Watching this, it makes me wonder if you don’t have to have some resources to really live the simple life?

When frugality and simple living is a choice, it sure does seem a lot more appealing…otherwise you’d lay in bed at night and wonder how it must feel to go into Wal-Mart and buy a brand new boombox?

There’s (possibly) a lot of satisfaction in living in a cardboard box…there may be a homeless man somewhere who waxes eloquent about how free he feels and how close to nature his lifestyle choice allows him to be.

But…I doubt it.

I don’t know…there’s something both great and kind of creepy about this sort of thing.  There’s a self-consciousness to this that kind of bugs me.

I don’t think that somebody slogging their way through a day working at McDonalds…going home to some overpriced rental home or apartment….eating whatever is easy and filling and cheap….I doubt that they’re going to find getting really philosophical about their lives very appealing.

This seems to be the “country equivalent” of the minimalist Architectural Digest home that takes a lot of work to get to the bare, minimalist stage.

I’ve watched this a couple of times now….and it’s bugging me.

There are a million….no, a kazillion…people around the world living like this by circumstance.  It’s what they know…it’s not a choice…it’s not some spiritual quest…it’s hammering out a living without expectation of something bigger.  It’s just the way they live.

This is an expensive way to live.  Maybe these people built their own house…I don’t know the details of their lives, and I shouldn’t pass judgement…but she strikes me as someone who probably had some craftsmen come in and build this thing, this life, this house to exacting specifications to help them reach an idealized simplicity.

I guess that if I have enough time on my hands to pay any attention to how someone else lives that I have too much time on my hands.

This is a nice little house.  It’s a good way to live.

But…again, the “but”….this really bugs me.

The luxury of considering our “innermost lives” in the context of simple living…it’s not something that some folks out in the world have the time to wax eloquent about.

Live in a little house…be thankful for what you have…live and let live…be a good human.

Any of that rolls easy on my mind.

Just don’t be creepy.  If you’re going to simplify, just don’t be creepy.

Please….don’t be creepy in general.

And save your candles for night-time.