Quote:
Originally Posted by danielgoldberg
I actually thought Architeuthis' post was pretty good, and I took him seriously. You can argue around the margins for sure, but I think the thrust of his point is that if you are the type of person who goes out to eat twice a week, goes to two movies per week, and stuff like that, it's not particularly realistic to think that you will stop doing everything you like to do just because you now live on a boat. No doubt, many things will change and you will enjoy many things that now will be free (sunsets, swimming, fishing, gamming on the beach), but I think it might be a bit romanticizing to think you will go from the quintessential suburban consumer to a minimalist.
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I mostly agree with this.
My limited experience with this, being a person who is still trying to downshift a few gears in lifestyle, is that it just takes time. We are so accustomed to convenience that it does take some effort to cut some of that out and learn to live another way, but I haven't found it to be terribly uncomfortable or anything, so long as it happens one step at a time.
The first time i was out on my boat for an extended period of time it was a huge initial shock for me. Suddenly I wasn't able to just run to the refrigerator for a drink, hop over to the drive-thru for a burger, and all the rest, and I had to start cooking for myself or starve. In the beginning I guess you could say I was starving, sort of, I wasn't cooking enough to eat and I completely crashed, I got really tired, lost my appetite completely, got confused, etc, and it took me a few weeks to actually get back on track. I lost a huge amount of weight, rapidly, but once I finally start getting into the groove it became much easier and I was able to straighten myself out, though I never did cook enough to gain the weight back.
It takes more effort to cut out some of the convenience, that's why they call it convenience, because it is convenient.
But it can be done. Besides, what else are you going to do with your time, put puzzles together for the rest of your life ? You leave work and you are out on a boat with essentially nothing to do all day, you can't take 30 minutes to cook some breakfast, or stitch up a sail that gets ripped ?