Readings

Being odd

Years ago, a planning conference of simplicity practitioners began with this question, “Do you ever feel odd?” The question snapped synapses together in brains like a contestants in a Lego contest. Within minutes participants were sharing their long-quieted feelings about “being the only one” or “watching others from the sidelines.”

In a world hell-bent toward fouling its own nest and eating its own seed corn, those of us who are moving toward simplicity are certainly odd. We buy less, we use less. We’re more mindful of our footprints on the planet. We consider consequences of our actions—on others, and over time. We attach low value to what others over-value, and vice versa. We’re happy about different things. We may even smell different!

There are plenty of ways to be an oddball—some of them of questionable derivation or worth. It’s a truism of the simplicity movement that those who live simply soon stand out from the crowds around them, if only because they are moving more slowly and in the opposite direction. These folks attempt to divest themselves of possessions, speed-infested schedules, false notions of importance or purpose or shallow notions of “happy.” As they are generally observed, several of the notions of simplicity seem to threaten a “way of life” that is sacred to those who believe it their right to live beyond their means in an unsustainable world.

What to do about that feeling?

The planning conference participants kept talking long enough to find out that they were not alone—either at the conference or in the general society. They didn’t have to Google “simple living books” (over 9000 titles), fire up search engines on “simple living” (over 4,000,000 references) or run simplicity flags up flagpoles to find out that they were surrounded by like-minded people everywhere. They took courage from that fact.

You may hold in your heart the suspicion that your yearnings for simplicity make you an odd duck in your setting. But before that feeling starts to quack too loudly in your soul, start listening around you for the desperate questions and comments you hear from the “popular kids.” Look at the edges of the crowds in your life, for the quiet people who seem somehow set apart from run-of-the-mill notions of joy or serenity. Ask them respectful and appreciative questions.  See what happens next.

And if nothing else works, consider the joyful, boisterous life of Jesus the Christ, who talked and healed his way through a good life, filled with admirers and followers.

People like you . . . .