Just a quick update on how wearing thirty items for three months is going. I think if weather in Boston were more predictable, this would actually be a perfectly large wardrobe. It's more of a stretch because I have to have some slightly warmer weather things, some cooler weather things in there.
But all in all, I love it. Every day I wake up, head over to Eug's office (where I have my closet) and open it up. Based on what's clean, it's immediately obvious what I will wear, I put it on, go to work, done.
My underwear is probably going to have to go through a similar discipline, as right now Noah pulls all my underwear and socks out of my plastic drawers pretty much every day. Eug turns to write a quick e-mail, hears happy squeeking, turns around and my son has removed all my underwear from the drawer. Even the embarrassing maternity underwear that I haven't been able to figure out what to do with. And when I put it back, I throw it in however I can. So it usually takes longer to find my underwear when I'm getting dressed in the morning.
All to say, I'm hooked. Even if it means having more clothes as security tucked away somewhere, the simplicity of just having thirty items front and center has been a transition with no downside.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
On Diet Philosophies and The Food Bandwagon
I read this article over at Zen Habits about soy, and I was thinking about food bandwagons and how one finds oneself on one. Now I am not a big consumer of soy, but I have read about the Weston A. Price Foundation, and I think some of my thoughts on meat and raw milk and such have been impacted by the Price Foundation. I'm naturally legalistic and even when I try to break the rules, I'll usually try to find new rules to follow. Which is a strange thing for someone wanting to be a good steward.
Anyway, all to say I can be swayed like a reed in the wind.
So it's good I went to public health school and read a lot of journal articles, because they ground me, at least some of the time, in at least some good science. After two years of research, I'm starting to spend my days writing journal articles, and it's surprising to me how subjective even science can be. So this calls for a heavy dose of common sense when it comes to thinking about food. Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food
(aff. link) probably came the closest in helping me develop a food philosophy.
It seems obvious that things we cannot recognize as food are probably not great, because, well, they're not food! So that much is agreed upon.
There seems to be a strong argument not to eat a ton of red meat, mostly because it's completely unsustainable and likely bad for you, if you're long-lived, at least.
But beyond that, there are plenty of muddy waters. I eat what I eat not just because of health; I'm also thinking about sustainability, food miles, relative cost, whether I like the taste, how long it takes to prepare, giving and receiving hospitality, and so on and so on. After a week of eating great, simple, relatively healthy food in Korea I'm embarrassed to say that I NEEDED pizza. So there's all this cultural stuff going on, too.
Today, eating can seem like a political or social statement, and it is. But I can get carried away in the social statement instead of being focused on the reality of what tastes good, is cheap, local, and workable in my life. So I feel challenged to stay off at least some food bandwagons, and continue to weigh these competing motivations of sustainability, cost, taste etc on my very own.
Anyway, all to say I can be swayed like a reed in the wind.
So it's good I went to public health school and read a lot of journal articles, because they ground me, at least some of the time, in at least some good science. After two years of research, I'm starting to spend my days writing journal articles, and it's surprising to me how subjective even science can be. So this calls for a heavy dose of common sense when it comes to thinking about food. Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food
(aff. link) probably came the closest in helping me develop a food philosophy.It seems obvious that things we cannot recognize as food are probably not great, because, well, they're not food! So that much is agreed upon.
There seems to be a strong argument not to eat a ton of red meat, mostly because it's completely unsustainable and likely bad for you, if you're long-lived, at least.
But beyond that, there are plenty of muddy waters. I eat what I eat not just because of health; I'm also thinking about sustainability, food miles, relative cost, whether I like the taste, how long it takes to prepare, giving and receiving hospitality, and so on and so on. After a week of eating great, simple, relatively healthy food in Korea I'm embarrassed to say that I NEEDED pizza. So there's all this cultural stuff going on, too.
Today, eating can seem like a political or social statement, and it is. But I can get carried away in the social statement instead of being focused on the reality of what tastes good, is cheap, local, and workable in my life. So I feel challenged to stay off at least some food bandwagons, and continue to weigh these competing motivations of sustainability, cost, taste etc on my very own.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
A Series of Little Choices
I recently encountered an article that described small, everyday choices as draining. What to eat for lunch, what to wear, etc. The flipside in this story was that, when people DIDN'T have many small decisions to make throughout the day, they were much more creative. Since I'm not citing the article, I guess I'm just asking myself (and you) what choices are draining which are not.
There's also a field of study that describes people as having a limited well of self-control. So if I'm self-controlled all day, it'll be harder to be so by nightfall. Maybe this is why diet plans often have "eat-whatever-you-want-days" as an outlet for our desire to, well, eat whatever we want.
These two things, together with this post from a few days, had me thinking about how to be a more creative person. If we keep working on sustainability, generosity, simplicity, our efforts likely shouldn't fall into the category of "self-control" or "daily choices", because both are ultimately draining. Rather, some choices should be automated and if we really don't like to eat x or do x exercise, we probably shouldn't.
After simplifying our lives for the past three years, we're left with the question: what shall we do now that we have a lot less pressure to earn money? That is, we still need to earn money, but most jobs-- jobs we even love!- will cover our needs. The usual excuses for doing draining stuff just for the money is (temporarily) being taken away, and I'm not sure where that leaves us. We'll finally get the next issue of Conferre magazine out, perhaps!
---
We're on the road again, this time for a very short trip, and I have some reservations, as Noah's still pretty out of sync after our last trip. But I'm hoping he'll just be totally blown away by the gardens and the ocean, and by my amazing high school classmates (they really are amazing).
I went to Atlantic College (AC) for the last two years of high school. We were all together just two years, but they came at such an important time that the two years were as transformational as anything I've experienced since. As Eug, Noah and I travel to St Donat's castle in South Wales, I'll be thinking about the last ten years, and the ways in which it's differed from my expectations. As I visit the place that marked my leaving South Africa, I'll be thinking of our planned move back home, and all that's happened in the intervening years.
This year is a marker of change, reflection, and moving on, so I'm super grateful that I get to share it with you. Thanks.
There's also a field of study that describes people as having a limited well of self-control. So if I'm self-controlled all day, it'll be harder to be so by nightfall. Maybe this is why diet plans often have "eat-whatever-you-want-days" as an outlet for our desire to, well, eat whatever we want.
These two things, together with this post from a few days, had me thinking about how to be a more creative person. If we keep working on sustainability, generosity, simplicity, our efforts likely shouldn't fall into the category of "self-control" or "daily choices", because both are ultimately draining. Rather, some choices should be automated and if we really don't like to eat x or do x exercise, we probably shouldn't.
After simplifying our lives for the past three years, we're left with the question: what shall we do now that we have a lot less pressure to earn money? That is, we still need to earn money, but most jobs-- jobs we even love!- will cover our needs. The usual excuses for doing draining stuff just for the money is (temporarily) being taken away, and I'm not sure where that leaves us. We'll finally get the next issue of Conferre magazine out, perhaps!
---
We're on the road again, this time for a very short trip, and I have some reservations, as Noah's still pretty out of sync after our last trip. But I'm hoping he'll just be totally blown away by the gardens and the ocean, and by my amazing high school classmates (they really are amazing).
I went to Atlantic College (AC) for the last two years of high school. We were all together just two years, but they came at such an important time that the two years were as transformational as anything I've experienced since. As Eug, Noah and I travel to St Donat's castle in South Wales, I'll be thinking about the last ten years, and the ways in which it's differed from my expectations. As I visit the place that marked my leaving South Africa, I'll be thinking of our planned move back home, and all that's happened in the intervening years.
This year is a marker of change, reflection, and moving on, so I'm super grateful that I get to share it with you. Thanks.
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