In reply to the following thread at the Bombay Wise Up Club Martini Club

Um..... While it may have come across as such, I had not intended that post as a glorification of poverty. I have spent too much time amongst people who didn't have enough, and instead of making them somehow noble, it made them stingy and mean. Some felt entitled to take advantage of others - they have so much, so they sure can spare this - or even to steal from people who were just as poor as them. Whenever this type of yachtie showed up in an anchorage, people battened down the hatches, the harbormasters got very unfriendly and all in all things became very unpleasant in a hurry.

I don't think that's the way to go at all, in fact. What I had in mind was more along the lines of having what you need, instead of having what you want, or even worse, haven even more than what you want.

Happiness only through struggle? Doesn't sound very appealing, does it? But I am afraid that without struggle it is rather difficult to get there. And I guess you are right, after we've been there for a while it palls and we have to struggle all over again. The only drug that I never get bored with in its various manifestations is alcohol. But then again, a friend is right now in the process of dying because his liver has finally given up the fight. So.... I am taking a little breather at the moment.

My own blog often careens towards anti-bourgeois broadsides as well.

I had to laugh out loud when I read that sentence. A pleasant surprise on an otherwise rather unpleasant day. But it is true, recently I am given a bit to firing broadsides while my ship is turning to all points of the compass. And what's worse is that I am giving no thought to returning fire, or tactical considerations on where and how to dodge the cannonballs which might come my way.

The rake? Sounds like a damn fine one, worthy to be fixed.

What kind of company I am keeping? Why, the same one I have kept for years. Mostly misfits and alcoholics, writers and disillusionists. I am not overly worried about them sinking into the soft cushion of over-consumption. If anybody, it is more myself and our little family that I am worried about. I am straining at the bit, itching to go and I can see that it will be quite a struggle to cast off and get away from here.

Life is comfortable, too much so. It deadens the senses and it inhibits any kind of action. It would be stupid to leave just like that and it would be even more stupid to stay. The people who have more or consume more are the ones that I hold up in front of my eyes, saying: This is not what you want, old boy! End up in a ditch, yeah, sink with all hands - all that is part of the game. But never even trying? I am extremely wary of the path of least resistance, the comfortable middle-way. Maybe it's just me, but I just can't see myself on my deathbed being satisfied with myself when all I could look back to is a life of mediocrity, safety, security, comfort and luxury.

But there's something else, which has nothing to do with my particular slightly insane quest for a meaningful life (Quote my father: "Not all people can or want to live your way!") - I just really hate waste of all kinds. And all this overconsumption-business encourages waste on a monumental scale, even down to the rape and destruction of the planet we live on. And yet it is one of the cultural mainstays of every country I have ever been to.

As far as scaling back is concerned, I would have to say that I could be classified as a minimalist in everyday life. The only thing that I am really attached to is my library. And since I already lost one because of a typhoon years ago, I know that it may hurt, but it isn't all that bad after all. Who knows, maybe that was a lesson to be learned as well. I have read the books, the ideas have become part of me and changed me, so why should I be attached to the possession of the actual volumes? So far I still am, I have to admit.