is often considered boring. I clearly remember former city acquaintances being baffled by my leaving the comfortable city life to go live in the country. They thought that I was opting for an existence of humdrum, when, in fact, I have discovered a level of fascination that I had only dreamed of.

Westacott writes that many people today are feeling a backlash against our acquisitive culture, and are turning toward the plain life in response. Many of them do not succeed, however, because they have become brainwashed by society's values and can't really come to believe in simplicity. While we might condemn the extravagance we see in our society, we still seem to subliminally admire it. When I made my move to the country three decades ago, I was mindful of the number of hippies who “moved back to the land,” only to return to an urban environment a couple of years later, when things got either too tough or too austere for them.

Westacott points out that it's also interesting that our precarious economic system is forcing many people into a frugal existence—against their will. The upshot is that some of them are subsequently discovering that the meager life can just happen to be a virtuous life. Those who are involuntarily thrust into a life of simplicity are more likely to view having lots of money as immoral, rather than admiring and aspiring to be wealthy. It seems as if once a person gets a taste of frugality, it can transform them.

Westacott makes another argument: there is a growing need for simplicity today; we must stop trashing our environment. He says that simple lifestyles could help correct the destructive course that society is on.

We seem to be living in a time that is bringing unprecedented changes to our world. If humans continue on the path we're currently following, numerous catastrophes await. Westacott writes that we may be headed toward a crisis that will force us to live simply. Whether we choose the moral path of simplicity or not, it may soon be our only alternative.