Being well prepared is the essence of intelligent frugality. It
involves making proper provisions for every circumstance that nature,
politics and society may present.
Being well prepared makes calmness more likely.
Since this series began, how have your views about frugality developed?
How have your ideas about intelligence developed during that time?
How do you usually think about the public and the private?
How do you usually think about the interpersonal and the personal?
How do you usually think about the political?
How do you usually establish relevance, from your own point of view, and from the point of view of other people?
If the words 'quaint' and 'cosy' spring to your mind in connection with
a calmly inviting cottage, do you also think of the Danish and Norwegian word 'hygge'?
Do you spend much of your time knitting in the sitting room of a
little cottage somewhere, authentically discussing history, politics and philosophy
with anyone?
Do you associate authentic living mainly with the past rather than the future?
You may have noticed that this is episode twenty-eight in this series.
Do you associate authentic living with progress?
Do you prefer your meal times to be calm or lively?
Calmness not only encourages a pleasant sense of unity with humanity but
unity with nature, unity with time and timelessness, and unity through
cosiness.
You may associate the convivial with over-indulgence rather than intelligently frugal cosiness and calmness.
Do you associate authentic living with being honest and open?
In
many reasonably healthy minds, a feeling of cosiness, rather than
elegance, is likely to be appreciated as nurturing and comforting, especially when it
is associated with pleasant companionship and/or a peaceful retreat from
the world and its problems.
Hotel rooms are rarely cosy. Even the grandest of them are merely hotel
rooms, and many are not even conducive to a good night's sleep.
In a similar way, restaurants are rarely cosy. They are merely places
in which to eat and possibly also talk, or shout if the place is noisy.
Of course, in tropical parts of the world, cosiness, calmness,
friendliness and safety may require provisions for coolness as well
as cleanliness.
If you are appropriately registered as one of the patrons here, you may have recently been
leading yourself, with or without a group of followers, on a winding
garden path through the Frugality Cottage gardens, to a lovely little summer house enclosing a composting toilet, even though it is wintertime here in the Adelaidezone.
How much do you value the chance to experience any or all of the virtual workshops here in the cottage itself, and/or in its outbuildings and/or garden areas?
Do you often enjoy investing time in gardening and/or cooking and/or
maintaining a cosy home and/or acquiring and/or reading gardening books and/or
cookery books and/or various other books to help you become more self-reliant and/or capable of using practical skills in a wide range of situations?
Do you enjoy developing your moral character that way?
Perhaps you value such moments deeply.
Perhaps you even genuinely appreciate the relationship between intelligent frugality and liminality.
If you are relatively enlightened, you will be aware that a seemingly unfriendly person may merely be tired and in need of quality time alone, possibly in a cosy cottage with a cup of tea and a chance to rest in peace and quiet.
The library here is usually very quiet indeed. It is not a place for friendly chatter. It is a place in which to find enlightenment.
Much
self-directed learning can be achieved through books and online and
through quietness and rest and through careful observations of nature
and people.
A character cottage is a place in which being alone does not feel lonely.
The character of Frugality Cottage makes it friendly and inviting, even for a person arriving alone.
You may associate simple, peaceful, cosy living with 'hygge' and similar concepts.
Similar words to 'hygge' in other European contexts are usually
associated with egalitarian gatherings, a sense of belonging and warm
friendliness in pleasantly inviting environments.
You may associated 'hygge' with
relaxation.
How do you attempt to understand concepts like 'hygge' in various non-Scandinavian cultural contexts?
Perhaps you have noticed that the word 'cosy' is textually located in the word 'ecosystem'.
In Dutch culture, a similar concept to 'hygge' is found in 'gezelligheid',
which is associated with an individual and shared feeling of well-being
in a family gathering or with old friends though it does not
necessarily imply cosiness.
There is also an opposite term,
'ongezellig' which refers to unfriendly people and uninviting places.
While coping
is difficult with problematic social, political, financial and
environmental experiences, especially when also suffering from ill
health, the factors contributing to well-being should, ideally, inform public policy appropriately, in the public interest.
You may be aware that social movements and political movements achieve
little of lasting value until they become cultural movements of lasting
value.
Acceptance within a community is associated with a feeling described in German as 'Gemütlichkeit'.
Strangely, there is no equivalent term in English.
Unfortunately, achieving that feeling of acceptance in Germany may require a person to spend time quite
frequently in a beer garden or beer hall. Such a location may possibly have loud music and
inebriated crowds.
The Anglo equivalent is time spent regularly in a pub or bar and/or shouting loudly as part of a group of sports fanatics.
Similarly, quite a few cultures associate alcohol with a sense of community, and possibly even camaraderie and loudness.
There is nothing elegant, peaceful, respectful or respectable about loudness.
Perhaps you have mainly been having fun here in Frugality Cottage.
Perhaps you want more hugs and hygge and laughs in your life.
Are you attempting to bring more hygge into the world, with or without
being able to provide affectionate hugs to the people and/or animals and/or plants you love?
Frugality Cottage is virtually open to you this year to assist the expression of your authentic self, wherever you may currently be located in the physical world.
Cottages and character may not necessarily be associated with hygiene, especially if there is a dirty pot-holder or oven glove.
The volunteers take hygiene very seriously here. They also take all other forms of safety very seriously indeed.
How well do you keep locations clean, and how do you define cleanliness and hygiene, and upon what evidence?
Are you competent at preparing hearty peasant foods without giving anyone food poisoning?
Do you know much about urban poverty, rural poverty and suburban poverty?
Do you know much about the feminisation of poverty?
Have you properly acquainted yourself with the basics of human ecology?
Have you properly acquainted yourself with the basics of human rights?
Have you properly acquainted yourself with the basics of institutions?
Urban and suburban life can often be far from idyllic.
Even rural and remote life can often be far from idyllic.
The pastoral aesthetic has nothing to do with the reality of managing herds of animals. It may, however, have something to do with escaping from hordes of people. It
may possibly help people to cope with unrequited love, emotional
abandonment, lack of money, loneliness, and the lack of opportunity to
live a more pleasant existence.
Perhaps you have attempted to escape from unpleasant experiences by searching for treasure hoards.
Perhaps you express your authentic self by hoarding food and/or other items.
Perhaps you have been excessively hoarding items and/or panic buying and/or feeling cluttered and/or overcrowded.
Perhaps you are a compulsive hoarder.
Are you capable of deciding for yourself which items are essential to you and which are not?
Are you capable of deciding how to distribute your surplus items appropriately?
Are you capable of deciding for yourself which information is essential to you and which is not?
Are you capable of deciding which aspects of yourself are authentic and which aspects are not?
Have you fully explored the lovely patronage opportunities offered to you throughout Frugality Cottage?
Are you devoted to expressing enlightened patronage and political pleasantness?
Are you interested in experiencing an Australian idyll, whether virtually or otherwise?
How do you compare lovely opportunities with lost opportunities?
How do you know when a lovely opportunity is an almost lost opportunity?
Perhaps you delight in experiencing progress in your own understanding of authentic living.
The appropriately qualified patrons here have a lovely range of workshops and projects to consider and subsequently experience, if they so choose.
If
you would like to know more about well-informed kindness, do please
book a place on one or more of the lovely virtual tours around here, and
from here, at your earliest opportunity, if you are eligible to do so.
Perhaps you will subsequently wish to share the experience vicariously with your fans and your entourage.
Whether you are in such a position of influence or not, what do you believe will be the future of love in its various forms?
What have been your experiences of falling in love and falling out of love?
What have been your experiences of developing an interest in anything, and losing interest?
How wisely have you been investing in love, and how do you know?
Through your most appropriate expressions of patronage, you will have
the chance to access many lovely opportunities through Frugality
Cottage, with or without access to money.
What do you know about quality of life in relation to abundance and scarcity?
Are you often unaware of scarcity as a consequence of not really experiencing it much in your own life?
There are many different beliefs about investing in life.
What are your beliefs on the subject?
Perhaps your
life already has an abundance of everything you consider worth having.
But how would you cope if that abundance vanished overnight?
How, if at all, do you ensure your way of life is not associated with overconsumption in any way whatsoever and simultaneously not associated with the perpetuation of unmet needs?
You may be willing to accept that even with an abundance of information
in the digital world, there is a lack of understanding. That lack of
understanding causes much confusion. It gives rise to the effectiveness
of propaganda and other misinformation. It also gives rise to dangers
disinformation.
While egotism expresses excessive self-love, victims of cruelty may unfortunately develop self-hatred. Yet excessive self-love is a form of self-denial, in much the same way as self-hatred. Both are unreasonable. Both fail to acknowledge the true self.
What have been your experiences of the first twenty episodes in this series?
And where have you presented your own versions?