More and more, I think that the most ahimsa, practical lifestyle decision one can make is to get off-the-grid as much as possible and to participate as little as possible in the consumer economy, within reason. You could call this living moderately, reducing your carbon footprint, reducing waste, conservation of nature and natural resources, etc. And we all know, at least theoretically, that's it's good for the soul to live simply and with a decent amount of alone time to reflect and contemplate. So here's a very famous quote from Henry David Thoreau that has so much resonance, yet we rarely respond to the call, so I can't resist posting it (from Walden Ch. 2, 1854):
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
— Gabriel Fenteany, December 31, 2015
