A favorite book of my youth by this title had these first words to say, right up front in the introduction, "First steal this book." In essence that is what most folks on the internet do, they steal information, often information that was produced by at least one other person. So it is in life as well and before we go too deeply into practicing this skill, let me say that at best it is somewhat rhetorical. Nothing but air, food water...and you are off to the races down many long and slippery slopes. We must always consume some things and exchange gasses, that is part of what animates us. I think we learned in Science Class in seventh grade, that all organisms eat, excrete, exchange gasses and reproduce. So, apart from these things, which can each be entered into in ways that may or may not have either positive or negative consequences. In fact, some methods for doing each of these defining acts, can have both positive and negative consequences. However, entire books could be written about each of these matrices and those tomes are for the most part written.
As many are fond of saying, "Don't sweat the small stuff, it is all small stuff." In relation to interplanetary and galactic scale, that may be true, but within the ionosphere, on this planet, there are important forces and trends that we need to take into account for quality of life to remain constant or improve. A very dear friend from college days dropped in and taught me that "If you can play with the kids, bake bread and do dishes, you will never go homeless." this, I have found to be true. What I would like to know is why so few people know about it or are unwilling to learn these basic skills. The small stuff really matters more than we can know because an endless series of relationships passes from our simple actions through chains of causation to create the environment that we must face daily. When I buy an item made with sweatshop labor, or that has been produced with a tremendous toxic legacy or requires vast stores of energy to produce, all of the ramifications of creating that product are an accepted "cost" of making that choice. The very device I am using now may have been produced with little more than high tech slave labor, sadly I don't even know if it was. Each of us must make certain choices and we will each be responsible for our own part in making the world of tomorrow.
I cannot possibly tell anyone what to do, but certain things that I have studied led me to make certain choices that worked and I can share them with you for better or for worse, you may not want to try them, but they may spark your own creativity into finding ways to live better on less in your life that will enrich your quality of life while greatly increasing your standard of living. When I was young, a trip to the dump or a junk picking run seemed a great way to both keep things from being land filled, or when I was really young incinerated. I even graduated to dumpster jumping for food when I became an adult. Certain rules apply, especially if you do not want to get sick, but I would estimate that hundreds of thousands of meals are thrown away each day in our country alone. Many pigs in our country eat better than people in some parts of the world. Being people of privilege, you would think that we would have more of a sense of obligation toward more equitable distribution of our great wealth.
A few packets of seed can, when carefully tended, produce many bags full of food I have found packets of viable seed for as little as $.05. What is the return on that investment? sorry to do the math thing again, but it helps to illustrate that although you may not really live on nothing, that living in abundance with plenty to give away can be done for a pittance if you allocate your time appropriately. Say each bag of food weighs in at 10 pounds. With some crops it might be less, but many other crops would be more than ten pounds per grocery bag. Conservatively, there would be a bag for each seed packet, again many would be more than that but some would be fewer. So fifteen cents investment could yield three bags or thirty pounds of produce. now, overt he past year or two, groceries have gone up tremendously. what used to average less than a dollar per pound has risen, in some cases to over three! Again let us take a conservative number like two dollars per pound. $0.15 yields then, $60.00, a four-hundred fold increase in value! Having tended gardens, three packets of seed could not take more than about an hour to plant, an hour to thin, perhaps another few hours through the growing season to weed and top dress with some compost. Even if you spent a few hours watering , which would be a lot, you could assume that you were paying yourself very conservatively at a rate of 7-10 dollars per hour. Not at all shabby if all your needs are met through playing with the children, baking bread and washing up the dishes.
Living on nothing then is more about cultivating a way of life that is of service to others and rewarding to yourself. Often, when I go to work, it is more for the fun and camaraderie than for the paycheck. If I just wanted the cash, there are more regular things that I could do but I probably wouldn't enjoy them nearly as much. For a time, I kept a small notebook and when conversing, I would note things that other people liked or enjoyed, needed or were on the prowl for. Perhaps, in the days of big old TVs with their wooden stands, someone would see my fish tank displayed in the cabinet and want one. I would take on part of their desire and perhaps find one for them, noting the size aquarium they wanted to put in it. I would hear that someone wanted to start hanging their clothes out to dry and within a week I would find clothespins at a rummage sale, things like that. even providing the service of shopping for a shut in in your neighborhood can bring unfathomable joys that cannot be bought with currency. A favorite saying that I heard when I was very young, but that always stays with me is, Desire is a trap, and liberation from desire is moksha (enlightenment). Living the truth of that statement is a challenge, but one that pays great rewards.
I could go on about hundreds of other ways to conserve and collect massive rewards for minimal effort. However, I was warned against throwing out too many ideas, so as not to disorient the potential newbies. instead, if you want more ideas send a SASE and five dollars (or something of equivalent value) to me at: one, double four, five Porlier Street Green Bay, Wisconsin five, four, three-0-one. We can also make the transaction on Paypal, just use my email once you get there for the account. (tnsaladino42@hotmail.com I will return a list of 100 things that one can do to save at least five dollars each over the next year. That alone, if you practiced every one would be a payback of 100 fold, again conservatively. Where the real value accrues is in getting your life back and truly, what is the real value of that? Priceless.
Okay, one more, just so you know I'm not fooling around. during the eighties, we began to get upset by the cost of canned beans, we ate a fair amount of them, primarily because they were reasonably priced, but the cost kept escalating. We began to buy fifty pound sacks of dry beans and cook them quickly in a large pressure cooker, to save fuel. Then we would can them in quart jars. Our accounting was that the quarts cost us about $0.25. At the time I believe that twelve ounce cans were $1.60. this was a bit more than 1/3 as much for over six times the cost. It took a few hours, but would feed us for many weeks on what we would spend for a few days of food from the store. The keys to all of these techniques are many, to think outside the box, invest in your own time, learn something and find ways to get better quality for less cost. This, in turn, usually creates opportunities to share deep connections with others by having more to share, examples of the ways your life is enriched and provide examples for others to follow on their way to their own process of living more lightly on the planet.
As many are fond of saying, "Don't sweat the small stuff, it is all small stuff." In relation to interplanetary and galactic scale, that may be true, but within the ionosphere, on this planet, there are important forces and trends that we need to take into account for quality of life to remain constant or improve. A very dear friend from college days dropped in and taught me that "If you can play with the kids, bake bread and do dishes, you will never go homeless." this, I have found to be true. What I would like to know is why so few people know about it or are unwilling to learn these basic skills. The small stuff really matters more than we can know because an endless series of relationships passes from our simple actions through chains of causation to create the environment that we must face daily. When I buy an item made with sweatshop labor, or that has been produced with a tremendous toxic legacy or requires vast stores of energy to produce, all of the ramifications of creating that product are an accepted "cost" of making that choice. The very device I am using now may have been produced with little more than high tech slave labor, sadly I don't even know if it was. Each of us must make certain choices and we will each be responsible for our own part in making the world of tomorrow.
I cannot possibly tell anyone what to do, but certain things that I have studied led me to make certain choices that worked and I can share them with you for better or for worse, you may not want to try them, but they may spark your own creativity into finding ways to live better on less in your life that will enrich your quality of life while greatly increasing your standard of living. When I was young, a trip to the dump or a junk picking run seemed a great way to both keep things from being land filled, or when I was really young incinerated. I even graduated to dumpster jumping for food when I became an adult. Certain rules apply, especially if you do not want to get sick, but I would estimate that hundreds of thousands of meals are thrown away each day in our country alone. Many pigs in our country eat better than people in some parts of the world. Being people of privilege, you would think that we would have more of a sense of obligation toward more equitable distribution of our great wealth.
A few packets of seed can, when carefully tended, produce many bags full of food I have found packets of viable seed for as little as $.05. What is the return on that investment? sorry to do the math thing again, but it helps to illustrate that although you may not really live on nothing, that living in abundance with plenty to give away can be done for a pittance if you allocate your time appropriately. Say each bag of food weighs in at 10 pounds. With some crops it might be less, but many other crops would be more than ten pounds per grocery bag. Conservatively, there would be a bag for each seed packet, again many would be more than that but some would be fewer. So fifteen cents investment could yield three bags or thirty pounds of produce. now, overt he past year or two, groceries have gone up tremendously. what used to average less than a dollar per pound has risen, in some cases to over three! Again let us take a conservative number like two dollars per pound. $0.15 yields then, $60.00, a four-hundred fold increase in value! Having tended gardens, three packets of seed could not take more than about an hour to plant, an hour to thin, perhaps another few hours through the growing season to weed and top dress with some compost. Even if you spent a few hours watering , which would be a lot, you could assume that you were paying yourself very conservatively at a rate of 7-10 dollars per hour. Not at all shabby if all your needs are met through playing with the children, baking bread and washing up the dishes.
Living on nothing then is more about cultivating a way of life that is of service to others and rewarding to yourself. Often, when I go to work, it is more for the fun and camaraderie than for the paycheck. If I just wanted the cash, there are more regular things that I could do but I probably wouldn't enjoy them nearly as much. For a time, I kept a small notebook and when conversing, I would note things that other people liked or enjoyed, needed or were on the prowl for. Perhaps, in the days of big old TVs with their wooden stands, someone would see my fish tank displayed in the cabinet and want one. I would take on part of their desire and perhaps find one for them, noting the size aquarium they wanted to put in it. I would hear that someone wanted to start hanging their clothes out to dry and within a week I would find clothespins at a rummage sale, things like that. even providing the service of shopping for a shut in in your neighborhood can bring unfathomable joys that cannot be bought with currency. A favorite saying that I heard when I was very young, but that always stays with me is, Desire is a trap, and liberation from desire is moksha (enlightenment). Living the truth of that statement is a challenge, but one that pays great rewards.
I could go on about hundreds of other ways to conserve and collect massive rewards for minimal effort. However, I was warned against throwing out too many ideas, so as not to disorient the potential newbies. instead, if you want more ideas send a SASE and five dollars (or something of equivalent value) to me at: one, double four, five Porlier Street Green Bay, Wisconsin five, four, three-0-one. We can also make the transaction on Paypal, just use my email once you get there for the account. (tnsaladino42@hotmail.com I will return a list of 100 things that one can do to save at least five dollars each over the next year. That alone, if you practiced every one would be a payback of 100 fold, again conservatively. Where the real value accrues is in getting your life back and truly, what is the real value of that? Priceless.
Okay, one more, just so you know I'm not fooling around. during the eighties, we began to get upset by the cost of canned beans, we ate a fair amount of them, primarily because they were reasonably priced, but the cost kept escalating. We began to buy fifty pound sacks of dry beans and cook them quickly in a large pressure cooker, to save fuel. Then we would can them in quart jars. Our accounting was that the quarts cost us about $0.25. At the time I believe that twelve ounce cans were $1.60. this was a bit more than 1/3 as much for over six times the cost. It took a few hours, but would feed us for many weeks on what we would spend for a few days of food from the store. The keys to all of these techniques are many, to think outside the box, invest in your own time, learn something and find ways to get better quality for less cost. This, in turn, usually creates opportunities to share deep connections with others by having more to share, examples of the ways your life is enriched and provide examples for others to follow on their way to their own process of living more lightly on the planet.
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