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Find Freedom in a Tiny House

May 5, 2015

Find Freedom in a Tiny House

What is a house? I feel this is a dangerous question, which holds within it the seeds of a disruptive innovation, so read on at your own risk.

Rethinking what a house is could change your life, and perhaps the world. Let me explain through my own experience.

Voluntary simplicity

When I was an intellectually promiscuous doctoral student my eyes happened to fall upon a copy of Henry Thoreau’s, Walden, a fiery “simple living” manifesto, first published in 1854. This book, like no other before or since, ignited in me a shift in consciousness that I can only describe as an earthquake of the soul.

It shook me awake from a deep slumber, opening my eyes to how consumerist cultures were foolishly celebrating a mistaken idea of freedom, leaving people materially rich but too often empty and twisted inside.

Thoreau’s writings also offered poetic insight in the alternative way of living now known as “voluntary simplicity”, a living strategy that seeks to minimise material needs in order find enrichment and purpose in non-materialistic sources of meaning and satisfaction.

The ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, advised that “He who knows he has enough is rich”, with Thoreau arguing a similar line that those of us who have enough, but who do not know it, are poor.

The real price of houses

What struck me most about the writings of Henry Thoreau was his penetrating analysis of housing. “Most men appear never to have considered what a house is,” he declared, “and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbours have.” What was he getting at?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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