For whatever reason it seems to be viewed as the height of success to be able to get other people to do for you. I feel so awkward when others try to do things for me when I know I can - and often ought to - do them for myself.
Blue Zone Lifestyle
I am a big fan of Dan Buettner's book, The Blue Zones. If you are unfamiliar with it then check out this YouTube video:
What I have noticed about this - personally - seems to have been quite a low key element of this way of living and so I want to post about it today. The Blue Zone lifestyle seems to be a peasant lifestyle in many ways.
I remember a while ago listening to a brilliant episode of the Sam Harris podcast with Daniel Markovitz and his work on The Failure of Meritocracy. It is a fascinating book and one of the many things he said to Harris that made me think was about restaurants. Discussing the difference between Taco Bell and a much more exclusive restaurant chain - the name of which escapes me - Markovitz mentioned that the ingredients in the food of each were completely different. Literally. Not even the salt was sourced from the same place. This gave me real pause for thought. I started to ruminate on what this meant. In the UK you would have to be blind, deaf, in a coma and/or dead not to have noticed the divergence of classes in society. I do not wish to get into the political side of this, however. What interests me is the notion of divergent populations because one might argue that there is a similar separation in health. There are people who are astonishingly unhealthy and overweight in Britain, and other places also, but there are many who are the opposite. They are extremely fit, healthy and capable of quite impressive feats of human endurance. For example I once had a head teacher who was also an ultra runner. Marathons now seem almost passé by comparison.
Simple Living
I prefer my life to be as simple as possible. Something men do a lot is needlessly complicate their lives and then justify why they did so. One thing I have come to embrace, to that end, is the idea that technological advancement has not made us better, healthier or happier, necessarily. I am convinced that I ought, as much as is practically possible, to live like a peasant. Now, obviously I do not mean that I ought to wear rags and live an existence of penury. What I do mean, however, is that much of what is classed as success by western standards I have, for quite a while, viewed as actually quite retrograde. There are a few things I try to do that I think are unusual today, or certainly at odds with the norm.
DIY
DIY. I am hopeless at DIY, but I do not mean building and fixing things. I do mean that I have made serious efforts to do things for myself where I can. Even as I write I can hear the faintly ridiculous notion of stating something so obvious but I will explain. In my apartment block everyone uses a maid to clean. I did once, and I was so embarrassed at having someone do that for me that I put a stop to it. I am pretty messy but the discipline of doing this myself has been extremely important. One thing Buettner mentions in The Blue Zones is that those who live in these areas of longevity and good health never stop moving. Every twenty minutes they are either doing housework, yard work, gardening, or some other work that is ultimately an expression and component of self-sufficiency. It keeps their metabolic rates high and that is one of the reasons they are naturally skinnier than others who do not.
Dump the Car
I am a lifelong hater of cars so this is an easy one for me. For some reason almost every man I know thinks that having a nice car is a good thing. If I had to have a car then I would like a good one, but I do not have to and I hate cars. I mean, I REALLY hate cars. I hate them for what they are. I hate the ludicrous notion that having one is somehow an indicator of high social status. I hate the way they dominate the world. I hate the pollution they create. I hate they way some people turn into lunatics behind the wheel. I could go on and on about this.
I have been cycling most of my life. I currently live an a completely walkable place where nothing essential is obtainable only with a car. That is how I like things anyway, however I would still try to avoid cars at all costs if I did need one, only using it when I had no other choice. The difference between a morning sitting in a car to get to work and a morning cycling there instead is remarkable, I am so much happier, productive and energetic when I cycle. Right now work is five minutes away on foot so even that is better than driving, and I must confess to my utter disbelief when I see people driving that distance. When one considers the pollution, deaths, injuries, road rage, lifestyle factors and so on involved in car use I genuinely believe that one can make the case that the invention of the car is the worst thing ever to happen to human beings. Very few people really need one, and I would love to go my whole life without using one.
Eat Rustic
Peasant food, i.e. simple, easy to cook cuisine seems to be the best way to eat, certainly by Blue Zones standards anyway. I cannot remember the last time I met anyone in the UK who cooks from scratch as I do. Here in Kuwait there is a company called Talabat that is more or less Uber Eats or Just Eat for this area and I see them every single day in my building, several times a day, delivering bags loaded full of takeaway food. The real issue for me with this is, aside from the cost, this food takes no energy to produce from those who eat it. In other words, when cooking from scratch one literally expends energy and calories to do so. I think that this is so important because again, the metabolic rate is raised and, in a sense, the meal is earned by spending calories to make it. Also, and I am serious here, I find real dignity in cooking properly and working to eat.
Cooking from scratch also means that I know exactly what I am eating. I have, for many years, tried to read food labels as often as I can and I have noticed that high fructose corn syrup is in almost everything. In Britain I noticed that it was starting to appear in bread - what the hell? Who on Earth thinks that that is a good idea? Eating this substance is like injecting sugar into your veins. It is utter garbage but clearly humans like it because food companies do not seem to be able to make a single thing that does not contain it. Cook from scratch and this can be avoided entirely.
Affluence is Laziness
Almost all of The Blue Zones are poor areas populated by modern day versions of what used to be called peasants. I do not view the term 'peasant lifestyle' as pejorative, but the fact is that where humans can afford not to live this way they do not. The trend towards laziness, inertia and eating junk is clearly universal in humans and therefore discipline is needed to sustain this way of life.
For my part I find that avoiding car use is the one thing that causes others to raise an eyebrow. I have observed that many people often cannot believe a person would cycle to work or get up early to run and that scares me a little. What kind of shape is a nation in if its adults cannot help but balk at the idea of doing an hour of exercise a day? Think of it for a moment: a group of people that, if necessary, could not run a couple of miles twice a day, or could not get on a bike and travel ten miles or so. It is quite remarkable really. My mother used to tell me about her upbringing and the poverty she experienced and one thing that stuck in my mind is that her mother used to walk five miles to work and five miles back each and every day, and this was to go to a manual job. That sounds like an alien world now. Who on Earth would do that in 2023? My grandmother did so out of necessity of course and I loved her so much because she was so generous and kind. She was admirable and so willing to give of herself despite her hard life. Seeing people drive to work when walking would be quicker does not look to me like the car is a marker of success. It looks failure to me. Failure to understand what has been lost to technology. Failure to discipline oneself to do the right thing. Failure to be anything other than a slave to convenience.
I want to live like a peasant.
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