Prescriptions

In "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved," Sandor Ellix Katz warns of the prescriptions for eating that seem so popular and prevalent in our food systems today (i.e. marketable diets).  This made me wonder what a prescription for eating would look like if it followed along the lines of the ideas of Katz, Salatin, and Pollan (maybe just a copy of Pollan' Eater's Manifesto?) and at the same time reminded me of an assignment I did in high school.

It was in a class called "Humans and the Environment," and we had just been reading excerpts from "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience" (H.D. Thoreau).  Our assignment was, based on our personal values and any insight we may have gleaned from Thoreau, to come up with a "prescription for living" - in other words, a basic how-to on leading a fruitful and happy life.  I thought I would include what I came up with:

Prescription For Living

“Our life is frittered away by detail; simplify, simplify.”  Henry David Thoreau’s words here can truly be thought of as a prescription for living, for everyone.  What is important in this life is pure, unadulterated, and austere.  As a society, though, we have come to forget this, and instead have crowded into our lives a world of complexity and superfluity.  We convince ourselves that we need this excessive amount of detail, so we continually add more and more, until we have shrouded our lives in a veil of addendums and falsehood.  We are left with superficiality and have no memory or awareness of the simplicity and genuineness of true living.

In today’s world, we have come to believe that objects, what we own, is what makes us content.  We rely upon what we can buy, spend money on, waste time on, to keep us happy.  As a result of this dependence, we are in perpetual want.  We always want more.  The desire for more overwhelms and overshadows what we actually need.  We forget the necessities of life, in favor of accumulating the luxuries.  We judge our happiness by our property.  We regard the man with the Porsche, the uptown mansion, the bimonthly vacations to the Bahamas, and the seven-plus digit bank account as being the epitome of happiness.  The less well-endowed community amuses itself with its laptops, video games, high-end clothing, and fast food binges.  But no matter what we have, we always feel that we would be happier with more.  We believe we will never know true happiness until we have accumulated the maximum in money and objects.  The grass is always greener: it doesn’t matter how much we gain, we will always want more than what we currently have.  

We need to realize that objects are not what makes us happy.  The acquisition or loss of an Abercrombie sweater or a PlayStation 2 will not make or break our lives!  These things, because that is truly all they are, are not necessary.  We do not need them.  In fact, they only add to the confusion.  The details like this don’t augment our lives, they clutter them.  We get too caught up in the muddle of detail, and are drawn away from what is real, and simple.  It is only when we strip away all this detail that is cluttering our lives that we are left with what we need, and what will truly make our lives worth living.  Happiness results from simplicity.  To live well, remove all unnecessary things that disarray your lives.  Live with what you need, not what you think you want.

What do you need in life? The basics: food, water, shelter.  But you don’t need them in excess.  You should have only the amount that you require, nothing more, such as Thoreau describes, “Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.”  This is how such necessities should be approached. 

Fill your life with people and your relationships with them.  The people are what really enrich our lives.  Other people is what is important.  Surround yourself with relationships, not objects.  Objects will get you nowhere; people will.  Humans are what we are because we connect to others.  It’s our nature to associate with other people, build bonds, share emotions, communicate.  You can’t connect with an object.  An object won’t talk to you, respond to you, show you love.  They’re inanimate; they’re not real. You can’t create a relationship with them.  So why busy yourself with something that will never give you anything in return?  Instead, use your efforts on people.  But quality, not quantity, rules: otherwise, it just returns to the “always wanting more” philosophy, and that is exactly what we are striving to avoid.  The amount of people in your life is not important, the significance lies in the essence of the affiliation.  Remember that people are what’s real; relationships are the most absolute, natural, age-old establishment.  There is nothing truer or simpler than the link between humans.  

         “Why should we live with such hurry and waste of  life?  We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.  Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow,” Thoreau continues.  To truly enjoy life, we all just need to slow down and live it.  It’s impossible to be content if all your time is spent worrying about the future.  Concerning yourself wholly with tomorrow means that you’ll completely miss today.  Living in the moment is what it comes down to.  Stop and smell the roses, or else they’ll wilt and die before you ever give them a second glance.

This is all that life will give to you.  To make the most of it, simplify your life so you don’t get bogged down by detail.  Focus your energy on your relationships, not your objects, because in the end, people are what matter.  Finally, live in the moment; live for today. Life is about the journey, not the destination.