Monday 26 April 2021

Authentic Living - Episode 17

Authenticity cannot occur without choice.  If you feel your choices are excessively restricted, that is the first problem to overcome.

Where, then, is the best place to start?

What are your choices?

In which areas of your life are you currently lacking options, and why?

When your options are limited, how do you know whether those limits are related to inadequate public policies or not?

If the associated public policies are inadequate, who is attempting to address that problem, and who should be addressing the problem but chooses not to do so?

You have apparently chosen to experience episode 17 in this series about authentic living.

Good training is necessary in any situation requiring it.  Yet people cannot be properly trained in the art and science of well-informed kindness and authentically pleasant living unless they have already been adequately educated.

Such a prerequiste education includes the basic rudiments of civilised learning and civilised living.

How do you know you have already acquired such an education?

Do you have a comfortable seat and a cup of tea at present in your non-virtual experiences of the world? 

What do you know about the cellar of Frugality Cottage?

What do you know about the attic of Frugality Cottage? 

What is a proper home, from your point of view?

What is a proper community, from your point of view? 

How do you think about the proper in terms of authenticity and ideals?

Frugality Cottage is a digital structure, of course.

The social and educational activities associated with this virtual cottage have been digitally structured with appropriate dignity.

If you are yet to catch up with the earliest dozen episodes in this series, please do so now.  There is much that you are likely to have missed:

 


How authentically do you express yourself digitally?

How do you attempt to maintain privacy when expressing yourself authentically?

Who is the real you?

Last year, you had the chance to explore those questions quite deeply here.

Did you do so?

If you did, what did you learn about authenticity in the sitting room?

What did you learn about authenticity in the attic?

What have you most recently been learning about authenticity in the library?

How do you place value on the authentic in various situations?

How deeply have you thought about the importance of privacy? 

A home means many different things to many different people.

What is usually the purpose of your visits to cottages and/or homes other than your own?

Do you mainly prefer to visit people or places, or even pets or wildlife? 

What has motivated you to visit Frugality Cottage today?

Is it merely the chance to learn about intelligent frugality, conscious liminality and authentic living or something else entirely?  

You may be aware that affordable housing is not necessarily the type of housing people would choose for themselves if they had the option.  It may not be in a suitable location for work or study or social commitments, or even a preferred way of living or a practical place for sleeping.

You may be aware that alternative housing happens to be whatever is unusual from a cultural and legislative point of view in a particular location.

What is your knowledge of building codes?

If you are well-informed, you will be familiar with the concept of embodied energy.

Perhaps you live in an earth shelter. 

Perhaps you live in a shipping container.

If you have ever been homeless, or ever been regarded as homeless, you may or may not have had difficulty nourishing your mind during that experience.

Perhaps you are happy with any sort of shelter in which to sleep, possibly including a tent or bivouac.

Perhaps you are a digital nomad.

Perhaps you feel at home wherever and whenever you have a comfortable seat and a cup of tea.

You may find it easier to sleep soundly in a tiny house immersed in nature than in a room in a 'deluxe' hotel skyscraper.

Perhaps you enjoy living on a boat, whether it is a houseboat or any other floating home.

Perhaps you are a telecommuter.

Perhaps you do not need a home much bigger than a beach hut or boat shed or summer house.

Perhaps you feel as though a recreational vehicle is more of a home to you than any immovable dwelling.

Perhaps you enjoy the life of a van dweller.

Perhaps you are happy living in a caravan or mobile home in any sort of weather.

Perhaps your immovable dwelling has recently floated away in a flood or landslide.

Perhaps your mobile home has been destroyed in a bushfire.

Even though the word 'cottage' has been transformed into a marketing term through the tourism industry, a real cottage is mainly built of local, natural resources, not imported ones or mass produced parts.

Like a vernacular language, a vernacular building is associated with a limited local area.

It is constructed from the natural environment.

It is transformed by that environment through time, and possibly through several centuries.

It is a place of change and adaption as its occupants change and adapt. 

Do you associate the intertwining of a local environment and personal skills with authentic living?

An authentic cottage is a vernacular building.

This may be a good time to reflect upon your knowledge of authentic living.

For example:

How do you compare living in a cottage with living with a cottage?

How do you compare living in a cottage with visiting a cottage in terms of ways of living?

What have you discovered about the policies here in terms of the cottage and visitors?

Perhaps you yearn for the chance to spend some time with well-informed, kind people in the sitting room of Frugality Cottage or in another quite modest venue, especially if you are seeking help in resolving one or more problems.

There are many different ideas about what is appropriate behaviour and what is not.

There are also many different ideas about what is a superior idea and what is not.

There are even different ideas about what is clean and what is not. 

Usefulness is always situational.

Perhaps you prefer a sprig of rosemary in a cup of hot water instead of a cup of tea, especially after noon each day.

How much caffeine do you consume in an average day, and why?

What have you discovered in the past week about progress in relation to intelligently frugal pleasures and authentic living?

What value do you place on intelligently frugal pleasures?

 

 

All reasonableness is contextual.

There is no point in ignorantly giving a starving person food if that person has a serious allergy to one or more of the ingredients.

It is equally inappropriate to give a thirsty person a bottle of vodka instead of a clean glass of clean water.

It is also inappropriate to give a homeless person a blanket instead of a home.

It is especially inappropriate to pretend to be charitable while mainly gaining privileges through exclusive social networking opportunities.

Empathy involves making life easier for everyone, not merely a select few.

Cleaning up politics should not be necessary.  Unfortunately, political situations are often very messy indeed.  They are usually contaminated by corruption and other selfishness, in much the same way as inauthentic activities claimed to be charitable.

Monday 19 April 2021

Authentic Living - Episode 16

How do you usually think about popularity and authenticity in relation to progress?  

With whom have you been most closely experiencing these episodes, and why?

To whom have you recommended the earliest episodes in this series, and why?

 

 

If you are not appropriately registered as a patron here yet, you will merely be regarded as an ordinary visitor by the volunteers in Frugality Cottage rather than as a trainee.  Many of the volunteers are trainees themselves.

How have your attitudes to authentic living been shaped by folk culture, popular culture, low culture and high culture?

While the 'country music' of North America is a somewhat harsh yet sentimental and insipid expression of non-city living, it is an expression of popular culture more than folk culture.

Since your first arrival in this virtual cottage, whenever that may have been, you may have spent much of your time exploring the displays in the attic, if you have had the privilege of doing so.

Do you have any questions about those displays?

If so, to whom do you intend to present them?

Do you have any questions about problems you are seeking to solve?

When people rely on approval, and even popularity, for their livelihood, they cannot possibly be authentic unless authenticity itself is the reason for their acceptability and popularity.

Many people take up crafts through which to experience and express their true selves.

Please be aware that Frugality Cottage is a virtual, suburban venue and therefore also virtually subrural.

What is your acquaintance with cottage-style, shabby chic interior decoration and how does it compare with your acquaintance with authentic cottage living?

How have you interacted with the projects here?

How does your imagination comprehend liminality in relation to quality, certainty and truth?

Monday 12 April 2021

Authentic Living - Episode 15

People are best able to cope with difficulties if they are treated respectfully.  That is especially the case when they have a lifetime of experience at living frugally, preparing for unforeseen problems, and developing a wide range of practical skills to help them withstand adversity.

Saving wisely is obviously one of those skills.

Spending wisely is also one of those skills.

How do you define comfortable living, and why?

How do you define authentic living in relation to comfortable living, and why?

How have you already shown appreciation towards your access here?

Are you wondering why this virtual cottage is currently open to you?

If you intend to be here tomorrow, are you sure you are not being presumptuous?

You apparently regard authentic living as important, as your continuing experiences of episode 15 in this series quite evidently shows.

How have you responded to the most recent few episodes in this series?

Monday 5 April 2021

Authentic Living - Episode 14

This is a location in which well-being is beautifully yet frugally supported, suitably philanthropically and respectfully realistically.

Do you consider authentic living to be a premium experience? 

You may associate premium experiences with premium pricing.

How much have you paid for this premium experience here today?

If you do not consider being here to be a premium experience, why not?

Perhaps you do not associate authentic living with the purchase, or sale, of anything.

How do you compare premium pricing with value-based pricing in relation to authentic living?

Perhaps you are not yet adequately familiar with the location of Frugality Cottage.

How much time do you usually spend in ethereal clouds?

When have you regarded your mind as being similar to such a cloud?

What do you know about quaternary education and training?

You may be aware that the provision of such education and training can only be authentically described in terms of premium products and services.  

There is therefore no tacky merchandise authentically associated with quaternary education and training. 

Should you wish to purchase a promotional product associated with this digital arts quarter, please expect to pay for the associated authenticity and authentication quite handsomely.

What do you know about the etymology of the word 'handsome'?

Perhaps you have often paid handsomely for something of inadequate value.

The assessment of value is a highly skilled occupation in itself.  In some situations, it is even highly deserving of handsome recompense.

But how do you know which situations deserve that response?

How do you usually show appreciation and respect when gaining access to a special place, a valuable resource and/or a wonderful opportunity?

Most people do not have the financial resources with which to be officially regarded as financial patrons here in Frugality Cottage, or anywhere else in this digital arts quarter for that matter.

That is why most people are expected to pay for their patronage mainly through the expression of wisdom instead.

As you will be well aware by now, unless you are appropriately registered as a patron of the work within Frugality Cottage, you will not currently have access to the sitting room here, or the attic, or the kitchens, or to the wider Adelaidezone, within and beyond its digital arts quarter.

You may also be aware that certainty in this vicinity is mainly associated with the work conducted from the nearby Hall of Appropriate Patronage. 
 
Unless you are already appropriately registered as one of the patrons here, you will not have access to that magnificent hall.

You may be aware that reasonableness is the only basis of certainty.  

It is reasonable for the volunteers here to assume you have already attended all the relevant prior workshops, courses and information sessions here.

Have you ever experienced impostor syndrome in relation to your desire for authentic living?

If you are considered by the volunteers here to be only an ordinary member of the global public, you will still have access to this noticeboard for a little while longer.  

You will also still have access to the library, at least for the next few moments.

The digital entranceway you are currently experiencing is not a public space.  It is a privately-owned, communally-managed location, as is Frugality Cottage more generally.  

What have you discovered in the sitting room, and when, and why, and with whom?

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