Of course to hear just one person use the word "ascetic" was a joy. More than a joy - a full Monty dance down a yellow brick road I thought was closed off forever.
However, I needed to explore - not geographically - there is NO 'geography' in UK - all is the same dull suburban metropolitan mindset everywhere. TV won.... Any meandering landloper 30 years ago as I was saw gradually the TV creep through many lands. It was as if the TV became lodged within the mind and body of most.
Disaster. There is no poetry via TV. There is no balance. It is a compulsion that never leaves one nourished - exception, the fairly rare thoughtful film which leaves one thinking of life beyond who one became. Other ways of being. Not in some vudu juju manner but in what we REALLY 'want'.
Under 45... or perhaps even 50, it is about attempting to just....JUST!... keep up with the Joneses - except when one is truly engaged i caring for kids, thats all there is - even if the cosmo set attempt to paint their existence as the exact opposite to look cool.
But 45 or certainly 50 and on....
The flailing around internally as to how am i going to live longer. Even if the cosmo set pretend otherwise.
And there is only one focus of absolutely every single subconscious ebb and flow - no matter how folk may wish to cleverly divert into something else they can workshop, and that is does this body flow, harmoniously, with reasonable balance poise and grace?
Which sounds pretentious.
Small space living is the exact opposite of pretention.
And that is where a quasi religious connotation comes into the thought of 'ascetic'.
Originally a concept from religious monkery - denial and piety.
It is all terribly simple: Live, exist, with very little such that only a few things are 'essential' to the harmonious and stress free flow to the day, and small space living enforces HABITS that not only retrain the body but benefit the mind.
Sounds like i would wish to start a £250 a weekend retreat on how to live in a coffin.
Exact opposite.
Live for one...maybe 2 or 3 winters in a bumper sized coffin on wheels and you learn or rather are 'retrained': Each and every smallest movement of my body has a consequence.
to be cont
