SIMPLE LIVING IS NOT SO SIMPLE - NOT REALLY!

I last posted about hearing the author who wrote a book full of ideas about SIMPLE LIVING give some ideas for doing just that.  I thought her ideas were more about ecology or recycling.  I wanted to show respect for her efforts and public speaking, so though I made a couple comments aloud at the time, I actually felt that she was dead wrong about some of the things she thinks of as SIMPLE LIVING.

1) She suggests you take public transportation.  Why bother with a car, that expense?

I've done it, and as expensive as owning a vehicle can be, with insurance, maintenance, repairs, and gas, most public transportation is not, as she calls it "relaxing." and it rarely saves you time.  There are plenty of places you cannot get to easily or at all depending on it, and I think it makes you yearn for a good car.  I would suggest a ride from Uber or Lyft over taking a bus.

On public transportation, which is often overcrowded, people are always jostling each other. If you're someone who can wear jeans to work, well maybe you won't mind accidently sitting on a wet carpeted seat that some kid just peed on or getting chewing gun or your jacket.  It's dirty and smelly. Sometimes what you get is a good wiff of armpit when someone has to hold onto a pole.  I can't concentrate or read or do anything else with the noise, the interruption, watching for stops, the transferring,  or the anxiety of not knowing if a bus is actually going to show up. She suggests a cell phone ap that will tell you right where the bus is, but what's simple about continually checking it?  Sometimes it's simply not safe to assume that can tune out what's going on around you, because there are pick pockets, muggers, sexual harassers, and worse.  Sometimes fights break out. I've been in buses that had accidents.  I've been in buses in which someone stabbed someone else and fled.  (And yes I've sat on pee and ruined a suit with chewing gum.)

I think she's thinking of some suburban commuter train experience, where one might even fall back to sleep, not public transportation in the city.

2) She suggests you sign up for FreeCycle to give away things and get things you want or need without buying them.   I found checking FreeCylce and thousands of messages piling up to be a real time waster and one more thing I felt I had to do. 

I'm also not sure how great it is that people are showing up at your home to take away junk.  Why would you want so many strangers to do just that?  I wonder if they are using Google Earth to see if you live in an expensive house, broken down apartment, or how they might get in when you're not home, as part of their wanting to meet you.

I ended up cancelling my FreeCycle without ever having found anything I wanted or needed listed.  I admit I never put a call out for something I might need.  I prefer to give things away to charities that can sell the stuff for their own profit.

I would suggest that Craig's List is also horrible and that E-Bay is a better place to trade.


3) She suggests that you buy one of those military surplus store gizmoz that have a knife, fork and spoon to carry with you everywhere and use that when eating fast food rather than throw plastics in landfills.

OK, here is the problem with plastic spoons and plastic everything, all of which will not degrade in our lifetime. (And yes I know about the Sea of Plastic in the Pacific Ocean, which is horrific.)   To truly get rid of all the plastics and packaging, we would have to go back to living off the land, hunting, fishing, butchering, gardening, canning, and you're just not going to get the population of the earth to willingly go survivalist, old Hippie Communal, or Back to the preindustrial age, if you are not going to stay home to cook home meals every day, then personally not using plastic utensils has little impact.  We get to do more with our hours by having others do all the food sourcing for us, so that all we have to do is go to the market or eat fast food, or pop something into the microwave.  This even becomes a feminist issue.

If time truly is MONEY, and if you really can SAVE MONEY by going simple, then simply afford to HIRE A MAID so you won't have to waste any of your time doing the usual housework, shopping, or cooking.

I know this especially because I have cooked other people dinner and realized that I lost a day of my life doing it.

C 2015 All Rights Reserved  Never Married No Kids - An Intentional Community / Sister

CELIBACY (EVEN WHEN MARRIED) IS THE NEW SEXY IN JAPAN! (YOU CAN EVEN STAY A VIRGIN!)

This morning while getting ready I listened to some local morning programing and heard a snippet about how in Japan even some married people are not having sex.  There is a high percentage of male Japanese who are married and still virgins! 

This article is terrific and discusses how prevalent porn is in Japanese culture.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/opinions/view/why-arent-japanese-dating-and-mating  LOVED THE WRITING ON THIS OPINION PIECE by Hollie Mantle.

EXCERPT: "The story of Japan’s declining birthrate is not a new one. Measures are underway to ensure that the country does not evolve into a giant nursing home. But in spite of the fact that the government is offering monetary incentives to young married couples, and that businesses are enforcing compulsory holidays, the percentage of children being born into the new generation is not increasing rapidly enough. With just an average of 1.39 children born per Japanese female, it’s time to take a look at the root causes of why such a randy bunch of Asians can’t get down and do it...The pressure to get married is a predominant conversation topic for females as young as 14. The idea of women as “Christmas cakes”—an item which begins to decline after its use-by date of the 25th—still pervades, and the desperation to get married before this “spoiling age” is visibly apparent in Japanese social circles.

Here's one that says millions of young Japanese people are not even dating and focuses on the reality of corporate careers and the economics of raising children.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-stopped-having-sex   by Abigail Haworth

EXCERPT: The number of single people has reached a record high. A survey in 2011 found that 61%of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship, a rise of almost 10% from five years earlier. Another study found that a third of people under 30 had never dated at all. (There are no figures for same-sex relationships.) Although there has long been a pragmatic separation of love and sex in Japan – a country mostly free of religious morals – sex fares no better. A survey earlier this year by the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA) found that 45% of women aged 16-24 "were not interested in or despised sexual contact". More than a quarter of men felt the same way.

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MY OPINION ABOUT PORNOGRAPHY IS THAT IT HAS A NEGATIVE EFFECT OVERALL.
I think some people watch it hoping that they can get excited or so they can figure out what, if anything, does get them excited. But there is a disconnect emotionally watching a couple of actors who don't love each other having sex on film and I don't think you learn too much from watching it that will be useful having a relationship with another human being, hopefully with love.