Balancing monetisation and simplicity

The practice of simplicity and the art of relinquishment are necessary to the pursuit of truth and to personal freedom (see yesterday's post) because vested interest inevitably compromises freedom and truth. 

But though it is possible to live without money, few of us manage to scale those heights of simplicity; for most of us it is about living on and with less rather than cutting our ties with money altogether. 

It is urgently necessary for the life of all of us — for the survival of Earth — that we sharply cut back our habit of consumerism. Here in the UK this year, it was in May that we passed the day when, as a species, we had reached the limit of what it was possible for Earth to regenerate in our consumption for this year. Last year, because of the pandemic and lockdown, it was September. So just by living quietly and reducing what we do, we can radically lower our consumption and live within the limits Earth needs us to set.

So we know simplicity and relinquishment are necessary for truth and freedom, and also for life. We accept that some level of monetisation and consumerism will continue to be part of our reality. An obvious question arises — how much, and what, to monetise?

I personally believe each person's work should be like a bird singing its song, fashioning its nest — inextricably connected with and proceeding from who that bird really is. Our work — the way we earn the money we need to live simply — should express and develop our individual calling and natural contribution. There is a sweet spot we can find, where we give and let go, where we live humbly and quietly, where we take just enough and then stop, where we provide responsibly for ourselves and our families but ask for no more than that. "Problems arise where things accumulate" (Toinette Lippe, Nothing Left Over), and the signs of over-reaching ourselves are inauthenticity (lies and pretence, lack of enthusiasm for our work), exhaustion and complication. Our work, if we're in the right occupation, should actually generate energy as well as use it. If it leaves us drained and resentful, it's wrong for us.

In the aspects of life I have monetised in order to live simply, I have been most pleased with the work I did directly. For twenty years or so I officiated at a lot of funerals. If it was the funeral of someone I knew and loved, perhaps it should go without saying that I did not charge money for doing that. If it was someone with whom I had no connection at all and the family came looking for me just because they knew I'd do a good job for them, then I charged whatever was a standard fee (if this varied, I asked the lower amount). I felt conflicted in situations where I knew and cared about the person who had died because I was their minister and they were in my congregation, but the usual advice and practice was for a minister to accept a fee. I can't remember what I did about that, but I think I went with the advice of colleagues to accept the fee. Had I not, it would have unbalanced things for other people. I went with what I thought was right and sometimes I waived it. But what was really good about officiating at funerals was the direct nature of the work. The people who paid me — the family or friends of the deceased — sought me out for the quality of my work, I did not try to market anything or promote myself; they looked for me. They paid me, and they were directly on the receiving end of what I did. If what I offered had been substandard, that would have been the end of it. And though they did pay me a fee, I always asked myself what I could add that would simply be a gift; which was mostly the quality of what I gave, the care with which I listened to them and crafted the ceremony, the love I brought and the ability to anchor the Light into that place and occasion — the aspects you cannot buy.

I also like the route of self-publishing, in working as a writer. 

Writing has to be monetised in some sense if one's work is to be made available in book form (paper or e-book). If you have read my novels or my non-fiction, you will have touched an aspect of my life that I have monetised. It wouldn't have been possible for me to share my thoughts with you otherwise. All day long, every day, I make up stories in my head that you will never know; they are only for myself. In order to give them to you as a book, I'd have to process them in a manner that inevitably monetised them, because I don't have a printing press or an advertising and delivery system. But that said, I have given away my free copies (and even bought my own books to give away) and recorded some of my books on my YouTube channel and sometimes given away PDFs of my work; and I decline the opportunity to monetise this blog by permitting Google to place ads on it (the platform is Google Blogger). 

But writing, like funerals, is pleasingly direct, even if you publish with a publishing house instead of doing it yourself. A publisher won't be interested in Volume Two if Volume One didn't sell. It's not a racket, people just buy your books because they want them. Marie Kondo comes to mind. She wrote about what she really lives, and her book was a runaway success, because it's good — and the same is true of Fumio Sasaki. This is work that is honest and true, that flows from the wellspring of real life, that benefits the reader as well as the writer; and the Earth will also benefit from the practice of what those books advocate. They advance freedom, simplicity and truth even while they monetise it — and that's what true work is; the sweet spot.

I have more thoughts about this but it's 12 minutes past 6 and if I don't get up and have a bath my morning will go wrong — besides which there are plenty of thoughts here and you will get tired if I go on and on. I want to say something about how monetisation and grace economy can interweave, but perhaps better leave that for tomorrow.