i make myself rich by making my wants few – henry david thoreau

I lived in Santiago, Chile for a year, about fifteen years ago.  I lived out of a backpack the entire time, renting a room in different apartments, and was a teacher’s assistant at a university.  There was a moment, when I was with another person from the United States, and I saw a few buskers on a street corner.  They had dreadlocks and looked scruffy.  I said something like, wouldn’t that kind of life be amazing?  No possessions?  No job?  Just the road stretching out in any direction?

And my friend looked at me like I was nuts.

I didn’t realize that not everyone saw existing as a travelling vagabond as romantic, free, beautiful.  And there is only a very small part of me that feels this way.  I’m sure in practice it is a hard way to go.  Especially in this world where your value is very much tied up with what you can contribute to the economy.  Your job title, your net worth.  Your family’s pride in you diminishes the less they can tout your accomplishments.

The majority of me has been well-developed and trained by the materialistic society I grew up in.  I feel the pull toward a beautiful home.  A twinge of response to fashionable, expensive pieces of clothing, shoes, bags, cars, appliances.  I am not sure, if I hadn’t grown up with fashion magazines and TV ads, if I would feel this way.  I suppose there is something elemental in us that loves beauty and finery.  A human desire to feel abundant and rich.  Safe.

So, there are contradictory pulls inside.  A strong desire to sell all my possessions and live in a van.  Another desire to buy an even better house, decorate it even more impressively than the one I currently live in.  Well, we can’t take every path in life.  We must choose.  I have chosen.  I have a beautiful home.  I have possessions.  A bank account. 

I hope to find a middle ground.  Freedom and safety.  Rich and frugal.  Abundant and minimal.  A way to adapt this life I have to one that no longer harms the world and other people, but instead enriches it. 

So what does that mean?  How is it possible?  Many amazing people have been asking these questions, for years and years.  I am just another drop in the ocean, learning from them, asking my own questions.  But enough drops together can make a wave, and a wave can grow to such a size that it changes everything it touches. 

One such teacher who greatly raised the levels of the water is Henry David Thoreau.

I make myself rich by making my wants few.

That is a good place to start, I think.