apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

...having exactly what you need and nothing you don't, and watching your bank balance rise because of not buying things you don't.

avoiding cluttering your life with "stuff".


Take that as you will.

To me, Simple Living means being happy with what you have and not buying into the consumer culture that your life will be happier with the purchase of a product. This isn't to say that I don't think there's a time and place to buy things, but that each purchase should be a concerted choice to bring that item into your life, not due to the mistaken idea that you will be happier by owning the new thing. I think simple living is better described by what you release than what you intake. I also think simple living goes beyond the purchase (or lack thereof) of things and more into the way you lead your daily life ... to take pleasure in simple things (e.g. shopping at a farmer's market and preparing a nice meal to share with friends and family), to live more in the moment and spend less time worrying about what tomorrow holds.

I should have quoted William Morris: Have nothing in your home which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

...making time to help others.

... not consuming when the impacts will be negative and building positive impacts through non-consumption.

...questioning society's must-have must-have mentality (must own a home, must own a car, must carry a cell phone) in ways more radical than staying out of debt. Yurts in the hills, off the grid, qualify.

(My household does not meet this definition of simple living, nor do we intend to. We live compactly, debt free, sans unloved clutter, and in a manner that makes us happy -- but NOT simply.)

Good food
Good friends
Good family
and taking everything else in stride.

...allowing time and space in your life for "quiet" whether that's reading the newspaper in bed on Sunday morning, people watching in the park, tending your garden, whatever...as long as you do it on a regular basis.

... Try not to develop absolute attachments around things or set ultimatums for your material or emotional life -- for example, "I cannot live or do without ___".

not having a blog that questions consumerism... then links to ads for more "stuff"

...(is) a beautiful and aspirational ideal, not a dogmatic list of hard-and-fast rules.

means enjoying life every single day and not worrying about a damn thing. This includes work, money, bills, house, pets, etc..

... not creating unnecessary stress and drama.

...living as well as you can within your means.

...or...maybe I meant to say being content with your lot in life and not living beyond your means.

OK, so I can't sums things up neatly.

...having the strength to part with the pile of things you've accumulated over the years.

I agree with Allison's characterization.

As for consumerism, I think a person can live simply and still occasionally pry open his wallet and bring home an object of pure beauty. It's not a moral failing to have beautiful surroundings.

i agree with Allison (especially the William Morris quote!) and would add:

To me, living simply can be embodied in the following two aphorisms:

"Form follows function"

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

saving just a picture of something you like instead of having to possess the object (being poor kind of necessitates this)

Here, here, Allison and Valerie! (I even have the Morris quote on my Web site.)I have many "things" in my home that give me joy just by looking at them.

wait. shakers dont have babies?

living, simply.

To quote Sheryl Crow: It's not about having what you want, it's about wanting what you've got.

Simple living is living within your means and enjoying it. If you're not happy with your world around you, you're living with the wrong lifestyle, and something needs to be fixed.

living with necessities not wants and needs

Live honestly! In your surroundings and in your interaction with everyone that you meet.

Allison and Valerie articulated my sentiments well! I think I'd add acting with kindness and intention, too.

...living and eating simply, to me, created a lifestyle that reduces mental ciaos -- by reducing possessions, I lightened my load and with that came wonderful, liberating freedom, a desire to be very selective and the knowledge that material possessions bring happiness for a very short period of time.

Thanks Ivy, now that song is stuck in my head!

...redefining my personal concept of "need."

Shakers don't have babies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers

To me, Simple Living means not spending a lot of time managing material things

agree with posts about equanimity - this is hard to maintain, but remembering that 'everything is impermenant' helps one from getting too caught up in the cycle of desire and envy.

Basic necessities needs to be broken down. Many of us try to live our lives this way (me included), but having multiple sets of said basic necessities IS NOT simple living. As an example, we could all replace the following items with a FREE public library card.

books
magazines
multimedia
computer/internet service (including the costs that comes with owning one)


We'd still have access to those same things, be able to take it home and read/watch/listen to it without fuss. Many of us (me included) have just become too lazy and just spend $$ blindly for the sake of convenience. Bad move...

I know, and am friends with, many people who seem to be in a constant state of dissatisfaction. Always wanting more once they get what that thought they last wanted - classic "keeping up with the Jonses" - which to me equals a like of constant dissatisfaction. I'm trying my best to rally against that and enjoy what I have. Not that I don't love beautiful things (and shoes!), but I have no desire to accumulate "stuff" and love living in small quarters. Living simply is an exercise is in appreciating what really matters.

why is living simply, living without? I would take simply happy over simply living anyday.

i've always found it weird that when discussing uneccessary clutter that must be done away with, the first thing to be brought up is always books. such an incredibly foreign idea to me.

funny nobody ever mentions the eames LCM chair they never really sit in, the 150 piece set of vintage fiestaware (including gravy boat) which gets trotted out at Thanksgiving but spends the rest of the year in a cupoard, the fireplace-mounted TV which is placed too high for comfortable viewing, etc. etc.

not trying to insult anyone or their choices, its just one of those little idiosyncracies of the high design world i've always noticed.

. . . spending time, not money to make your home (and life) your own.
For me, this has meant growing an ever-increasing portion of my produce in a backyard garden, making my own drapes, finding all my furniture second-hand and rehabilitating a once feral and mangy pup I found one cold winter day into the lovely dog she is today.
The payoff is immense; I live in a comfortable, 600 sf apartment in an out-of-the way neighborhood that means my partner and I can 'afford' to work in the arts while still saving our pennies for our own little house in the 'hood some day.

. . . not renting a storage locker.

... not feeling pressure to conform, spending time doing the things you enjoy and spending time with people you love.

Opoponax, I'm a 100% with you! Books do not create clutter! How about getting rid of endless photo albums with 'memories" instead?
P.S. The rule of our household -"never save on books". That's why, i guess, there's no Eames chair in the future for us :-)

These are so inspirational.

For me, living is simply is about not feeling under pressure to keep up with those around me. It's about living life the way I want to and not feeling under pressure to have the biggest and the best but to have what I love in my life and to be able to spend time with friends, family, and new experiences.

I'm with Geraldine on the library card. I stopped buying books a few years ago and started using the library. Now I read a book a week when before I would have felt like spending $75-100 a month on books was wasteful and I'd have to worry about storing them. The library is also a great place to learn more about your community and to make new connections. Plus good books should be read and shouldn't sit on shelves gathering dust as so often happens.

balance.

...recognizing that I determine what has meaning in my life, and constantly working to diffuse messages to the contrary, messages that say that the things we are encouraged to acquire (the newest flipsquesk, the best slingbeedle, the family heirloom shoopskeeps that *someone* must find a place for) have meaning unto themselves. It's a conscious process, this unpacking and culling of meaning, yet it leads to a simplicity (or the beginnings of simplicity... does simplicity take a modifier?) that I'm relishing.

Doesn't buying books support the artists (authors) who create them? Plus, the sensory experience of entering my neighborhood independent bookstore is unlike any other.

Although I believe the public and university libraries are among our city's greatest underused resources and use my card regularly, my home library is one of my treasures, my most beloved books having provided lifelong comfort and food.

...basics"

What is with the ads on this site today??? I am with dc dennizen. I am not enjoying these ads appearing everywhere I click. Maxwell, please can't they stay in more discrete areas?

For me what comes to mind is a Kippling poem -- If:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

It's not the material things that matter. They may be nice to strive for, own, and enjoy, but they are still only things.

Living simply is not being bogged down by stuff, or the lack thereof.

"To me, Simple Living means...."

Being able to look at my life and find it's not cluttered with excess.. balance in all things.

My husband has been hinting for me to post this... in his 20s, he did a year with Jesuit Volunteer Corps, where part of the deal is that members live communally, in solidarity with the poor, working for charity and drawing very little spending money. You live on your allowance, shop at Goodwill, eat plainly, sleep on the bed you're given, etc. No Starbucks, no Ann Sacks tile, no exact-right-shade-of-white. Just your community and working for the good of the larger community.

Very few people make it through the full year.

"space and light and order. these are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep." -le corbusier

the opoponax et al,

Believe me, I am not bashing books as clutter, as I have close to a thousand in my apartment and find it really hard to part with any of them, even though only a few get regular use. I highly value book purchases, but I am part of the guilty party when it comes to excess, because I let it get out of hand.



There was a time when most families would simply have, at most, a stack of encyclopedias. And their version of the internet would either be the daily newspaper or most certainly a trip to the local library. How many of us still live that way? Would our lives be any less fulfilling if we didn't own these things? I doubt it. The question then becomes...why have them?

my flower gardens and patches in summer, my fireplace in winter, listening to my husband chop kindling in fall and gathering seed packets in spring

asking myself:
do i need this?
is there something i already have that can serve the same purpoes?
in five years (or ten, or twenty), will it be broken, shoved in a closet, given away?
will it bring peace and beauty to my life in some small or big way?

and finally: is it something i can purchase in good conscience knowing that the majority of the world can go without?

...loving YOUR life! not comparing and competing with others. this is something i try to do but find it may be my biggest challenge.

taking time to enjoy long meals with friends and finding beauty in the everyday.

... achieving what I conceive in my mind "

To live in peace and harmony with oneself and nature.

every day growing and nurturing your unique human essence - staying focused and enlivening your life

Geraldine, I certainly get what you're saying. especially about the 'media overload' aspects of that. Which is the reason i don't have cable and have considered taking the wireless card out of my computer on the weekends. how much more would i get out and enjoy the city if i weren't a slave to a couple of electronic boxes? I also try to curtail my Barnes & Noble purchases -- so much money for cheap paperbacks i could get from the library. But i think that if there's a book i want to own, there's no harm in it. I also buy 90% of my books from either used bookstores, nonprofit sources (housing works, bluestockings, etc.), or independent bookshops rather than the big boxes. i also will not buy new books if there are books on my shelf which have gone unread. so i do think there's a lot to be said for responsible librarianship.

i also agreed with you on everything else on your list -- magazines are basically just catalogues you pay for. Unless it's like Harper's or the New Yorker or an academic journal, but even then, you can get them online, at libraries, etc. everybody i know has an unread stack of New Yorkers in the house somewhere.

i just think it's odd that the very first thing ever mentioned in a list of clutter one should get rid of in order to either better organize a space or create a simple life is 'books'. in every conversation, real or virtual, i've ever had on the matter whilst chatting with a design enthusiast (so i'm not just picking on you).

when so often in this 'simple living' dialogue we simply change out the kinds of things purchased rather than actually rethinking the ways we live our lives. i mentioned the eames chair, fiestaware, and flat-screen for a reason in my original post. we'd consider anybody who ordered in all their furniture from Pottery Barn to be hideously bourgeois. But so many of the house tours we admire have done the same at DWR.

we laugh at those chintzy doily types who spend $$$$ on biedermier or louis XV furniture which is never used as it's considered too special. but we'd probably have similar worries after forking over $5000 for an original properly licensed Knoll-approved version of the Barcelona chaise in white leather. anyone with a glass of red wine would be banished to the old futon.

the idea of having victorian-style 'good china' or silver tea services or whatever which are hard to maintain and never used is repugnant to probably everyone on this board. but half of my coworkers, design-enthusiasts all, will spend all afternoon trolling eBay for the vintage corningware ramekins from the 30's in the right color to go with the rest of their set. which they never use, because this is a Collection, not their actual dishes.

to me, it's our ways of thinking and living that have to change if we want to create a more simple life. not the specific purchases we make. and that's something i'm not quite sure has sunk in within the general 'design' community of which AT is a part. certainly magazines like Real Simple and Domino haven't figured it out yet.

Oh I love that Kipling poem, Katherine!

I move around a lot, so being bogged down by stuff is not entirely possible. For me, it's nice to know that should catastrophe strike my apartment, I'd still have all I'd need to go on (with the exception of my s.o. and cat, whom I'd desperately try to save).

I may not have the swankest place, or the finest things, I am happy knowing that I can appreciate such things without having to posess them.

Opo (may I call you Opo), do your design-enthusiast colleagues who troll for ramekins *also* claim to be proponents of simple living?

Historically, design culture has long called for rigorously "editing" one's possessions of whatever's *sigh* dated, but not under any sort of Simple Living banner. It was all about taste, so if last year's taste was minimalism and this year's taste requires funky table vignettes, off to eBay or the flea market you go (having edited all that stuff to Goodwill two years back)!

I agree that Simple Living has been co-opted for marketing, and that has worked because it speaks very powerfully to dissatisfaction with over-stressed lives. It's so much easier to buy the Perfect Chair or the Perfect Classic Sweater or the Perfect Organic Peach than to rethink one's entire lifestyle (see the pain engendered by the 8-week cure!).

If the Perfect Classic Sweater is actually both perfect and classic, it may stop the process of buying 8 Imperfect, Non-Classic Sweaters. That's progress toward change. (Though I'd prefer people to keep consuming wildly, so I can continue to get bargains at Goodwill, also to keep the stock market up. As I said, I don't live simply.)

i think a lot of time people DO think they're 'living simply' when they do those things. because they're all caught up in the marketing. it's the very impulse that keeps the MoMA design store running -- i'm living simply, so therefore i ought to blow $80 on a couple sets of these Revolution double-sided glasses because the box says they're practical and efficient.

i also will agree that while i claim to hate the consumerist marketing crap, i will happily buy last year's West Elm coffee table at a stoop sale. which i'm only able to do because the people having the stoop sale are getting rid of it after a year to buy this year's West Elm coffee table. i also complain that those damn hippies in park slope never throw out anything good, whilst raiding the sidewalks of chelsea and the west village on Oversized Garbage day. my version of 'simple living' exists symbiotically with others' overt conspicuous consumption.

I think "simple living" isn't something you can provide a recipe for because it's as individual as personalities. For me, part of "simple living" is not having anything that's "too good" for everday. I have silverplate (and some sterling) cutlery and it's my only cutlery: everyday and my fancy all in one. Some people may say, "oh that's not simple because you have to polish it and you can't put it in a dishwasher" (not that I have one anyways). But for me, it gives me pleasure to use nice cutlery rather than the bendy flimsy stuff I had in university and I find polishing a satisfying domestic activity. That to me fits in with simple living even though it wouldn't for many people.

mindfulness

this is what i meant about rethinking how we live, rather than just what we buy. declaring that one material for flatware is 'simpler' than another is in the vein of 'what we buy'. realizing that eating on silver is worth it to you and that you don't mind the upkeep and thus getting rid of your 'everyday' stainless steel set is 'rethinking how we live'.

Insistent Ideas.

goole just broke...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=apartment+therapy+monetary+apologiae&spell=1

being content with every minute of every day. Simply allowing things to unfold as they naturally would....................aahhhhhh!!!!

...enjoying coming home, to the home i've created.

Living simply to me means more than to consume or not to consume... but also to have the bits of your life - work, love, play - not be so complicated.

Many years ago my life was in real turmoil and I thought about this a lot: "Keep it Simple Stupid". It meant being straightforward, honest, reacting to things with innocence, not trying to accomplish too many things at once.

I had two nieces born around that time and they taught me a lot about the basics of life.

A Packrat to the bone, here's my - rather different from many here - take on Simple living:

1) Only get or keep things you love.
2) Make everything around you as beautiful as possible.
3) Don't go into debt.

Could I walk away from my belongings? Not really. I don't seek that kind of freedom. I like things that are pretty. I have irrational attachments to, among other things, chairs, my bed, houseplants, garden plants, books, vases, and a collection of teapots.

But I don't buy just to buy. And value is not measured in dollars. Everything is added thoughtfully, in the process of creating an environment in which everything I see is attractive, loved, and artful.

As I think about it more, I think S.L. is more about learning to take pleasure in what you can everyday, rather than reserving contentment for some special future point that may or may not come. Or when it does, you'll have some new set of criteria (e.g. "I'll be content when I've got the living room perfectly decorated", but then when it is, all you can see is the out-of-date kitchen). It's really easy to do the same thing with many small stresses in life. Like "I'll be relaxed as soon as I get this project at work finished", but then, of course, when you do, there's something new.

Since we live in such a consumer-driven purchase-obsessed culture, our "as soon as" blocks are often related to purchases, but that's really only one symptom of not living in the "now" and it is more about changing our mindset to enjoy life as it is, rather than as you imagine it might be when you own that new couch.

The confusion between simple and minimalist is long standing -- the arts and crafts movement was "about" simplicity, but was certainly not minimalist. And interpreting the zen aesthetic as minimalist is off kilter as well. While wabi-sabi is often simple, its more about time and space.

for me simplicity is about ease and comfort.

also, is this where the cure alums are hanging out (hello wende, patrick, et al.)

... means that around me is few things, that i really need. everything else is hidden.

To me, simple living means becoming carbon nuetral without becoming sanctimonious.

I am in agreement with Mikey on mindfulness.

I hate to bring Oprah to AT, but she had a show on called Debt Diet this summer where she brought in experts to help control spending in households that had significant debt.

What I found most interesting was an example of a woman who somehow manages to slip off the same porch outside of her house several times a year. Oprah used this as a metaphor to indicate how many of us sleepwalk through life, going through the motions without mind. This extended from purchasing things we cannot afford to acting without considering the consequences of our actions.

Mindfulness streamlines, simplifies, and wakes us up to what is simple and real.

...satisfaction and acceptance.

Katherine, I love that Kipling poem! very timely as my car got stolen friday night and although not super attached to material things, it the experience of it all that i'll miss - my first car! one just somehow feels violated.

But again as i say, its important to accept situations that you cant change!

I've been chasing whatever it is for years to no avail.

At this point I'd be happy just to empty my Outbox.

Donating anything you haven't used in the last 12 months to less fortunate people.

Grocery shopping without buying anything in a can or from a freezer.

Purging your stuff constantly, because most "stuff" makes life complicated.

Eating home-cooked meals with dear friends.

Working from home in your underwear.

Giving to other people until it's painful, not just giving the leftovers when it's easy.

Turning off the television...for good.

Respecting everybody and fearing nothing.

To me, simple living means ... giving and receiving unconditional love everyday, ownings things in my life that are useful &/or valuable to me and that I care for easily, doing work that I am proud of, carrying money in my pocket that doesn't own me, listening to music that meets my needs, reading books that take me away from or bring me back to reality, and gently caring for plants and animals that thrive on my watch.

Simplicity to me is a question of faith, culture, and family. Quakers, Amish, Mennonites, and yep, those Shakers whose design aesthetics we so love these days, all believe(d) in simplicity because it was a Christian virtue. They still do. Hence the Quaker bumpersticker that embarassed me, as a child: "live simply so that others may simply live."

17th c. Quaker craftsmen in the U.S. were the first to build furniture that was "plain" (i.e., unadorned, not fussy, and not overly decorated) but that used the best possible materials and craft. This ethic extended to clothes, food, houses, etc. One's things should be "of the best stuff but plain," because the whole point was to look towards God, not towards things. If your stuff was well made, it lasted a long time, so you didn't have to worry so much--and compete with your neighbors--over whether your stuff was fashionable, or whether you needed new stuff.

All this means to say, simplicity to me is a fraught term. Simple living can be sanctimonious, ugly, boring, cheap, and/or totally commodified. It can also be liberating, holy, mindful, and loving. I am still working it out--I love color and flavor and fat and sugar and meat and decoration and ornament and music and dancing and poetry. All of which are not "simple," per se.

Not having a car. I walk and metro everywhere and get a Zipcar or a rental car when I need one.

Kwj - it reminds me of the japanese way of living. Also towards certain indian ways of living

i think that its interesting that almost everyone immediately started thinking things (objects) and money when the words "live simply" were facing them...

do things simply complicate life? are they the only culprit?

I think living simply has more to do with honesty. honesty avoids lies and leads to humanities essence- happiness is a natural jump but really has nothing to do with simplicity, although i believe living simply can lead to happiness.

sorry about the mish mash...

Seriously, can we cut out the crypto-commie commentary? (cf. opoponax's favorite quote).

I love how people are using a blog and the internet to decry consumerist culture. It's the on-demand consumerist culture that made the internet and particularly blogging what it is today. It's the consumerist culture that made it possible for designers in brooklyn to make $4000 space-saving shelf-systems. Or for Maxwell to spend a gajillion on his (uber-cool if you ask me) German faucet.

As for living simply, I take it to mean living within your means, not becoming some sort of mountain-man who flees civilization and doesn't eat anything that saw its own shadow. That's not living simply. That's DSM-IV material.

Sounds like boring living to me. I don't want to be a nun.

that's what most of us are talking about.

nobody in this thread has said that living simply is moving into the Unabomber's cabin. nobody in this thread has said that living simply is living vegan. as far as i know most in this thread are normal everyday urban dwellers who do all the things normal everyday urban dwellers do. it seems that many try to be conscious about the footprint we create, but none of us live in tiny solar-powered treehouses in the mountains saving the whales for a living or anything like that.

the quote i gave, while from Marx and a central tenet of a certain brand of socialist thinking, is perfectly valid in and of itself (which is the context i use it in, not as a specifically Marxist notion). in fact, your contribution of "living within one's means" is a paraphrase of that quote.

also, maybe my understanding of the history of the 'net and blogging is really off or something, but i disagree with you on that count, too. also, there's an ongoing debate about whether the ability to have all media on demand all the time is really such a desirable thing. i certainly feel that getting wrapped up in blogging and online stuff takes away from my ability to experience the real world at its own pace. (witness posts like this!) in the near future i'd like to start pulling myself away from the constant availability of the internet. but maybe that opinion is just a symptom of some kind of psychosis, and SuperHyperX-Treem Total Corporate Consumerist Media Saturation is the natural order of things. what do i know?

Far from the responses being full of crypto-commie commentary, most people seem to be saying that "simple living" is whatever makes them happy.

i believe life becomes "more" when we seek & appreciate the simplicity of contentment rather than exisiting in a continual cycle of chasing happiness...which is not to say that the happy is bad, but that it is all the more wonderful when it crosses our path serendiptiously!

Christian Journey made me laugh and for that I thank him/her. Go jesus.

to be totally honest, that "tis a gift song," has ALWAYS made my skin crawl. mainly because it is the only f-ing song Quakers know how to sing--they/we refuse to actually learn how to sing and play music because to do so would NOT be "simple" or "plain." So it's "tis a gift," and "amazing grace," and that's it.

No music, no art, no rituals, no stained glass, no bright colors, no fancy clothes, no toys, no Christmas presents (for my grandmother, at least), and for the Shakers, no sex and no babies.

the above reasons are why I have a difficult time with "simplicity." they are also why it is NOT COOL to be a Quaker kid in America. And probably why I refuse to buy that "Real Simple" magazine. Because "real simple," where I come from equals a bonnet and a gray dress. Which I ain't wearing.

i'm really loving all these ideas and words, esp at a time when i feel li need to be content more with my things instead of either mentally or actually trying to doa makeover on my warrobe adn shouse everytime i pick up a mgazine! so thanks everyone for the inspiration and urging to be "content". i would like to add that one thing i do to live simply is not subscribe to the modern desire for the latest gadget: i only have a basic mobile phone that i am not a slave too -- that is, i turn it off sometimes, even days at a time; and i leave it sitting on my hall stand when i'm at home and don't cart it around the house with me. most of my frinds can't comprehend this! they feel they have to communicate and connect all the time. i like the idea of space and quiet, and not being a slave to my mobile helps me achieve this.

I'm liking everyone's ideas too, because it just shows that we're all trying to simplify our lives, at least at points, in some way. To me, living simply, is not being a slave to anything, as many have said, and which I feel I am at times. Living simply is also clearing my head and being able to focus on that which is most important to me--also something I am usually unable to do. Clearing out the mental clutter as well as the material clutter (and, to be clear, I don't mean books!) :) Reading kwh's comment about the Quakers reminded me of that shaker hymn "Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free" and I think deciding what one has to be free from is half the battle. You can't have everything and be everything all at once, or you aren't fully having or being anything.

I can't let this thread go. It's been swimming in my head all day! I don't know what others think (or if anybody's even reading anymore), but I think this is the most important thread I've ever seen on AT. Why? Because I think it speaks to the essence of simplicity that we're all trying to attain, even if it manifests itself in different ways.

Throughout the day I've thought of lots of other ways I could have completed the sentence, but one major theme keeps bubbling back to the top of my mind...

What's the point of simplicity?

I've been considering this question for years and I've come to the firm conclusion that simplicity for the sake of simplicity is meaningless, vacant, and probably sanctimonious. So what else is there?

Why do you want to live simply? Why does it matter? What's your motivation?

Anybody want to take a stab at this question? I think this is the most important part of the discussion (if anybody is still listening)...

I'm gonna just go back for a second and say that in Aesthetics (at least the class I took in it in college) the three things that were considered to be criteria that any aesthetic thing was to be judged were: Unity, Complexity & Intensity.

OK, I think the thing is that the complexity thing is something that's really kind of a natural result of the way life happens and things generally can get out of control with entropy, etc. So, simplicity is really us just trying swim upstream and create a little balance.

You don't see all THAT many people really needing to make their lives all much more complex; intelligent, curious people tend to do that pretty much by themselves without all that much prodding.

Simplicity and unity aren't EXACTLY the same thing, but they're kind of related.

I think another element about living more simply for me is reclaiming busy time that I'm not enjoying. Not having a car and using Zipcar/metro/taxi/car rentals goes a long way towards this since I don't have to park a car I own(not easy in my urban area; Zipcars have their own parking spaces), deal with it being vandalized, maintain it, clean it, insure and register it, and all that. This has taken a layer of activity and $$ expenditure off my life, and I just love it. The price of Zipcars includes gas, insurance, maintenance, cleaning, and satellite radio, and the cars are all new. I don't use cars that often and when I do it's a delight.

...is living with less than you think you need or want and then realizing that you don't need, or even want, what you thought you did. And being happier and calmer because of it.

I love this comment:

". . . not renting a storage locker. posted by pbphoenix on 2006-07-14 21:39:33 "

I have always thought it almost harder to live within one's allotted square footage than within one's mean. I once stored a loom for a year - paid more in storage fees than it was worth and I know people who pay storage fees for things they can't even remember they own. That just seems wrong to me. Lots of great food for thought in this thread.