Four Guilty Pleasures I Need to Quit

Since life is our ultimate learning experience, and there are always improvements to be made, I’ve decided to compile a list of habits and choices in my life that I would like to change – two short and two long term.

Short Term:

1. Stop thrifting.

One of the many piles of give-away stuff before my move.

“Stop thrifting!?” you say, “I thought thrifting was good.” Yes, generally going to your local thrift store for something you need is a great way to reduce waste, support the local economy, and save money. However, my guilty pleasure and the verb “thrifting”, is sort of a synonym to “shopping”. You know, the “I don’t have anything to do, so I’m going to go to the mall to distract myself and look at the pretty things and probably buy something I don’t need” thing. The mystery of the hunt while thrifting adds a bonus lure – finding the jewel in the ruff. That added excitement is quite addictive. I must admit, I’m pretty decent at walking out of the thrift store without buying anything should nothing call out to me; however, the principle I need to face is that I am still killing time (and cash) seeking things I don’t need. Every cute thing I bring home that I don’t really need is a backward step from the intentional, minimalist life I am trying to create. So, in the spirit of intentional living, no more going to the thrift store without a mission!

2. Chuck shampoo & soaps.

I picked up this tip from my favorite blogger, vegan chef, and ultimate lifestyle role model, Joy Tienzo. As someone with fine hair (I wouldn’t quite call it “thin”), and a definite T-zone of oily skin on my face, I am excited to see how the no-poo method works for me. Joy writes that she didn’t like the baking soda/apple cider vinegar method mentioned on a lot of sites, so I’m going to follow her advice to condition once weekly and scalp massage daily first.

For my skin, the supply and demand explanation of bodily oils definitely makes sense. The more you soap up your face, the more oil your skin produces. We need to reach a natural balance instead of a roller coaster. I have experienced mild to moderate acne and oily skin since puberty, and I’m hoping the oil cleansing method will finally (I’ll be 25 next week for goddess’ sake!) help my skin find the balance I’ve been screwing up the past decade or more with various soaps, astringents, topical medications, and antibiotics. Since I eat a fairly healthy diet, I think for me acne is mostly hereditary – which is the most frustrating part. However, I refuse to believe the only way to cure my acne is through medications. I am determined to find out what will make my skin naturally clear, whether it be through eliminating an irritating food (wheat? dairy? peanut butter?), or discontinuing stripping the natural oils from my skin which have been causing it to overproduce oils for years. I plan to make an antimicrobial oil concoction with coconut oil as the base and a few drops of tea tree and lavender essential oils to use for a nightly cleanser. To be honest, adding moisture to my skin resonates with me much more than soaping. More and more lately, I’ve been feeling like I am doing my skin a disservice by going to bed with it squeaky clean and dry. I imagine my new regimen will not only lead to less maintenance but probably discourage wrinkles as I get older, unlike constant drying of the skin. I believe in the infinite wisdom of my body and its ability to heal itself, so I feel like any treatment I impose on myself that goes against my body’s natural processes is counterproductive. I think that’s why no-poo makes sense to me.

I laugh at myself for this new adventure because I recently bought two “natural” products on impulse. They were shampoo and facial wash.

I’m not saying anything bad about these companies and they are certainly better than the average chemical stuff, but I believe we need to be aware of greenwashing these days during which “green” is hip and trendy. Don’t think that advertisers and big companies aren’t going to capitalize on this trend in order to make money, usually selling us stuff we do not need. While I have been very happy with these products for what their jobs are, and at the time of purchase I didn’t yet know about the no-poo and oil-wash methods, I was definitely a victim of impulse buying with the facial wash and shampoo.

So, I’m going to give no-poo and oil wash a whirl and report back with my results to see if my impulse buys truly were unneeded.

Long term:

1. Driving a car.

I recently paid off my car loan after two and a half years. Woo! I officially don’t owe anyone anything! Except my parents I guess since they birthed me and let me live in their house rent-free for 18 years. However sweet it is to not have a car payment every month anymore, there is still a little voice in my head saying I shouldn’t own a car at all. Insurance payments, gas, pollution, military-industrial complex, carcinogens in car materials… yeah. My current travel plans for wwoofing SE USA include traveling by car; however, I see myself possibly doing some wwoofing in South America next year. This may require selling the car. My dream is to one day live in a great cooperative community where there would be a shared car. My primary mode of transportation would be feet and bike, and folks in the community could reserve the car for special occasions or large hauls. And it would be a veggie mobile. *Sigh*

2. Disposables and recyclables.

Since I am going to be a farming intern for the rest of this year, I hope I don't have to wait too long to fulfill this goal because luckily, homegrown food has no packaging! In the previously described dream community I plan to find or create in the future, all our food will be homegrown = goodbye need to dispose or recycle! Love the correction: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse… then Recycle.

In the mean time, I try to reduce the packaging I consume by supporting the local farmers’ markets which are just popping up for the spring season here in Richmond – lovely, buying in bulk, and choosing less-packaged products. By buying more produce instead of processed semi-foods, you can cut your disposable packaging by a LOT!

Off I go to do my scalp massage!

On Simplicity

I was reading through some of my first posts from the original Raw Summer back in 2007, and was reminded about how I’d dedicated my cleanse to not only my body, but to my surroundings as well. I’d proclaimed to get rid of excess stuff and simplify my belongings and life. How fitting to revisit now, as I transition to life on the road.

As mentioned briefly before, I am planning to be a farming intern this summer through WWOOF. Therefore, I am currently working on giving away, selling, and donating most of my “stuff”*. I am trying to pare down to the essentials. I feel like minimizing is a constant process in my life, evident by the fact that I write about it often and it always seems to be needing done again and again. I don’t consider myself a hoarder by any means, but tend to like pretty (though usually cheap or free) things like thrifty home decor. Nevertheless, it is stuff I will need to purge in order to travel as freely and easily as I desire. My friend gave me a great compliment by saying, “You are already pretty minimalist,” in response to my proclamation that I wanted to be. However, the more I learn, the more I develop the idea, the more I garner inspiration from others, the more I up the anti on my own simplicity goals.

So, once again, I find myself wanting to shed unnecessary “stuff” from my life as well as nourish my body more fully through raw foods and the avoidance of negative nutrition. And it is spring. Here in Richmond the wind is blowing and the flowers and trees are in full bloom. Nature seems to be damp and fuzzy. Soon, summer will begin my adventure of living off the land, learning to be more self-sufficient, experiencing real food production first hand, and listening to the stories from those who know it best.

I’ll finish this post by sharing some very inspiring quotations I came across today on simple and non-conformist living:

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Seth Godin, Tribes

“Life is indeed bloody short and no one is going to give you a gold star for playing it safe.” - Almost Fearless

* By “stuff” I mean clutter, excess, non-essentials, anything that makes me feel bad or obligated, or doesn’t serve me as a useful and productive item, anything I haven’t used in a long time, anything I’m keeping out of “sentimentality” but serves no purpose. “Stuff” is weight, baggage, guilt, and blockades to Freedom.

Raw Summer

May 6, 2007 2:56am

A minute ago I was brushing my teeth after helping move my boyfriend from one dorm room to another. As always, it was a lot of work, and he expressed the same thoughts as many college kids do these days (as is evident by the amount of usable items one can find in the trash on moving day). He said, “Tonight I realized how much shit I actually have.”

I came to the same conclusion when it came time to move my stuff from my dorm room into my first apartment. I had been moving in slowly for a few weeks already and invited my parents up to help me finish things up and to see my new place. I thought I just had a few things left over to move, but it ended up being, you know, a whole lot of shit. Shit I didn’t realize I even had. Shit I didn’t really need. But once I saw it, shit I new I couldn’t part with. So as I am brushing my teeth I make a connection. This summer is going to be an experiment in minimalism.

I am in a new home; I have just finished a year of school that marks my halfway point through college. I feel I have grown so much in the past two years. I feel like I have been a sponge absorbing information: from reading, from watching people, from talking to people, from library videos. Now, I feel like I have absorbed enough information so that I am ready for some big changes in my life. I don’t want to be materialistic in the least. I already buy all of my clothes at thrift stores or come across them for free; I am not a mall go-er. I tried to work in a mall store recently and could barely stand it for two weeks before abruptly quitting.

But this morning I woke up, looked around my bedroom and felt cramped in all of my stuff – and guilty for it. This summer things are going to change, but junk and stuff isn’t the only part. I am going to change my surroundings, but I am also going to change my body. It too is going to go through a minimalist summer (and beyond). I am going to try my best to eat raw foods only. I am going to record daily as best I can a food and activity log. I am going to be riding my bike about 3 miles to school and work (school library) every day and shopping at the nearby flea market for locally grown produce for my meals. I will record how I feel each day and note changes in my moods, feelings, digestion, sleep, energy levels, and physical appearance. I will also record any interesting outside influences I encounter during this summer. Tonight I finish with the lyrics to The Broadways song “25 Degrees North":

"My friend gave everything he owns away
and my friend says he's happier that way.
He says, 'Did you ever notice the more you own,
the more worries you have?'
I thought about my rent check and my bank account
and couldn't help but understand.
He told me that he's going back to Santa Cruz to live on a boat
without a phone or a thing in his hands,
and I'm staying in Chicago to work and go to school
and fuck off with my shitty fucking band.
And he said, "Brendan you should try it. It makes you feel so good.
Brendan you should try it, it makes you feel so good."
So I threw away a stereo and some clothes to show I understood.
Down on the gold coast the people look so happy.
Money gets you laid, I saw it on tv.
A brand new car, vcr, a satellite dish,
and a 6 pack are just a few parts of this American dream.
Well my friend had a dream to be free.
He made it come true by giving away his tv.
Yeah my friend had a dream to be free.
He made it come true with a backpack and his feet.
When I walk along the city streets no one smiles or talks to me.
I've seen possessions that run people's lives.
Everything we own makes us afraid to be friends,
sharing used to be natural, it'll never be that way again.
My friend relearned to be a human being,
how to stop and talk to people on the streets.
He gave everything he owns away,
and lives his dream with a backpack and his feet."

When I look around my room now, I think of how hard this is going to be. Mostly because of the things I have that have sentimental value or things I can see myself using in the future… just not right now, or things that are just pretty to look at. But I have noticed that some things I have give me a bad feeling when I see them. It’s a sort of guilty feeling. It’s very subtle, and I only realize it when I think about it. And it does feel good to put it in the give-away pile. For now I just tell myself everything will find a home somewhere: just not with me. I want to be free. More tomorrow.

Day 1

Today isn’t going so well for my first day of raw summer. First of all, I realized I can’t do this cold tofurkey. I have a lot of food in the house that is canned or cereal and stuff that I don’t want to waste. So I figured it might be better for my body anyway if I gradually go more and more into raw only. So, this morning I had a banana and 2 packets of Nutrition for Women instant oatmeal. Then I went and helped Chris move the rest of his stuff that we couldn’t finish moving last night. He saw what I was writing last night and decided to do raw summer with me. At least the getting-rid-of-stuff part. I don’t think he knows about the food cleansing part. He said a few times today again how he needs to get rid of all of his stuff. He said he wants to only have enough stuff to live out of his backpack. I found that funny because just a few days ago I wanted to go through his massive selection of T-shirts and get rid of a few and he refused me. He later said that he just didn’t want to take the time to go through the stuff.

I found a priceless quotation by Carol J. Adams in her book Neither Man Nor Beast about the stuff you just have to do: “The moment when I realized that maintenance must be valued as productive was while I was cooking vegetarian food; thus I was doing what we generally consider to be maintenance. The problem is to escape from maintenance to produce these or any ‘productive’ thoughts. Seeing maintenance as productive is the other side of recognizing the ethical importance of the consequences of our actions.” I often think of her words when I am doing chores or errands or things I don’t want to do or I feel don’t make a difference, but must be done anyway. Another thing I kind of feel bad for doing on the first day of raw summer is getting a couch. I do give myself some credit however since it was free and would have gone to the landfill if I hadn’t saved it. It was by the dumpsters in the dorm parking lot. It is a small couch and very comfy which makes me feel better too. I also decided that since I got it, I am going to give my folding chair to my mom for her classroom. I feel that is a good trade. Today I am going to take all of the clothes and things that I sorted out during move-in to the thrift store as well as a couch Chris decided to part with (and also didn’t have room for).

I also decided to make a few rules for my minimalism. I think books should be excluded. Not all books of course. I have a pile to trade on a paperback book swap website. I think books supply knowledge that can help me in this endeavor as well as through life. I will, however, get rid of books that I’ll never use or which are not good references. I think a good way for me to get rid of things with sentimental value might be to give them as gifts to people I know will appreciate them.

For lunch I had some left over Japanese food: rice noodles with steamed veggies. Not raw, but vegetables nonetheless. I really need to go to the store and get some fruit. I start school tomorrow already, unfortunately. I guess that is the price of graduating in four years these days. At least it will be new classes. I am taking anatomy and physiology one and two at the same time this summer as well as microeconomics. I digress.

For dinner I had some dark vegan chocolate (2 pieces) and the rest of my Japanese and more oatmeal (2 packets. I am trying to use it up.) I just ordered two books off of paperback swap. One is called Communion: The Female Search for Love by bell hooks. I like this part of the description: “as feminists of hooks' generation reach midlife, they may find it easier to rethink these terms of engagement, to risk changing things. The first step, she says, is self-love accepting one's body and soul just the way it is. Without such acceptance, women cannot escape the domination-submission dynamic. Even then, in this patriarchal universe finding love with another person may require some creativity. Hooks explores romantic friendships, lesbian loves and "circles of love" (which allow for committed bonds that extend beyond one partnership). A life with no coupling, but "a more authentic relationship between self and world," may also be satisfying. Twenty-something women who've embraced the highly problematic "bitch persona" Elizabeth Wurtzel has written of may sneer at hooks's affirming style, but older women, particularly those raising girls themselves, will find much to ponder here." Although I am only 20 I feel like I am not of the “bitch persona” and I enjoy reading about older women, not the typical chick flick novels. Older women are so much more interesting and deep and comfy. Like SARK.

The other book I ordered I have been meaning to read for a while. I have had it checked out from the library but now I will own it. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams. I read her other book Neither Man Nor Beast and it was very good and informative. I liked how she wouldn’t use the term “meat” because it was a “mass term” meaning that it ignored the individuality of the animals and didn’t recognize the amount or source of the “meat.” So instead she would say "dead flesh" or call it the "corpse production industry". It was full of sarcasm and wit. She used it at every opportunity so one could tell that she was stubborn and strong-willed. Reading time and then bed.