We live The Simple Life in Chennai.
Living The Simple Life involves repeatedly professing that one lives the simple life and that one does not need or want anything that ordinary mortals (translation: you and me) cannot do without. It involves proclaiming that one is used to the hard life and is ready to live it again if called upon to do so.
Don't get me wrong; to be an adherent of the Simple Life you do not have to give up anything; you just have to profess to be prepared to, if so required. The acceptance of the daily bounties of life is merely to please someone else: mother, father, family, wife, children et al. You must at all times appear not to want anything for yourself and must constantly beat yourself up with hardships and self-denial. Don't worry, you wont really have to live the life of a monk - someone will always persuade you to partake of the good life and you will do so to please them!
The concept involves abnegating the material as well as accepting it; acceptance not just of the greater cosmic inevitability, but of material things - the latter mainly and only to please the offerer. It might seem oxymoronic that you reject and accept at the same time. That is the beauty of this concept. You negate your need for something but accept that thing in order to please someone. Brilliant, isn't it? You can have what you want but just make a song and dance about how you can live without it and how you are accepting it merely not to offend anyone.
Lets start with the very purpose of life according to the votaries of The Simple Life.We must live this life lest we offend someone who put us here in the first place. We have no desire to live, but since we have been placed here for reasons unknown by powers unknown, we must not upset those powers. Our continued existence must never be confused with a positive desire to live or even to merely exist. We live so that our parents, wives, children and friends don't need to grieve (there are those who make their near ones grieve every moment of their existence, but they are exceptions). We must act as if we don't owe anyone anything but we must make everybody feel they owe us something.
I am here to please my Maker, I go to school to please my parents, I strive for good grades to uphold the honour of my family and school, I get married to please my parents, then I live for my children, after which I renounce everything for a better afterlife ( which is apparently the only instance of my wanting anything for my own sake).
In the TSL scheme of things, one does not express a preference for any item of food or even to eat: one merely eats in order not to displease the one who cooked. The usual refrain is, "not that I want this or that, I eat whatever is placed in front of me in order not to upset the cook ".
It all starts harmlessly enough with an inability or unwillingness even to make a choice, express a preference in food, an item of clothing, or even to say he or she needs anything. In all fairness the females of the species have no problem in expressing what they prefer; the problem is that not only they tell you what they want done, but leave you in no doubt as to how they want it done. It is the male of the species who show preference for TSL. Does it sound like a positive preference for something? Then I must be wrong. There is nothing positive about it. TSL is built on an strenuous avoidance of expression of a preference for anything. Is it negative then? It is certainly not positive. I am inclined to be very charitable today and say that it is neutral.
The votaries of TSL appear as though strenuously denying accepting anything; while being served food it looks as if they are fighting it. Eating is something they do in order to avoid wastage of food which is bound to follow the act of not eating... An extra helping is justified as saving someone else from having to eat leftovers the next day...so on and so forth.
They touch material objects as if they were red-hot or is about to bite them back. They don't consciously go to a place; they merely drop in on something / or someone on their way to some other place. Don't embarrass me by asking if that act of going some place else isn't itself an act of wanting (to do) something. I still haven't got this fully worked out. One day I will. For the nonce the reader has to be content with my empirical observations. They will accept a ride in your car if you are very insistent and that too only because not accepting your offer will offend you.They are quite prepared to walk miles, mind you, but accept a ride in your car lest you will drive alone; Or to help you use the Bus Lane which otherwise you may not be entitled to.
The cornerstone of the TSL is relentlessly professing detachment from all things material. In practice it is like what was said about Mahatma Gandhi - that it cost others a great deal to keep him in poverty.
It takes a lot of effort to help someone live the Simple Life.
Living The Simple Life involves repeatedly professing that one lives the simple life and that one does not need or want anything that ordinary mortals (translation: you and me) cannot do without. It involves proclaiming that one is used to the hard life and is ready to live it again if called upon to do so.
Don't get me wrong; to be an adherent of the Simple Life you do not have to give up anything; you just have to profess to be prepared to, if so required. The acceptance of the daily bounties of life is merely to please someone else: mother, father, family, wife, children et al. You must at all times appear not to want anything for yourself and must constantly beat yourself up with hardships and self-denial. Don't worry, you wont really have to live the life of a monk - someone will always persuade you to partake of the good life and you will do so to please them!
The concept involves abnegating the material as well as accepting it; acceptance not just of the greater cosmic inevitability, but of material things - the latter mainly and only to please the offerer. It might seem oxymoronic that you reject and accept at the same time. That is the beauty of this concept. You negate your need for something but accept that thing in order to please someone. Brilliant, isn't it? You can have what you want but just make a song and dance about how you can live without it and how you are accepting it merely not to offend anyone.
Lets start with the very purpose of life according to the votaries of The Simple Life.We must live this life lest we offend someone who put us here in the first place. We have no desire to live, but since we have been placed here for reasons unknown by powers unknown, we must not upset those powers. Our continued existence must never be confused with a positive desire to live or even to merely exist. We live so that our parents, wives, children and friends don't need to grieve (there are those who make their near ones grieve every moment of their existence, but they are exceptions). We must act as if we don't owe anyone anything but we must make everybody feel they owe us something.
I am here to please my Maker, I go to school to please my parents, I strive for good grades to uphold the honour of my family and school, I get married to please my parents, then I live for my children, after which I renounce everything for a better afterlife ( which is apparently the only instance of my wanting anything for my own sake).
In the TSL scheme of things, one does not express a preference for any item of food or even to eat: one merely eats in order not to displease the one who cooked. The usual refrain is, "not that I want this or that, I eat whatever is placed in front of me in order not to upset the cook ".
It all starts harmlessly enough with an inability or unwillingness even to make a choice, express a preference in food, an item of clothing, or even to say he or she needs anything. In all fairness the females of the species have no problem in expressing what they prefer; the problem is that not only they tell you what they want done, but leave you in no doubt as to how they want it done. It is the male of the species who show preference for TSL. Does it sound like a positive preference for something? Then I must be wrong. There is nothing positive about it. TSL is built on an strenuous avoidance of expression of a preference for anything. Is it negative then? It is certainly not positive. I am inclined to be very charitable today and say that it is neutral.
The votaries of TSL appear as though strenuously denying accepting anything; while being served food it looks as if they are fighting it. Eating is something they do in order to avoid wastage of food which is bound to follow the act of not eating... An extra helping is justified as saving someone else from having to eat leftovers the next day...so on and so forth.
They touch material objects as if they were red-hot or is about to bite them back. They don't consciously go to a place; they merely drop in on something / or someone on their way to some other place. Don't embarrass me by asking if that act of going some place else isn't itself an act of wanting (to do) something. I still haven't got this fully worked out. One day I will. For the nonce the reader has to be content with my empirical observations. They will accept a ride in your car if you are very insistent and that too only because not accepting your offer will offend you.They are quite prepared to walk miles, mind you, but accept a ride in your car lest you will drive alone; Or to help you use the Bus Lane which otherwise you may not be entitled to.
The cornerstone of the TSL is relentlessly professing detachment from all things material. In practice it is like what was said about Mahatma Gandhi - that it cost others a great deal to keep him in poverty.
It takes a lot of effort to help someone live the Simple Life.
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