anti-consumerism and green living

[Brett]

Over the past year I have gone through quite the lifestyle change. I moved across the country to here in beautiful Oregon. I sold my car before I moved and I am now in the privileged position of riding my bike everywhere as my means of transportation (I take the bus when I need to). I no longer use a tv. I started buying locally and organic. I try to support the farmers markets when they are out. I started getting into science and nature more, and have long since had a very very STRONG distaste for consumerism, advertising, and corporate power.

 

I'm trying to break away from my old life of bad addictions. I used to just lay around and surf the internet all day or watch tv. I'm trying to expand on becoming a freethinking and creative person. I guess in a sense I'm "recovering." I'm looking for new hobbies. I'm also looking for some really good books. I just finished culture jam by kalle lasn (founder of adbusters magazine).

 

What have YOU found or what suggestions/sources would you have for someone like me trying to find new things to do and explore? I'm having a hard time finding things on my own.

[Brett]

I've also been reading some Thoreau and Emerson.

[Marcina]

Art! I used to do lots of art before I lost my passion for it.

[offense74]

I have changed alot spiritually over the last year or so too. It's weird when you stop caring about stupid shit and focus your devotion on seemingly real things. Anyhoot, here are some good books:

 

The story of B

Ecology of commerce

and

The Silmarillion

[michaelhobson]

For the ultimate in sane living, here is my post from the influential books thread.

 

By far, the most influential books I have ever read were by Helen and Scott Nearing. Helen was a talented musician and Scott a university professor and famed socialist writer. Together they set out to build a rural homestead nearly a century ago. They built multiple houses of stone, grew most of their own food in organic and later veganic gardens, built solar greenhouses and composting toilets. They lived a high-raw vegan and organic lifestyle in rural Vermont, decades before it was popularized by the hippie movement. Their life and work continue to summarize my life's goals and aspirations.

 

You can get the summary version of their lives here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_and_Scott_Nearing

 

Or begin some serious reading with this book:

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71QHCTSJ4ZL._SL500_AA240_.gif

 

Another great book I read just recently is From the Bottom Up: One Man's Crusade to Clean America's Rivers by Chad Pregracke. Follow Chad as he progresses in just a couple of years from a teenager cleaning up the river behind his house, in to adulthood and taking on the Misssouri, Mississippi, Ohio and Potomac rivers and finally forming a nationwide organization dedicated to cleaning up America's waterways. It's a very inspiring story of one man taking on the world and winning. One of the coolest things is that this is a new book, very recent story and Chad is personally still out cleaning up the rivers.

 

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1426201001.01._SX140_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

[Jay]

For the ultimate in sane living, here is my post from the influential books thread.

 

By far, the most influential books I have ever read were by Helen and Scott Nearing. Helen was a talented musician and Scott a university professor and famed socialist writer. Together they set out to build a rural homestead nearly a century ago. They built multiple houses of stone, grew most of their own food in organic and later veganic gardens, built solar greenhouses and composting toilets. They lived a high-raw vegan and organic lifestyle in rural Vermont, decades before it was popularized by the hippie movement. Their life and work continue to summarize my life's goals and aspirations.

 

You can get the summary version of their lives here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_and_Scott_Nearing

Scott Nearing is the only person that approaches idol status for me. That isn't based on the fact that he gave up on mankind and became a hermit but on his uncompromising honesty, Compassion and morality. His autobiography The Making of a Radical has a far more meaningful set of goals to aspire to than 'living off the grid'.

[Brett]

Thanks a lot! I'll definantly take a look at those books.

 

I just feel like I don't know how to truly live yet because I've been sucked into some of the consumer teenage lifestyle.

[RawKev]

Read books by Daniel Quinn and by Derrick Jensen. You will dig em.

[Brett]

Cool, I'm actually browsing through the culture of make believe right now.