Imagine.
It was your home for years, the modest structure now growing smaller in your rear-view mirror. This morning’s garage sale delivered your burden to the brainwashed souls whom you used to call neighbours. In just twenty minutes you will arrive at your cabin with your final load of supplies. The jewel in your crown, your majestic permaculture garden should be ready to harvest, and you swear that the other day, Clover the dairy cow called your name in her moo. Your heart thumped hard like it saluted your courage.
Just a quick stop to buy your last store-bought cappuccino. Chan's Coffee House, a great location because it lacked nostalgia. By the window, over the spare laminated table you cut the chord that bound you to the most powerful religion on earth: consumerism. The confident pile of credit cards, always so cocky and right, died instantly.
Credit Cards on the table during your reality re-load.As the scissors clamped down on the last card, your sight faded fast. The sound also dropped out, though the darkness made a more urgent impression. Your world became as absent of information as the bottom of the deepest ocean trench. It took a few seconds to realise, the matrix had come undone. You unplugged like Neo did. Time froze and you waited, void of everything; then it all switched on again as abruptly as it started. Things seemed different, though by appearances it was the same; as if we lived on a stage-set built in front of the exact same scenery.
You walk out of the cafe. The time is now. You are no longer connected.
This is the end of the world. Void of consumerism. You are the first, but the rest should follow.
The ruse, the glue that fixed humanity to the matrix, was nearly discovered by your rebellious hipster friends. Until they realised how much fun it was to be a hipster with a credit card. Typewriters, vintage clothes, carefully manicured facial hair; and for men, beards. Tattoos for first generation hipsters, tattoo removals for the second, vintage crockery and home decor trucked out from Palm Springs.
Burning Man FestivalOrganic, free range, single source, free-trade friends purchased with rare underground supper club invitations. Solidifying said friendships at the Burning Man festival, coolly expedited on hydrogen-powered Winnebagos.
You are the 3G hipster, and if decide to take on the good fight, you’ll go back to the beating heart of the matrix and expose this clandestine, paramount religion. It’s a big deal; colossal. So immense, it would be as if one person denounced the Catholic Church for never having the intention to deliver people to God – and the billion followers all agreed with you right there and then! The potential power vacuum would propel humanity towards enlightenment faster than owning the Bikram yoga trademark and all the Lululemon gear in the world.
“One day, perfection will be achieved not when there is nothing left to add to our lives, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
~ First Presidentess of my island nation.
Your new homeYou've got it figured it out: living beyond the matrix doesn't have to be about converting shipping containers into post-apocaliptic dwellings and grinding lentils. It can be sexy and ordinary, luxurious and utilitarian. Such aesthetic combinations - called Shibumi - was described by Japanese artists back in the Edo period. Shibumi is why my nation is as harmonious and vibrant as it is. These seven characteristics are part of the Shibumi aesthetic.
- Austerity (koko). Is about restraint, exclusion, and omission. It imparts focus and clarity. Add only what is necessary.
- Simplicity (kanso). Avoid overstating beauty or utility. Eliminate what doesn’t matter to make room for what does. Fresh is a synonym.
- Natural (Shizen). Be of nature but not from it. Incorporate natural patters and rhythms in life. Live without pretence.
- Subtlety (Yugen). To be precise or finite is to be at odds with nature. The power of suggestion is stronger than full disclosure. Limit information and this will draw curiosity.
Imperfection and Asymmetry (Fukinsei). Symmetry in nature is asymmetrical and incomplete. It is the viewer who supplies the missing symmetry. Include other people when you create.- Break from Routine (Datsozoku). A break is an important part of any breakthrough. When a pattern is broken, creativity and resourcefulness emerge.
- Stillness and Tranquillity (Seijaku). Doing something isn’t always better than doing nothing. The essence of creative energy exists in states of solitude and quietude.
At your core, you are the paradox that is Shibumi: beautiful and imperfect, elegant and simple. What if you imagined yourself as an incomplete work of art where, by interacting with others, you complete the piece. Your life becomes a honeycomb of artforms, all unique, changing the course of humanity forever.
