au Natural

Both the Stoics and the Epicureans advocated living according to nature, though each sought inspiration with different eyes. The Stoics believed in a universe bound up by a divine plan, and that a life of virtue meant living according to that plan, accepting what happened as the will of God -- or cosmic fate.  Deities and their wills were more immaterial to the Epicureans, however, who saw more chaos than order in the cosmos and believed virtue lay in making the best of what we were given, of enjoying life while it lasted. There is wisdom in learning to adapt to whatever life throws at you, just as there is wisdom in enjoying it fully and not getting too distracted by mental chatter -- but there is more to living naturally than either.

What does it mean to live naturally? Outside of culture, beliefs, and ideology, human beings are fundamentally members of the animal kingdom in full standing. We use ideas to put distance between ourselves and that kingdom, but we are its subjects at every moment of the day whether we think we are or not. We are motivated by the same needs and instincts as every other animal on the planet, even if we dress those instincts up as feelings.  Our instincts and needs are the products, not of perfect creation, but of imperfect evolution, of millions of years of trial, error, fix-it-on-the-fly biological compromise.  To live naturally, first, is to respect that fact.

Before going forward, however, there is the matter of the naturalistic fallacy to address. Just because something is Natural does not mean  it is good, or to be desired.  Wariness and hostility toward strangers might be a natural instinct, but in modern times, chances are that the sudden arrival of group of strangers will not be a raiding party intent on killing your young,  eating your fruit, and kidnapping your sisters -- a scenario our genes may be expecting when they produce anxiety in us at the appearance of an unknown person.  Here is the wisdom of philosophy, in teaching us to overcome instincts that work to our detriment.  However, we will presumably function best in the environment in which we evolved. That environment is not limited to the physical climate, but includes the kind of behaviors we're allowed to enact, the relations we engage in. Thus, humans are happier with one another than alone; we are happier sheltered from inclement weather than exposed to it; we are happier eating fresh food than rotting.

We must be conscious of our status as natural creatures, because instincts will manifest themselves with or without our permission.  Hierarchies are ubiquitous among social animals, for instance, and in mammals there is often an alpha individual who rises to the top through strength, cunning, or in the case of certain primate species, cunning. Why then are we so surprised at the regularity with which political systems produce strongmen, and our easiness in accepting them?  That monarchies persisted for so long, and that democracies become oppressive, is less a condemnation of political organization and more a mark against the systems which allow our natural weakness to lead to unnatural brutality. If Hitler had been the alpha male of a group of hunter-gatherers,  the same strengths which brought him to power might have let him lead the tribe against threats -- and if they did not, or if those strengths failed him, he could have been displaced with ease.  Civilization, however, has given alphas armies to expand their own power beyond natural limits, and given them means (like tradition or media outlets)  to control by influence what they cannot touch by brute force.

We cannot turn back the clock and become hunter-gatherers. We must learn to work within the limits of our biology. In the realm of politics,   the most rational response to our hierarchical weakness is to decentralize power as much as possible. Charismatic, strong, and cunning individuals will rise in every population and hold influence over people, but there is no reason their power must metastasize and become cancerous, dementing and corrupting them while abusing the public. Despite the lessons of the 20th century, political power, especially in the United States, is tending to become even more centralized, a trend that needs desperately to be reversed. Equally problematic is the power amassing in corporate entities, who are just as liable to tyranny as politicians, but who are even more wily, turning the very chains of regulation that we try to bind them by into weapons to whip their rivals and opponents with.

There is more to 'natural living' than politics, however. Evolution is starting to guide medicine more than in years past: we are now realizing that dropping anti-biotic bombs into our guts isn't the wisest course of action  given our dependence on some bacterial species for basic processes like digestion. Some researchers suggest that our bodies need 'hostile' bacteria in them just to give our immune system something to do: otherwise, it attacks its own body.  Or take matters of diet:  just as a cat would not fare well on salad, or a dog on plankton,  or a koala on anything other than eucalyptus leaves, so do we not fare well on  many of the modern 'foodstuffs' filling the grocery store.  In recent  years a 'paleo' diet movement has arisen, maintaining that people should eat what we evolved to eat: meat, fruit, nuts, and some vegetables, leaving behind artificial food products like snack cakes, rolls, margarine, and imitation crab meat. 

Many of the problems we face are caused by our attempting to live as something we are not, as creatures in a world of our choosing. We cannot drastically change our circumstances of living and expect the consequences to be marginal.  We create an environment filled with fake food and no opportunities for the physical exertion our bodies were designed for, then wonder why obesity and diabetes have soared. We allow children to keep themselves overly stimulated with games on their tablets, or force them to sit in a box for seven hours a day quietly listening, and then label mark them as having attention deficit disorder.  Perhaps it is our way of living, not ourselves, that are disordered. Maybe if children were taught the way they were evolved to be taught -- in the field, through the experience -- and played as they evolved to play,  skin on skin with physical playmates --  they would not be bundles of neuroses. Perhaps if adults spent more time with one another and their families, and less time slaving at jobs producing profits for other persons, or stuck in traffic, they would not be as easy marks for depression and energetic religions.

Truth be told, I don't know what it means, entirely, to live naturally. I have some ideas, which is why I eat real food,  voted libertarian in the last election, and practice simple living.  In abstract, I can only say: to live naturally is to embrace our humanity -- to guard against our weaknesses while revelling in the experience of being human.

Zero Waste

Ever since I lost so much weight and began experiencing life in a fundamentally new way, feeling perhaps like a once-earthbound caterpillar feels like when it emerges from its cocoon and begins to fly around, I've been obsessed and driven by the idea of making everything in my life "lose weight" -- eliminating excess, concentrating on essentials, and making lean, potent effectiveness my goal.  One idea I've been batting around, and intend to start working toward, is that of Zero Waste.

Waste has become endemic to modern living. Virtually everything sold in supermarkets comes wrapped in plastic, and even if it is sold by itself, as perhaps clothing is, cashiers will insist on throwing it in a plastic bag. Food, too, is wasted, filling the dumpsters of grocers, and the trash bins of people at home. The urban environment of America is waste made visible, in the form of suburban sprawl which forces people to make automobile trips for every need, and to drive hither and yon across the landscape because no place is near any other place worth going. Laws, too, promote waste:  traffic lights mar every intersection in cities, even in quiet neighborhoods, forcing drivers to sit burning gasoline to go nowhere, obeying the god-machine above them and defying common sense: no one is coming, so go. And if they do go, a police cruiser materializes out of thin air and promptly fines them. And the waste is not merely financial:  people work fifty and sixty hours a week enriching someone else, while their children grow up on the sidelines,  most of their childhood lost forever to their parents.

I have grown to hate waste. Life is short; time is dear. This is part of the reason I've been thinking more on simple living and minimalism. I am motivated,  too, by my abiding belief in personal responsibility. I consider frugality a virtue: I despise spending money for the same reason I loathe realizing something I own has no worth, and am disgruntled at throwing  something away. This belief in personal responsibility is interwoven with my sense of citizenship:  every bag of trash I might produce is a municipal burden,  every second a lightbulb glows is a teensy bit of local coal burned (though happily, most of my local power is generated by a hydroelectric dam).  Why use the city's resources when I can open a window and let the sun in? Why burn petroleum when I can bike?  Considering the United States' dependence on importing goods, saving energy and using less isn't just personally responsible and fiscally wise; it's positively civic.

So, how to work toward Zero Waste? Some ideas I have had..

• Using hand tools instead of electrical ones. I had never used a hand-powered can opener before my electric one died; I'd never even seen one. But since then, I've found I enjoy the experience much more than listening to the screech of the machine.
• Avoiding processed foodstuffs (always sold in boxes, bags, and individually plastic-wrapped packages)  and buying whole foods instead, like fresh greens that aren't shrinkwrapped. Not buying processed foods means cooking my own, and exercising complete control over what is used and what isn't -- and culinary uses can be found for everything. 
• Bringing canvas sacks with me to the grocery store instead of using plastic bags;  if said bags are used, take them back to the store. Both of the supermarkets I reluctantly patronize (no local grocers save seasonally-open produce shacks) have places to return plastic bags. 
• Only using kitchenware that is durable:  dishes and utensils meant for one-time uses are obscene. Plastic glasses are a conundrum   they're more likely to survive falls than actual glasses, but they can't be recycled and possibly leach toxins over time. 
• Finding simple entertainment offline, with people, instead of online. I choose to play frisbee with my nephew, for instance, instead of playing Call of Duty with him. It helps that he only has CoD on X-Box, and I am a PC purist and can't move quickly enough with one of those hand-held controllers..
• Turning off lights when not needed, especially wise considering that in the summer, incandescent bulbs not only waste 90% of the energy put into them, but that waste comes in the form of heat that fans and air-conditioning have to combat. 
• Doing errands on foot or by bike instead of by car;  I intend on  putting a rack on my bicycle so that I can transport items like groceries with it. I also plan on moving closer to my work so that biking is more practical. I currently live three miles from work, but the first part of that is on a busy highway that is somewhat perilous on weekdays. 
• Growing my own food in a garden; unfortunately, this is where some of my ideas conflict. I can live in the city and walk to work, or live outside it and have a garden, but doing both isn't possible until I can afford a small home with a backyard, or an apartment with green space that the landlord allowed gardening on.  I have an uncle who gardens, and am thinking of 'apprenticing' myself to him to learn the lore.
• Refusing to buy goods that are shabbily made, or are made of materials (plastic) that can't be repaired. This means investing in a few high-quality items that retain their value. 
• Making my own household goods, like shampoo or jam. Not only would I avoid using a plastic bottle, but I'm sure I could find a recipe that's environmentally friendly. The jam, and other food-preserving ideas, would depend on having a garden. 
• Composting organic scraps that qualify: right now I just take biodegradable scraps out into the woods and scatter them. Composting them would help in gardening instead of scattering the nutrients willy-nilly.
• Using a clothesline instead of a dryer to dry clothes. This would also be less doable were I living in a city apartment, considering that moderns see a clothesline as an unsightly indicator of poverty. I'm also concerned about the everpresent humidity in Alabama preventing clothes from actually driving in the summers: if the air is saturated with moisture,  it seems to me water would have a hard time evaporating from the clothes. 

All these pertain to resources. I've yet to start running red lights, though these days I have to stop myself from treating them like stop signs, which is how I think they ought to be treated.  I've been extraordinarily lucky in finding work in a field that is not only spiritually fulfilling (public service means helping people),  but gives me enough hours to make a living but also allows for more leisure time than most people get. I work thirty hours a week on average, which is plenty for me considering my simple tastes. I decided years ago that working for money was not the life for me: I'd rather be poor and happy than wealthy and stressed.  Money is only  valuable inasmuch as it enhances our quality of lie.

Zero waste is an exacting goal, a high standard; I doubt that I will ever achieve it. But I intend to come as close as I can, so that my life brims over with value.