We tell ourselves stories about the things we own

What appeals about the simple life is it's rootedness in reality: the business of getting water and staying warm and feeding ourselves is appropriately complicated and with that comes a rewarding awareness of the fragility and struggle and preciousness of life. We feel a deeper sense of awe, marvel and gratitude: which for me more than compensates for the trivialities of convenience.

When we live off-grid, or radically downsize, we spend more of our time and mental energy on staying alive. Whilst not comparing this effort to the struggles of those in genuine poverty, is makes us feel more alive. If we take as our definition of spirituality "the process of understanding ourselves and how to have a positive impact on those around us", then such a lifestyle is spiritually enriching.

To those still only curious about alternative entrepreneurialism, I do have some very bad news. To me, there is simply no way to do this with all your possessions.

Radical Downsizing Examples

Let me share three personal stories with you of four times (so far) when I have given away 95% of my possessions.

The point of this isn't to get you to do the same. What is right for one person, isn't right for all. Neither is it to valorise radical downsizing.

But it is to ask you to consider the role that materialism and non-materialsm play in our quest to lead meaningful and values-driven lives.

The one you will already know, is when I moved into the van.

The size - or lack of it - of a van, necessitated a radical reallocation of possessions.

All my furniture was given away. Including rugs, mirrors, pictures. A great deal of clothes. A large number of books. Kitchen equipment.

To me (and this was my fourth time doing this, because that's the thing with the possessions....they seem to accumulate, like dust on a skirting board, if we aren't very careful) this was liberating. By this point possessions had come to symbolise physical and psychic encumbrances which made it harder to move through the world. I felt weighed down by them. Owning things caused me stress. For owned things can be damaged, or stolen, or regretted. Owned things require protection, insurance, care and cleaning: you think they serve you but in reality you end up serving them. You know that feeling at the airport when you drop off the big suitcase that you've trailed for a mile, and hoisted on the train...it's like that to be free of possessions.

In fact, little that I owned I had for more than three years: I had arrived back from India with little more than the clothes on my back. For a very long time (years) I put off buying anything. Other than a double bed, four plates, four bowls, four glasses and cutlery I lived for over six months without a chair, curtains, a television, a toaster or microwave or many things considered 'essential'.

And with great delight I arrived in the van and tucked everything away and thought: how neat! How crafty! How convenient!

There are two things I lack: a pair of scissors would be useful. And a pair of tweezers. Nothing else would enhance life in any sense.

In exchange I have 'ownership' of a vast horizon of hills and lakes and forest, I have a close relationship with individual plants, trees and birds. I have exchanged the burden of ownership for the freedom of co-existence.

Returning from India

I left India, where I had planned to stay for several more years, in something of an emergency situation.

I had not amassed that much in my time there. In fact I rented my furniture and electrical goods, which is very common in India.

I had a great, great, great deal of plants (80 or so), I had clothes, I had many precious ingredients and cooking utensils unique to India.

Everything was given either to my neighbour or to my maid.

And other than the stress of needing to do all of this in 48 hours, the leaving posessions part was emotionally neutral. There were much more important things lost at that time.

And what was strange about that, was that it was only a year before that I had arrived in India with two small suitcases and no other belongings at all.

Emigrating

The second time I radically downsized (we are going backwards in time) is from 2019, when I moved to India.

Looking at the costs of transporting my possessions, and also wanting to embrace a new life, I decided to start afresh.

This was traumatic. As a dyspraxic, the physical organisation required to offload, combined with other requirements of visa applications, onboarding in a new country felt...a lot. Unlike my later two disinvestments, I had

I sold things on Facebook and what a delight it was. I suppose I've always had quirky tastes, but this meant that the men and women who bought my offcasts were quite interesting folk to me. As cushions and curtains, le Creuset and cookbooks were paid for and collected, I met some quite remarkable people, who all wished me well on my grand adventure, and this aspect of possessions: the gifting or bequeathing of something uniqely loved to someone who will appreciate it uniquely, is a delight. We share something special with a human who holds in their hands something that once was ours: our shared love bonds us. Possessions aren't all bad.

So I set off for India with two suitcases, yet arrived at the airport 4kg overweight and had a last manic offload of clothes into airport bins. The flight took off.

Controlled downsizing vs enforced downsizing

But my first attempt at radical downsizing was involuntary.

I got into a relationship which turned out to have a lot of problems. But at this point althought my body was desperately trying to communicate this to me, my mind was into rationalising.

Long story short, boyfriend ordered a skip and put ALL my possessions bar my clothes and some items he liked, in it. Whilst I was at work.

This was, he explained, because he already had everything we needed at his house, which I should move into.

Antique furniture, precious bowls and cups, pictures, an old Singer sewing machine I'd scooped up from a charity shop...all slung out.

Aside: I'd seen it coming (it wasn't a total surprise) and hid some possessions at friends' houses. Things of sentimental value. Later, when it had all undeniably gone wrong, I was able to retrieve these things and with them a piece of me. And possessions can do this too. I'd lost my identity and autonomy for a while, and retrieving my possessions restored a sense of it: it was a great relief.

Possesions, utility and joy

The things we own should either have great utility or bring us great joy.

Anything else is clutter.

But we resist this.

Maybe you are like me and grew up with little, and owning things is reassuring at a deep level.

Maybe, also like me, you had a childhood where love was expressed through material gifts,

Maybe like me your possessions are carefully chosen - as likely to be from junk stores as interiors boutiques, or precious tokens from long-gone loved ones. Such possessions don't represent consumerism or greed, we tell ourselves. They are expressions of our personalities.

In such ways, we tell ourselves stories about the things we own. We say that things mean more than the things that they are.

We tell ourselves that love is locked inside them.

That they are who we are.

Yet one day we know we will need to depossess in order to move somewhere smaller: a nursing home, a hospice, a hospital bed, the cold earth.

And so in not doing this yet, by delaying the inevitable, we use our posessions to give us a sense of permanence and immortality. We will leave our possessions in our will. We will gift them to a museum. We will not die, or if we do, people can look at trinkets so as not to forget us as quickly.

Let's go back to the leaf - it's ordariness. It's impermeance. It's beauty and consider whether a rich or a poor man can most appreciate its beauty.

I once went to the South of Italy with three wealthy people. We stayed in expensive hotels and ate expensive meals.

They did not want to visit the church. They did not want to walk in the forest. They did not want to rise early to watch sunset over the harbour. These enticing delights that tugged at my imagination, had no appeal for them. You see: they were full.

They had no room for simple joy, because they were overfed on luxury. Their palettes were dulled. That's how it seemed to me all those years ago. And thus my belief that possessions and sensory indulgence render us less capable of appreciating the small, gifted pleasures of life.

Drug or alcohol or other addictions (work is one), work to incapacitate our dopamine receptors' ability to register 'pleasure' from less intense, though profound, experiences. Desensitisation is real.

And so it is with the things we own. The things we make various excuses for deserving, needing or acquiring, like the druggie and his fix, are like Frodo's ring, a burden.

I won't amass possessions for a fourth time. I don't miss anything I've given anyway.

Let's play a small game.

Take a thing you own. Not your car, not your most expensive coat. Not your Airpods. Just a mug. Or a book. Or a jumper.

Put it in a bag, in a box, in the attic.

You won't miss it. And if you do, you'll live through it.

Then next week do the same.

And the next.

When you're ready, you can give these things away.

Observe how you feel. You can comment on the post at any time in the future...

My suspicion is that you will not feel impoverished, regretful, nostalgic. But that you may find yourself giving up more than one possession a week. You might find you are surrounded by detritus that is simply an uncomfortable cushion between you and an easier life.

Caveat

We don't all aspire to be monks.

Beliefs that either the poor or the rich are morally superior are very unhelpful.

And none of this is to say that what I have found freeing, will work for you.

Or even that I do this thing that I do particularly well. I have secrets: three fat suitcases crammed with clothes I haven't worn in years, and wouldn't fit into are stored at the houses of various friends. Like the portrait of Dorian Gray my youth and fun times still exist somewhere, as if the memory weren't enough without the physical evidence.

But again and again you find that spiritual practice at the highest levels in any culture involves a renunciation of possessions: they get in the way. Camel, eye of the needle and all that.

Whether it is on a vacation, or you are somehow able to bring this practice into an area of your life (your home office, or bedroom, for example) try and cultivate a new relationship with possessions: one in which they have such utility that they become part of the daily rhythm of you life. You get to know them more intimately. You form a relationship with them.

You don't need beautiful things in your house when your house is surrounded by beautiful things.

You don't need to own beauty when you become part of it.

I never saw a butterfly with a Gucci bag.

Photograph taken by me at Hawarden Farm Shop