Conscious Living

For quite a while I frequented simple living websites and read simple living books and articles. Immersing myself in simple living ideas and discussions perhaps didn't make my life simpler but it did contribute to a higher level of awareness about choices I was making. People define simple living in different ways and I think what I took from it was less about living simply and more about living consciously.

I try to make choices about what I eat and use and drive and do that will have a neutral effect on the environment and have positive economic, political and social effects. I think some of my choices are fairly easy--sticking to a vegetarian diet, driving a biodiesel car when I don't take public transportation, choosing flourescent lights, joining a CSA--but some things aren't so easy and I don't choose well. For example, our home may be small and efficient by US standards but compared to the rest of the world our 1,000 square foot air-conditioned and centrally heated condo is almost luxurious and certainly wasteful.

Conscious living isn't easy because it means knowing that some of your choices may adversely effect other people, animals, and the earth. And by knowing I mean feeling it in your gut, deeply and frequently. It means knowing that buying cheap clothes in an attempt to live frugally (often an important part of simple living) may support child labor in another country, keep already low wages for retail workers unlivable, encourage harmful environmental practices, and other negative consequences. It means imagining a 12 year old girl sold into modern day slavery to work in a clothing factory to pay off her parents debt.

It means losing sleep over some of these possible consequences.

So how does one go about living life with all of these possibilities swirling madly through one's mind? I have never quite found the right balance but when I fill my mind with new thoughts I can push some of the images of irreparable damage to the edge. For now, while I immerse myself in the philosophy of science and sociological theory and quantitative methods I am able to just live. As scared as I am to start school and be faced with understanding a new body of thought, it also provides relief to some of my overconscious living tendencies and I haven't decided yet if that is good or bad or value neutral.