Diderot's Dressing Gown and Finding My 'Enough'

 
 

New and pretty stuff is tempting. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if we’re born with an innate taste for beautiful things or if marketing has simply trained us to crave them. I remember my friend Niko saying once that people are into beautiful man-made things these days because we have been displaced from nature and the beauty that comes with it, so now we artificially seek beauty. Whatever the reason, new and pretty stuff is tempting.

Philosopher Denis Diderot wrote, in 1769, about this desire for beautiful man-made things in his hilarious essay (I find it hilarious) Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown, Or A Warning To Those Who Have More Taste Than Fortune–I mean, just the title is brilliant. In this essay, he relates the story of how being gifted a new and precious scarlet dressing gown led to a spiral of extravagant money spending. The new gown didn’t match his old straw chair so he swapped it for a fine leather one. Then the new leather chair didn’t match his old wooden table and it was replaced by a new writing desk. And so on until his debts piled up. This was his reaction when he realised what he had done:

“Oh holy prophet! Raise your hands to the heavens and pray for a friend in peril. Say to God: If you see in your eternal decrees that riches are corrupting the heart of Denis, don’t spare the masterpieces he idolizes. Destroy them and return him to his original poverty. And I, on my side, will say to the heavens: Oh God! I resign myself to the prayer of the holy prophet and to your will. I abandon everything to you. Take back everything, everything except the Vernet! It’s not the artist, it is you who made it. Respect your own work and that of friendship.”

Not the Vernet!–That part cracks me up. Like Diderot, I had a similar moment after finishing renovations on my Mahi Room (my workspace). For a moment I contemplated getting new curtains, a new fancy desk and a stylish set of shelves. Luckily, I remembered that unlike Diderot, I did not have a generous patron paying me a ‘forever salary’ so I could pursue my interests. Also, the thought of reducing my ‘sabbatical fund’–my savings to be clear–was enough to stop me on my feet. Wasn’t I all about ‘simple living’ anyway? That’s right. Sorry, minor slip. I have enough already.

All those so-called idle reflections on what 'enough' means to me—while lying on the couch—turned out to be useful after all. Maybe they weren’t so idle after all. They did spare me from any regrets and a massive pile of debts. But like I said, do keep an eye out because new and pretty stuff is tempting.

Ditching meritocracy

 
 

Have you ever heard the voice of the Not-Good-Enough whispering to your ear about all the things you haven’t achieved, the talent you lack, the things you don’t have or the things you haven’t done?

I don’t hear that voice very often these days but I have been thinking about it and wondering why our world seems to be so obsessed with merit and achievement. It’s a rather exhausting way of going about life.

That voice, is the voice of a meritocratic society that we could very well live without.

The Illusion of Meritocracy

Meritocracy. The dictionary defines meritocracy as a political, social, or economic system where power, influence, and rewards are assigned solely on the basis of ability and achievement—not on background, privilege, or irrelevant personal traits. In other words, in a meritocracy people succeed based on how talented, hardworking and qualified they are.

At first glance, that might seem reasonable. Work hard, develop your talents and you’ll be rewarded, you’ll succeed. But here’s the problem: in the world we live in not everybody has equal opportunities to develop their talents and not all talents are valued equally. Also, by measuring an individual’s worth by way of performance our personal worth becomes conditional and reliant on external factors, which places our sense of self on a rather shaky ground.

Why I Reject the Achievement Treadmill

Once we internalise this achievement mindset, we step onto a hamster wheel of competition and overwork that leaves us exhausted. No matter how much we achieve, there’s always another milestone, another accolade, another way to prove ourselves. It drains us and leaves us with no time to rest, reflect or simply enjoy life.

No wonder people are burning out. No wonder anxiety and depression are rampant. Who can truly thrive in a system where we constantly have to prove ourselves?

A Different Way to Live

I didn’t always feel this way. I have chased success and have felt the need to prove myself just as badly as anyone else. That’s the narrative we learn from the world around us. But at some point, I took a step back and saw the absurdity of it all. Yanis Varoufakis said it best:

“All systems of domination work by enveloping us in their narrative and superstitions in such a way that we cannot see beyond them. Taking a step or two back, finding a way to inspect them from the outside, allows us a glimpse of how imperfect, how ludicrous, they are. Securing this glimpse keeps you in touch with reality.”

That glimpse changed everything for me. I realised I could opt out.

Living a Simple Life

Learning to simplify my life has taught me that worth isn’t something we earn—it’s something we already have. We don’t need to prove ourselves. We don’t need titles, awards or fancy jobs to be valuable members of our communities. We all have gifts to give to the world, and whatever they are, however big or small, they are valuable and they are enough. We are enough.

These are the things I now practice. I learn the things I learn and work on the things I work on because I’m curious, I’m interested and I care, not because I’m after recognition. I rest because I respect my body and mind, not because I’ve “earned” a break. I fail, make mistakes and try again—not because failure is a lesson in resilience, but because it’s simply part of life. And when I spend time with people, I’m present and feel joy, not the anxiety of being measured and judged.

Can you feel how much lighter it is here?

Simple living and the nervous system credits

 

They Call Me Ninu ©️ 2024

 

In my previous entry I wrote about why I’m simplifying my life and getting rid of the fluff (things that don’t make sense or don’t work for me). I also wrote in this other entry about why I’m choosing purpose over money and career advancement. I’m currently exploring and experimenting with alternative ways of doing things but I don’t have it all figured out yet.

So far, this simple living project looks like decluttering my life and choosing meaningful work over ambition. But I have been thinking about a third very important element that this simple living project needs to take into account: my own nervous system. Not all nervous systems are the same. Our capacity to take on things like workload, daily stressors or sensory input without reaching the breaking point varies a great deal from person to person.

I personally have always had a sensitive nervous system. There are many things that overwhelm me like big crowds, loud and/or constant noise, strong smells, overload of information, the mysterious world of the unsaid, etc. I stop functioning when I push my nervous system too far so I need to look after it.

For many years I thought having a sensitive nervous system was a flaw and I tried to do and live as I saw other people were doing. That did not go well. At some point, my poor nervous system was so unwell I was having vertigo attacks almost every day and later on I had a bad burnout. That period of burnout made me realise two things: 1) I do not have to measure myself against other people and 2) we all have different nervous systems, some people can take on a lot more than others.

Since learning those two lessons I have been thinking about my nervous system capacity in terms of nervous system credits. The way I see it is like this: we are all born with a particular nervous system that has a predetermined number of credits. These credits inform us how much we can take on in terms of workload, daily stressors or sensory input without reaching the breaking point. Some people have a lot of nervous system credits and some have much less. The nervous system credits also let us know what our threshold is and that if we cross that threshold our nervous system can burn out. The degree of burnout will depend on how far we went beyond the threshold and for how long.

Another thing that I learnt about my nervous system capacity is that it is flexible within reason. I can stretch my nervous system capacity a little bit by gently going beyond that threshold for a reasonable amount of time and then giving myself plenty of rest. But I can never try to substantially change the nature of my nervous system by going too far beyond that threshold for too long because that can have pretty serious consequences.

I’m learning to look after myself and have been making a few life changes so that my life feels mine and not someone else’s version of perfect. I reduced my work hours to 20 hrs a week, work from home most days, my outings and social time are less frequent, I have plenty of quiet time every week and reduced my interests and projects to only a couple at a time. My income got reduced too but it’s worth it. I have been feeling so much better and my creativity is back too.

This whole thing of measuring my life against my own capacity, values and abilities is a relatively new development. I’m still working on it but the few changes I’ve made so far have improved my quality of life enormously. This hasn’t been my own doing, of course, my workplace has been amazing at providing plenty of flexibility and my whānau has been wonderfully supportive. I am grateful for this and aware of how big a privilege it is. I want to keep that in mind because being well is never a product of our effort alone.

Getting rid of the fluff

 

They Call Me Ninu ©️ 2024

 

Four years ago I stopped shaving my body: legs, armpits and bikini line. Although I didn’t really shave. I used to use an epilator, which was the most cost-effective and long-lasting way to get rid of my body hair. I never enjoyed the epilating ritual. It was painful and my skin is so sensitive that I often got rashes. I did it for about 25 years until one day I had enough and I just stopped removing my body hair altogether. The moment I stopped made me think about the reason I started. When I was a teenager my classmates said that girls didn’t go around sporting hairy legs or hairy armpits. I never thought of questioning that rule and going against the tide at that age is a scary thing.

Letting my body grow its fluff made me feel free. I was very self-conscious at the beginning but gradually got used to it. It made me wonder when and why women started removing their body hair. Doing a deep dive into the history of female body hair removal I learnt that money (of course) was behind it all. Women didn’t all of a sudden start begging companies for products to help them get rid of their body hair. Female body hair wasn’t an issue. Companies like Gillete, convinced women through advertising that their body hair was shameful. Having ladies buying their razors (not just guys) meant more profits. So female body hair became from there on “ugly, noticeable and unwanted” and an “embarrassing personal problem.”

How silly. I had been putting up with the pain of removing my body hair for over 25 years just to keep up with some standards made up by an industry interested in profiting. Sounds familiar? It’s the story of how our modern world was built. How many other nonsensical practices have I been engaging in just because they became part of a culture initiated by a drive for profit?

That was a big penny-drop moment for me and getting rid of the fluff became my new hobby. Not the fluff on my body but the fluff in my life. I’m slowly clearing out the things that don’t make sense or don’t work for me. It’s a bit of an experiment. In the process, I’m learning interesting things about how things got to be the way they are. Simplifying life is proving to be more enjoyable than I thought it would be.

What Do I Really Want To Do?

 

They Call Me Ninu ©️ 2023

 

Money is a funny beast. From an early age, I learnt that one is supposed to care about money. The adults seemed to want me to learn to save, invest, make safe bets, be financially savvy and choose a career with good prospects for a well-paid job. From these adults, I also learnt that money equals security. So it was not a surprise they were not happy with my decision to study arts. It is not a safe bet, you will struggle, they said. Those ideas must have gone deep in my core because my relationship with money has been anxious ever since I can remember. And I never really gave my creative practice the care and attention it deserved.

I don’t want money to rule my decisions any more. I want to do things differently. I don’t want to keep making safe bets and choosing the job with the steady weekly pay while my creative self shrinks and pains at the back of a dusty drawer. As it turns out, the economic security the adults taught me to pursue only leads to a depressing sense of dissatisfaction. More and more I have been thinking that making choices based on whether they will be ‘good for my career’ just doesn’t make sense anymore. I think the pursuit of money and “career” has done enough damage to our world. Surely there’s a better way to do things?

I want to step out of that false security and ask myself, what do I really want to do? How can I do things differently? Can I be less fearful? How can I share the things I’ve got to give? Are there different ways to make a living other than trying to monetise our gifts? I want to live fully. I want to reconnect with my true self and nourish the soul. I want to attune myself to the rhythms of the Earth and explore, experiment and live a creative life. And to do that I know that I need to simplify my living because I don’t see any other way to make it work. I want to live a life that makes sense to me. That’s why I’m starting this Simple Living Journal. It’ll be an account of the things that I’m experimenting with and what I learn in this ride.