simplification by travel

Due to my job, I occasionally end up living in different countries for short periods (maybe a few months or so).

During these times, I’ve been put up in a hotel or apartment room and lived off a suitcase. That was it – my entire lifetime of belongings which occupies an entire house back in Bangalore left behind, here everything I really needed to live was in one single suitcase! And no, though in my initial trips I used to simply submit my mind blindly for hours at a stretch to the TV, in recent trips, I more or less brought this down to the minimum.

Sometimes when I used to go around on weekends (sometimes, leaving on Friday night and returning on Monday morning) then everything I ever needed was in just one backpack. No obligations of any kind any time. No need to cook even except when I’ve felt like cooking.. considering that though I watch my health, my eating habits are generally minimalistic – simply eat to live. Even after I eventually ended up becoming vegetarian – readymade salads or cereal or bread, whatever was available were good enough. These are the times I’ve really relished: felt free and unbounded like the wind!

And when I’m back in Bangalore – I initiall found myself perpetually drowned in all kinds of “stuff” – such a mess of so many unnecessary things that consume time and energy to maintain, or when I neglected them, made me feel uncomfortable to see their deterioration.

I’ve often reckoned that if I could survive for so many months abroad without missing all the stuff I’ve got at home, I probably won’t need it for a lot more time as well! But then its so hard to get rid of them simply because of the “someday I might need that” thing! 🙂

But this is one of the main benefits of travelling – every time I travel to a new place, its a situation that atleast temporarily simulates getting rid of all the material stuff I don’t need (which is almost everything 😉 ) – and I’m relieved of all of them, and like a new born baby – a stranger in a new place! Going through the joy of discovery of everything around me all over again! 🙂

In the new place, I own nothing. Back at home, I own everything. Ownership is one of the key points in Marshall Brain’s story Manna.

Sean writes…

The joy-to-stuff ratio can be defined as follows:

“The time a person has to enjoy life versus the time a person spends accumulating material goods.”

It never ceases to amaze me how often people — namely American people — seem to completely ignore the obvious wisdom of the joy-to-stuff ratio.

Well he might have spoken about Americans, but I speculate its no different for Indians in large cities. Atleast based on what we can observe in Bangalore where there’s a very noticeable rise in a mad rush for consumerism off late.

In all my life, I’ve come across only one or two people living amidst a lot of complicated stuff, yet imo (truly) happy as well – who even if their car gets dented, or their imported Swiss watch accidentally drops on the floor, or their house gets swept away by a Tsunami – would of course feel sad temporarily – but they don’t get caught up in it – their spirit and pragmatism is unlikely to get affected. Such people are unlike a boat at sea that gets tossed up and down by the waves and the wind and the tides. Not that they would be like indifferent lifeless zombies, but unlike the boat, they are more like the lighthouse that is anchored – always anchored to the truth that impermanence is the very nature of the world! (ಪರಿವರ್ತನೆ ಜಗದೆ ನಿಯಮ – change is the nature of the world – as expressed in the Gita).

Of course the simplification by travel is only temporary, its not something I want to depend upon for the rest of my life. My enthusiasm to see new places and discover the world hasn’t reduced, but I’m experimenting with having the same simplification where I already live, without the dependency on traveling…

I’ve read only a couple of books by Deepak Chopra but a common underlying theme I see is amidst abundance and opulence. Theorotically this might be possible, but to me it looks like this idea usually ends up in a lot of unnecessary stuff! My question has always been – why exactly does a lot of stuff end up reducing joy?

So far I found one answer in this page…

Somewhere along the way, we messed up our equations; instead of technology keeping pace with humans, human beings frantically started multitasking to keep up with technology.

I love it where he says…

The facade of being “busy” needs to be ripped apart and seen as the distraction that it truly is.

And at some other place… he gives an explanation about why we ended up being busy…

…we should understand our obsession with money. Most economic systems are built on the premise that there is not enough to go around; ie. something is considered to be valuable to the degree in which it is scarce. Because of this presumption, we have designed money in a way that it is always scarce. In fact, the job of the central banks is to create and maintain the currency scarcity. Consequently, we constantly experience scarcity and feel like we have to fight with each other simply to survive. Thus, in large part, society’s insecurity for money is fueled by an imperfect design.

Sham Kashyap too expresses a lot of similar ideas in his blog, and quotes

“Minimizing consumption is not a spiritual goal anymore. It is a question of human survival!”

So there’s no doubt about the need to minimize, and that’s been an ongoing process with me for quite a while.

Apart from material stuff – considering other time and energy related stuff like a corporate job with annoyingly fixed time schedules, various family and social engagements and so on, a question is it possible to live like the happy chinaman… inspite of all that…

Time will provide some answers, and for now it remains an experiment.