Incidentally Green

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More and more I like it here. Some of the best parts are:

1) Being VERY close to nature
2) Living in a one-room cabin that takes little work to maintain
3) Driving once a week or less (my car is parked 1/2 mile away, uphill)
4) Being queen of a cool and airy domain filled with books, computers, and earnestly-studying students. I frequently feel that lowest of pleasurable emotions, schadenfreude, when I see them hunkered over their lab reports at 2 a.m.

I've also been trying to make plans for my new life in Missouri. The culture, of course, will be strange, but it will also be a change to go back to a normal American lifestyle after this summer. And I'm not entirely sure I want to go back.

Some things can't be helped. I chose to rent a house 20 minutes away from the University, since those nearby tended towards the palatial or the slum-like. There is no public transportation, and so I will have to drive, which I tend to avoid simply because I don't enjoy it. I will also not be as close to long forested trails. The neighborhood will be safe to walk in, and there are parks, but I will also probably join a gym to avoid the extremes of temperature.

Other things are up in the air. Currently, I am a vegetarian. On an emotional level, I find killing animals distasteful, though not unethical. The manner in which animals are raised and slaughtered, however, may actually be unethical, and possibly dangerous to the humans who eat them. I do think that humans are naturally omnivorous, and since soy doesn't agree with me, I may go back to eating some meat if I can find a local provider. Many of my neighbors are elderly and have gardens, so I am hoping to be able to trade for fresh produce.

I will maintain some lifestyle changes. The house I rented, for example, is one bedroom, and there is very little storage space. This will limit my accumulation of things (though, I hope, not impede the visitation of friends). I have a small yard where I can hang clothes out to dry.

Dana is a source of inspiration in intentional living -- not letting a society of consumption back one into a default lifestyle. I'm not very crafty, I'm not really a cook, and I've never tried gardening, but reducing still gives me more time to enjoy reading, music, writing, camping, and hiking.

I do think we are ruining our world, although perhaps not at the rate predicted by Al Gore and other environmental prophets of doom, but that is not why I am making these changes. I don't believe I can save the world anymore than I can "rock the vote" in a national election. Kant's universal law has always seemed like hooey to me. But while participating in the national government reduces my pleasure, living a simpler life does, I think, increase it.

I enjoy hanging laundry, walking to do errands, having less house to clean, and paying smaller utility bills. I don't eat Bic Macs because they make my stomach hurt, and I don't have cable TV because it gives me a headache. There are certain aspects of modern life that I would never relinquish, even if they were going to cause the world to end in 50 years: my internet connection and air travel (which is, in fact, an environmental ill), for example. So please don't accuse me of trying to be a good person.