Idea

‘When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.’ Wendell Berry

In my late 20s, I have decided to give up my pretty comfortable, and (according to the mainstream criteria) so far successful life and career to move into semi-wilderness, in order to gradually master needed skills to fulfill on my own the basic needs for food, water, shelter, and contentment. This move reflected both the wish to slow down, but also my thoughts on the current ‘state of the world’. In particular, how few genuinely seem to realize that a system predicated on endless growth simply can not be sustainable. Being essentially a prototype of today’s citizens of developing/developed world, I was with so many others utterly disconnected and ignorant about where does my waste go, and where does my food come from. Moreover, against the prevailing Western myth, my own experience has led me to become aware that more is not always more. Although we quite often hear that we are reaching the limits of growth because of ecological constraints, more rarely we hear we are actually reaching the limits of human needs.

‘There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.’  Gilbert Keith Chesterton

After almost seven years of studying political science, while doing my masters degree in the UK, I was influenced by the legacy of radical reasoning of the so-called post-development, and de-growth, as well as the concept of voluntary simplicity. This has helped me to understand that, although it is true that with the emergence of environmental movement in the 70’s some of these issues managed to more seriously penetrate political and social agenda, the widely present discourse of sustainable development still seems to be too week to question the dominate paradigm. It shows to be structurally incommensurable with the existing capitalist-consumer economic system, resulting that ecological concerns are still secondary to economic growth and raging industrialization. This is the reason why I have felt I need to make a bigger shift than just separate my paper from cucumber peel, while at the same time still being under the 9 to 5 treadmill, maintaining in this way (directly or indirectly) the existing order.

‘All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.’ Blaise Pascal

As for the ones as my best friend M., who truly dislikes this type of ‘save the dolphins’ talk, this is just a diary of living the contrast. So, from London clubs to L.Š. solitude.

 

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