Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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Living Well Is the Best Revenge
« on: 2006-07-21 08:28:17 » |
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[Blunderov] I suppose one should be wary of falling into the trap of Rousseauism but it's hard not to be wistful when considering the case of Vanatu. Primitive societies, I'm told, have far more leisure time than advanced societies do. Seemingly then, advanced societies should be less hedonistic in outlook than primitive societies but observation does not seem to support this hypothesis. It all seems hopelessly paradoxical. Perhaps it is the case then, that the first principle of hedonism - reduce expectations- has been forgotten in all the excitement.
Ah, the simple life.
Somehow though, I'm not fully convinced in spite of my every sentimental willingness to be so. I suppose I just enjoy advanced technology too much. Perhaps less really is more?
Good luck to the Vanatusians anyway.
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71379-0.html?tw=rss.index
Living Well Is the Best Revenge
By Tony Long| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Jul, 20, 2006
The LudditeI've had it with the rat race. I'm tired of scrambling to make a buck, tired of working for The Man. America is the unending hamster wheel to oblivion, where apparently you win if you die while in possession of a plasma TV, the fattest mortgage or the bitchinest Beemer ever.
There has got to be a place left in the world where a man can be reflective rather than reactive, where mellow is the coin of the realm. Like Blake, I'd like to kiss a little of the joy as it flies before shuffling off this mortal coil. And I don't want to have to be laden like a Spanish galleon to do it.
I used to believe that my salvation lay in France. Ah, the French ... now they know how to live. Those wonderful cafes, those enticingly short work weeks, their joie de vivre. My bookshelves are crammed with authors whose French sensibilities have beguiled me since my teens. Wie Gott in Frankreich, "like God in France," is no empty German phrase.
Or, maybe, if France didn't work out, I could transform myself into an indolent Spaniard or a drowsy Italian. A friend of mine, recently returned from Croatia, tells me the Dalmatian Coast is a bastion of easy living just now. But these are just foolish, romantic notions. If the European idyll ever existed at all, it exists no longer. The imperatives of the global economy, extolled and fueled by amped-up capitalists everywhere, put the kibosh on that.
So, where to go?
Vanuatu. This South Pacific archipelago, stretching between 15 and 20 degrees south and lying due west of Fiji and northeast of New Caledonia, is, according to the Happy Planet Index, the happiest country on Earth. The criteria used for determining happiness are what appeal to those of us with a normal human heart rate and relatively modest expectations in life.
The index, compiled by the progressive New Economics Foundation (sort of an anti-Cato Institute), established its criteria for ranking 178 countries using classic economics: the ratio of benefits to costs. Nations were ranked by their general satisfaction with life, life expectancy and their environmental footprint. The latter refers to the amount of land required to sustain the population while adequately handling the attendant energy consumption.
By that measuring stick, says the NEF, Vanuatu comes out on top. The United States, leaving a size-16 environmental footprint wherever it treads, ranked 150th. And La Belle France fared little better, coming in at 129th. (Germany, interestingly enough, placed 81st, so perhaps they should consider redrafting the phrase.)
In general, countries in the so-called developed world did poorly. This can certainly be attributed to the way industrialized nations are trashing the planet but anyone living in a major city knows that whatever the compensations of First World living, they are offset by the enormous pressures placed on the individual -- economic, psychological, environmental -- of keeping them fed.
The index is a call for re-evaluating the way we live, for a reassessment of our core values. It's an indictment of mindless consumerism, and high time for that.
Asked by Britain's Guardian newspaper why he thought Vanuatu is the happiest country on Earth, Marke Lowen of Vanuatu Online said, "People are generally happy here because they are very satisfied with very little. This is not a consumer-driven society. Life here is about community and family and goodwill to other people. It's a place where you don't worry too much."
It sounds a little bit like Gauguin's Tahiti, before the tourists swarmed in. A modest frame house, open to the trade winds, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases (and indoor plumbing) sounds divine. And with Noumea only an island-hop away, I can still drop in at a French cafe every now and then.
I'd be happy. Would you be happy?
We can all decamp to Vanuatu, which would no doubt thrill the islanders and totally screw up paradise. Or we can heed the words of Lowen, stay where we are, and learn to be satisfied with a little bit less.
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Tony Long, copy chief at Wired News, owns a couple of fine Hawaiian shirts.
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