Leonardo Boiko’s Diary

The word “natural” has become overused to the point of losing its meaning. Nonetheless, I find myself surprisingly optimistic. It may be confirmation bias, but it appears to me the environmental movement is finally bearing fruit; after being politicized, absorbed by the amoeba of consumerism, given its own address in Babylon — no one noticed all the while it was spreading seeds; as the “movement” corpse fossilized, it gave birth to a thousand natural “lifestyles”.

People today are richer than ever, more knowledgeable than ever, more powerful than ever. It was to be expected for modern age to cause an explosion of consumerist excess. But now they finally appear to be finding that excess has a bitter aftertaste. Two generations ago, people wanted more money; today they want less work.

They say in Japan, a post-crisis advanced economy, cars have lost their meaning as markers of social status. Young people are not interested in cars; they find it’s a crude, troublesome gadget for outdated tastes. “Not prizing treasures difficult to obtain keeps people from committing theft” —not having an expensive car and mansion saves you the pain in the ass that are alarms and dogs and insurances and electric fences.

They say the USA are facing an unprecedented crisis of their own right now. Hopefully they’ll find the same solution.

Natural: eating when you’re hungry, sleeping when you’re sleepy. Finding the path of least resistance, like water: Slow life. Natural buildings. Bicycling instead of driving. Eating local food. Reusing electronic components, fetishizing outdated technology. Giving things instead of throwing away. Preserving local culture out of romantic nostalgia; local culture you did not grow up with because your parents were too busy being normal. Picking scraps of clothing and wood and furniture from the trash for your own creations. A return of the ethos of hospitality.

My utopia is a society where everyone is a hobbyist, a dabbler, where things like Wikipedia and Craft and Instructables are the new practical education — a society not of consumers, but of makers.