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First, I admit I plagiarized my thread title sentence from another poster in another forum. I used it here because its truth struck me.
Solar panels, battery storage, wind generation, well maintenance, composting toilets, the hard work of maintaining a garden, the daily routine (which keeps you tied down at home) of caring for animals, and much more: all that represents an enormous and staggering complexity not only to get set up but also to maintain going forward.
Actually, it seems to me, the "grid" (if we understand that in a broad sense as being more than just electrical service) provides us with the means to live simply. Fresh, safe water is available at the turn of the tap. Natural gas and electricity, which have close to 100% reliability where I live, can be paid for by automatic electronic debits from a checking account. It really doesn't get any simpler than that.
I do realize that the point of this forum is to prepare for a scenario where everything is disrupted, such as by a nuclear war. While the chances of such an event are impossible to calculate, I have to rate them vanishingly small. I am 70 and I have never lived in a dwelling (and I've lived in Missouri, Louisiana, Germany, and all over the greater Los Angeles area) where electrical power was lost for more than a few hours. This includes during the Sylmar (1971) and Northridge (1994) earthquakes.
Give me real, genuine simplicity any day - being on the grid. I have trouble understanding the worth of all the complexity, trouble and expense of preparing for eventualities which have so little chance of coming to pass. I suppose there is the psychological comfort of having covered one's bases no matter what. We all do what we have to do to achieve psychological comfort - I get that. But "simple living" is certainly a misnomer.
Absolutely right. Being self sufficient is not for everyone and you really have to want to do it. Your motivations could also be completely different: for example, you may want to know what you are eating and have complete control over that - that's why you would grow a garden. Maybe you want to be "green" and not use dirty energy - this is why you would go solar / wind. Contrary to popular belief the tap water is not that great/clean since it is not treated for EVERYTHING (yes, it is safe to drink so I suppose at that level it is OK). Same with the animals: having home laid eggs could be very important to you or having home grown meat or milk or whatever. The quality and taste of what you can produce at home is just factors above what you can buy in the store.
Yes, you can go to Trader Joe's or Wholefoods however you do not really know where something is grown, it will cost you an arm and a leg and just because it says "organic" or "pastured" on it doesn't make it so - many ways to skirt around them laws and legal definitions.... Eating the same quality of food by buying this food will cost you much more...Will it cost as much as growing it yourself? Depends - people have spent tons of money on setting up gardens and growing their own stuff but it can also be done cheaply. There is also the question of the value of your time - if you are making $50/hr in your job and you love your job - by all means, keep doing it and just go out to a farmers' market and buy all the stuff you like....
Many factors to consider but at the end of the day it is mostly preference - do you like growing and making your own or not?
Solar panels, battery storage, wind generation, well maintenance, composting toilets, the hard work of maintaining a garden, the daily routine (which keeps you tied down at home) of caring for animals, and much more: all that represents an enormous and staggering complexity not only to get set up but also to maintain going forward.
You can make it as simple or as complex as you wish.
To me, all of that is simple and doesn't require half the effort you make it sound like. We don't do anything to be "green". We are not of that political persuasion. Self-reliance is a factor - a big one. But I would say that overwhelmingly, it is a matter of trust. We feel that the gubmint and corporate interests have let us down. All the junk in the foods, the fluoride in the water, the radiation coming from these new 'smart meters', the hormones in the meat...it's just chemicals everywhere, chemicals and radiation, most of which has not been tested for safety, but was instituted to enhance some corporate bottom line.
That, and the money. For the great privilege of allowing them to irradiate us, add chemicals to our food and water, and whatever else they're doing that we don't know about yet...we get to send a steady stream of $$$ into the corporate cash register. I'll keep my money, thank you, and do without their oh-so-convenient "services", and make a totally enjoyable lifestyle for myself, away from the danged cities.
It isn't so much easier to be on the grid, just more convenient.
You don't have to think about how much power you have in reserve when you flip on a light, you just do it knowing there is some magical place where all the power you could ever want is produced.
You don't worry about how much food is in your freezer, you just run to the store to get more because countless tons of fresh food magically appear on the shelves every day.
The problem being on the grid isn't worrying about convenient supplies you don't have to produce yourself, the complication comes from getting the money or plastic or that bank account to pay for it.
Personally, I like doing for myself, growing, raising, hunting and fishing for my food, cutting wood for my own heat, I don't mind sweat and the satisfaction of doing a job that will benefit my family. Sitting on my butt watching tv eating fritos or whatever because I put in my 8 hours at a desk and don't have to actually do any labor to produce my spuds, render tallow for the frying grease, cutting wood for the fire to cook my potato chips.
Living on the grid is convenient, but I don't see it as easier than enslaving myself to a desk for money.
I think that using 'simple' in referring to the back-to-land movement, is a misnomer.
You are correct, it is not simple.
Anything you do toward making yourself self-sufficient, is going to be a move away from convenience.
Raising sheep, shearing them, carding the wool, knitting or felting into a piece of clothing; is a lot more work than simply buying a pair of pants in a store.
It isn't so much easier to be on the grid, just more convenient.
You don't have to think about how much power you have in reserve when you flip on a light, you just do it knowing there is some magical place where all the power you could ever want is produced.
You don't worry about how much food is in your freezer, you just run to the store to get more because countless tons of fresh food magically appear on the shelves every day.
The problem being on the grid isn't worrying about convenient supplies you don't have to produce yourself, the complication comes from getting the money or plastic or that bank account to pay for it.
Personally, I like doing for myself, growing, raising, hunting and fishing for my food, cutting wood for my own heat, I don't mind sweat and the satisfaction of doing a job that will benefit my family. Sitting on my butt watching tv eating fritos or whatever because I put in my 8 hours at a desk and don't have to actually do any labor to produce my spuds, render tallow for the frying grease, cutting wood for the fire to cook my potato chips.
Living on the grid is convenient, but I don't see it as easier than enslaving myself to a desk for money.
To each their own.
You have a good point about the sheer satisfaction of producing for yourself and your family. I can even relate to that, but on a more limited scale. I derived satisfaction (for example) when I removed the exhaust fan from one of my bathrooms and lubricated it so that it stopped squealing, instead of hiring someone to do it. Of course it will be easy for someone to make fun of how easy that job was, and I admit it was quite simple on the overall scale of things. Yet not every "adult" could have done even that simple job.
As for the portion I bolded, not everyone who works for money and uses that money to buy food, electricity, etc. has a desk job. And of those who do have a desk job, not all of them feel as if they are "enslaved" to it. I recognize and accept that you would feel like that. In the long term, I would feel "enslaved" to cutting wood and other such tasks, even if I might enjoy it in the short term.
Another argument which I find unfair involves "sitting on my butt watching TV eating fritos...". Yes, some 8 to 5er's do just that, but it's a choice. I have more productive and interesting things to do with my free time, things which benefit society.
The problem being on the grid isn't worrying about convenient supplies you don't have to produce yourself, the complication comes from getting the money or plastic or that bank account to pay for it.
Yeah, 'cause we all know the land and the house and the set-up for the garden and the solar panels, wind turbines, stables, milking equipment, so on and so on - all come for free....
We all know that building stuff yourself is cheap(er), maybe. However, the time you spend doing that is also time lost where you could be making a good salary and putting money away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTSilvertip
Living on the grid is convenient, but I don't see it as easier than enslaving myself to a desk for money.
Hang on, I thought you have a cushy, guaranteed government job with all the benefits? Why keep it if you are self-sufficient?
You can make it as simple or as complex as you wish.
To me, all of that is simple and doesn't require half the effort you make it sound like. We don't do anything to be "green". We are not of that political persuasion. Self-reliance is a factor - a big one. But I would say that overwhelmingly, it is a matter of trust. We feel that the gubmint and corporate interests have let us down. All the junk in the foods, the fluoride in the water, the radiation coming from these new 'smart meters', the hormones in the meat...it's just chemicals everywhere, chemicals and radiation, most of which has not been tested for safety, but was instituted to enhance some corporate bottom line.
That, and the money. For the great privilege of allowing them to irradiate us, add chemicals to our food and water, and whatever else they're doing that we don't know about yet...we get to send a steady stream of $$$ into the corporate cash register. I'll keep my money, thank you, and do without their oh-so-convenient "services", and make a totally enjoyable lifestyle for myself, away from the danged cities.
Right. You think that in "the good old days" things were "better". They weren't. You're just ignorant of how bad things were in earlier times. The clean food and drug laws and health inspections of food processing facilities didn't start just twenty years ago, more like 120+ years ago. Industries didn't start polluting air, water, and land only in the last two or three decades, either. That started a thousand years ago when the first tanner set up shop on some creek. And money and cities have both been around for thousands of years, too.
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