Deficit Living

I have found it unfortunate but true that the best of whatever – be it books, music, foods, etc. – is the hardest to find. So it is with the book I am currently reading – The New Revised Hard Times Handbook by Keith and Irene Smith.

In searching the internet (including the Amazon.com behemoth), I have been unable to find a method by which I could tell you to buy, or scarcely even a mention of the book. But buy it you should; especially, if you were born and raised in the United States like me. Growing up in the United States, one learns by absorption that the world is his oyster and he has but to wrench it open, pilfer the pearl, slurp the delicate center, and discard the shell. The New Revised Hard Times Handbook challenges this notion with straightforward commentary and practical advice.

Sad though it may be, the rest of the world views the United States very differently than it views itself – and rather differently than it views the way the rest of the world views it. Worse still, we don't care. It is a commonly-held belief by outsiders looking in, that the United States is the bastion of waste, greed, and overindulgence. We are frequently, and deservingly, mocked for our rampant obesity. Even so, only an American can appreciate just how wasteful, greedy, and overindulgent our culture is. For most outside the culture, it would defy comprehension.

In part voluntarily and in part forced, I have begun to deprogram myself – with the objective of becoming more frugal and self-sufficient. I have come to understand that life must necessarily be about more than working to survive and surviving to work. To quote the book:

Life has become too complicated. We feel the goal should be to lead a healthy, satisfying and happy life, rather than to strive for wealth. We need to slow down, live more simply and improve the quality of our lives.

Speaking as someone who bought the myth, the “American Dream,” in its current form, is tepid and hollow. Having attained the goals I set for myself and enviable employment to boot, the smell in my nostrils was not the “sweet smell of success,” but was acrid and gut retching. The obtaining only increased the wanting. I had become the rampant consumer my culture had bred me to be.

Fast-forward to the present. Following our bliss half-way around the world has meant that, at present, we are surviving on my wife’s salary as I search the dark places within, knocking on doors and clanging at pipes, to determine if a writer, artist, philosopher or something else that I can put a name to hides inside. Feeling the need to contribute to our financial security in some way, I have turned energies toward conservation, production, and frugality, and found the same to be surprisingly satisfying. Hence the book mentioned above.

At the outset, I thought that the book would be too radical for all but a few old hippie, Earth Mother types living life disconnected from reality. I have found that the principles in the book are practical, timeless and connected with deeply-rooted (perhaps instinctual) values.

The basis of the principles in the book is the “Frugality Theory,” which states, “live below your means whatever they may be.” This includes making a conscious decision to:

1. Separate your needs from your wants;

2. Know when you have enough; and

3. Become as self-reliant as possible.

One of the principles is not to buy anything ready made if you can make it. Applying this principle, I am making meals that are healthy with ingredients that are identifiable. I am making whole meal bread that requires the use of your teeth, not that part on the roof of your mouth just behind your incisors.

I joke with my wife at mealtime that she will see the same thing again, though perhaps in a different form, but this is true. Last week’s produce becomes this week’s soup or muffins. Yesterday’s meat and vegetable scraps are frozen to make stock for future use. Soda bottles become decorative vinegar and oil decanters. Plastic crocks become candle molds. We have reduced our weekly output of rubbish to one small bag.

We are buying far more groceries, but eating out less. We are buying all our clothes and household items second-hand. We are using less energy and petrol, by considering how and why it is used. In general we are making a smaller footprint on this world of ours.

Perhaps it took moving to a place with just a little less to help separate needs and wants. Perhaps I have flipped my gourd and become the barefooted, tree-hugging Kumbaya singer mom always wished for. But it seems to my small brain that if we continue to consume more than we produce (in our homes, in our communities and in the world at large) there will be shortages and/or deficits until resources are exhausted or change is forced.