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Lucy's avatar

Goblincore for me, since at 62 I reckon I've more chance of looking like a goblin than a coquette or a VSCO girl (I had to look up the latter, not for the first time but being 62 I'd already forgotten what it was). Also I do rather like muddy, woodsy places, mushrooms and toadstools, winter colours and curling up in a safe dark hole sometimes!

It's seemed to me for a while now that off-grid is really missing the point; what we actually need is a strong, resilient, sustainable grid, fairly shared and accountably managed, accessible and affordable to all. The social, ethical and spiritual aspects aside, off-grid life seems to involve a lot of burning stuff, wood, gas etc, when we should really be looking to electrify as much as possible. Generating enough carbon free renewable electricity to live independently is a tall order, and would require a lot of individual investment in technology someone else had produced. Much better to share and redistribute with a wider community. Same with food, in essence. And ideally, towns and cities are a more efficient way for people to live, so more land could theoretically be available for rewilding.

I've done my share of fleeing the rat race and living in (comparative) splendid isolation, growing gluts of vegetables and burning wood (though we never aimed at self-sufficiency and enjoyed life in a small hamlet) but in recent years we've moved into a small town, a more efficient smaller house with a heat pump and a pellet burner. We still try to grow a bit of food, in a smaller garden, but I honestly prefer to go along to the community garden and work with other people, improve my French and bring home the surplus. I'm very lucky, I know, to be able to do this.

It's taken me a long time to find such a satisfying way to live, I hope you find one too!

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mia's avatar

thank you for writing this isabelle; i've been chewing on similar questions and ideas in the past few months! if you haven't seen it, you might enjoy this video essay by mina le, which discusses many of the same ideas and also changing norms of friendship in the face of commodification, privatization, etc. https://youtu.be/KqjpuUJQFcM?si=tG1TJFzq9WSXdkK2

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