A Simple Life

A Simple Life
A monastery strikes me as a place where human children can go to

simulate human adulthood. Monks take vows of silence and keep
their hoods up and their heads down to create the illusion of isolation
and solitude, but it doesn’t compare to the real thing; good idea, bad
execution. If you want to be away from the things of man, why not
just go? Why be a make-believe hermit when you can just cross the
river, climb the hill, pitch a tent, and be the real thing? Pray, chant,
self-flagellate, make wine, eat swill and never say a word; you can do
it all on your own. When you’re not surrounded by other people or
stuck adhering to a goofy belief system, you don’t need a lot of
dumb vows.
I can’t say much about the religious side of it, but in the lifestyle
sense I can see where I might find monastery life somewhat
appealing, especially if I could get rid of the other people, the big
buildings, the silly beliefs and the obligatory discomfort, but now
we’re just talking about a cozy cabin in the mountains and I already
have that. I’m basically a hermit. I never set out to live austerely, I just
eliminated nonessentials and unwanted elements and here I am. Left
to my own devices, a simple life turns out to be my natural state.
I don’t think of my remote, mile-high, nearly-inaccessible cabin as a

hermitage, but I can see where it kind of is. My life is very simple and
tends toward ever-greater simplicity. Monastic elements in my home
include a woodstove and a bunch of unscented candles. I have no
window coverings, no keys to the door and, except for a few owner’s
manuals, I don’t think there are any physical books or magazines
around. I’m pretty well teched up so it’s like I’m living in the
nineteenth century but with the best of the twenty-first.
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I go down the hill and across the river to walk among my tribemates
about once a week. I had hoped that as an enlightened rockstar I
might be spared the minor indignities of pushing shopping carts,
making chitchat and standing in line, but these seem to be universal
constants. I get most of my human connection these days, such as it
is, from screens, which gives me a skewed view of things, but it’s
skewed to my tastes and biases so I’m okay with it. I control the
remote and determine what reality is projected on the walls of my
dreamstate bubble/theater, so I’m the cocreator of my dreamstate
universe.
I admit that if I were suddenly deprived of all media or my screens

went dark I’d get pretty bored pretty fast. I wish I could say that I had
the inner resources to sit quietly and admire the universe or think
wise thoughts or marvel at an ant colony for hours on end, but I don’t
have a contemplative bone in my body. The closest I come to
spiritual depth is storms; thunderstorms, blizzards, whatever, I love
boisterous weather. I don’t know why I’m like this, but I get out of bed
for storms and feel bad (longing? need? affectation?) if I let good
weather pass unenjoyed, like the universe is dancing for me and I’m
not paying attention. I prefer being in the weather; under cover or
sky, all bundled up or wrapped in a blanket and just being a part of it.
I like sitting near a fire in some weather or in my hot tub in most any
weather.
As with blizzards and thunderstorms, I like fire. I don’t like ultra-cold

or cold-damp-windy weather; for those conditions I enjoy the
warmth and dancing flames of my woodstove. Besides the
woodstove I have a few too many outdoor firepits and bonfire
stations. I don’t know where all this comes from or what it means, but
it long predates my meteoric rise to spiritual superstardom. Give me
fun storms, dancing flames and any ocean and I’m all set. I can sit in
Buddha-like silence — half-smile, lidded gaze — for hours.
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Within just a short walk of the cabin I have one hot tub, two ideal
storm-viewing spots and three firepits. My hobby is processing
firewood, so I have a lot more than I need. I have an outdoor
reading/writing station — desko al fresco — where I can sit under
cover or not and where I have a fire going almost constantly for much
of the year. That seems like an above-average amount of firegazing.
I’ve never given all this much thought before and it’s starting to
sound a little dopey, like I just sit around staring at shit, but that’s
about the size of it.
When I’m away from storms and fire for too long I start to feel
depleted. It takes something out of me, some sense of aliveness or
connectedness or groundedness. I don’t know if any of that sounds
very spiritual, to me it’s just normal. I know everyone likes to gaze at
the ocean or into flames and I’m not trying to make it more than it is,
but it does seem to be more of a happy compulsion for me than most
who commit what I consider the sin of letting a good fire or dramatic
weather go unappreciated.
As reclusive as I might seem, what I don’t have is tolerance for

boredom. It’s the same as pain to me. If that doesn’t meet someone’s
expectation of how an enlightened fella should be, it’s their
expectations that are at fault and doesn’t reflect on my status. If Yo-
Yo Ma blew up a bus full of schoolkids tomorrow, it wouldn’t change
the fact that he plays a mean cello and has the coolest name ever.
I’m a little surprised by my intolerance for boredom. I would expect
someone like me to be at peace, happy to float along and just be, but
I’m totally not. Just plain being is just plain boring.
I’m also more into walking than most. I set out for an hour or two
almost every day. I don’t hike or camp, I usually don’t carry anything
like a stick or water or trail bars, I just make sure I’m well-shod and
go. It’s not strictly a nature thing, I enjoy walking in cities just as
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much, even country roads and neighborhoods. That might make me
look thoughtful and meditative on the outside, but there’s not much
going on inside; I don’t even know what a deep thought would look
like. You’d think that I’d think about writing while walking, but I don’t.
The only other thing about my lifestyle that might be mistaken for
spiritual depth is my daily rest period which is basically just a mid-
afternoon energy reset; a soak in the hot tub and a horizontal
meditation that quickly turns into a nap. I find that enjoyable and
necessary, especially if I’ve been to town. It’s nice for me to have two
well-rested wake-ups every day because that doubles the time I can
spend writing. I can only write for about the first hour after a good
rest, and since writing is the hub on which my life turns, it’s nice to
be able to spend more time doing it.
Written out like this, it all sounds pretty dull; large blocks of doing
nothing punctuated by short bursts of doing nothing, but it’s my kind
of dull. Happiness is pretty much my default setting. I don’t spend
time contemplating serious issues or wrestling with thorny spiritual
conundrums because I’m not aware of any. When you see all that is
and nothing that’s not, where’s the mystery? What’s left to
contemplate? Maybe I could ponder something I feel passionately
about, but I don’t have anything like that. I have a healthy sense of
appreciation, but it doesn’t translate into sitting around appreciating
stuff. Where I live is pretty free of light-pollution, but I can only gaze
in rapt wonder at the glorious stars for about a minute before I get
bored and move on. (That’s a damn lie; thirty seconds tops.)
I have around sixteen hours a day to fill/kill, just like anyone else.
Even with my habits and routines, that leaves a gap and I can’t just
sit in my little mountain grotto and contemplate infinity. I plug into the
infotainment grid for several hours a day; news, movies, funny cat
videos, etcetera. I enjoy looking beneath false narratives at
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underlying realities but it’s the mechanics of deception I enjoy. This is
Maya’s world and she’s fun to watch.
I don’t have the usual life-stuff to fill my day; no job, no kids, no

community, no school. I don’t even have a lawn to mow. I have no
commitments, no set schedule, nowhere to be at any given time. I
observe no holidays. I have no appointments or meetings, I don’t
engage in social media or talk on the phone. I don’t have a real job, I
have no people, I can come and go as I wish, eat and sleep as I
please, do as much or as little as I want.
Sometimes it amuses me to wonder if I might be wrong about

everything, if maybe I’m just another gibbering asstalker. I’d be okay
with that but I don’t think so. I’ve run the numbers, written everything
out to show my work and I’ve walked the talk; I’ve gone where it all
leads and come back to tell the tale. I’m not a creative person or a
holy-roller. All this so-called spiritual stuff is more like math or law to
me than song or poetry. If I’ve been talking out my ass this whole
time, sorry, but even if my whole life has been a butterfly’s dream, I
know I got my facts right. (On the other hand, “I” is used over a
hundred times in this article, so how ego-free can I really be?)
I am the shaman living on the hill across the river from his tribe. From
here I can see what’s going on without being part of it. I’m in the
Goldilocks zone; not too near, not too far. My life is not frittered away
by detail. I’m living my dream. I wish the same for you.
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A monastery strikes me as a place where human children can go to

I don’t think of my remote, mile-high, nearly-inaccessible cabin as a

I admit that if I were suddenly deprived of all media or my screens

As with blizzards and thunderstorms, I like fire. I don’t like ultra-cold

As reclusive as I might seem, what I don’t have is tolerance for

I don’t have the usual life-stuff to fill my day; no job, no kids, no

Sometimes it amuses me to wonder if I might be wrong about

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