Simplify Luxury
Fresh air meets your nostrils. Cool earth grounded beneath palms as grass blades tickle skin. Sunshine greets your cheeks with a smile. You give space in your chest for a breath in, and the sigh expands to your neck, shoulders, back and down. Eyebrows and jaw soften to give eyes and tongue room to relax. Eyes softly close as you enter your own shelter.
As humans, we have figured out a way to make widely accessible sensations difficult to experience due to the nature of our lifestyles. That is, leisure and relaxation.
This realization set in as I began studying and teaching Yoga. I found myself capable of using ancient tools to settle my nervous system. So much so, that over the months that followed my mind became clearer, and emotions became less turbulent. Since my first class three years ago, I’ve surprised myself at how better equipped I am in controlling my responses during stressful experiences. While I’m far from being an enlightened guru, I’ve noticed my observational skills improve in that I can see thought patterns emerge and consider alternatives before reacting. Small things bring me happiness more consistently than extravagant experiences. I still revel in indulgence, but I also settle into the indulgences of everyday life, rather than lust for what I don’t have access to.
This is hard to do for many people in an age of celebrity, influencer, and wealth culture. Seeing others flaunt their abundance presents moral dilemmas, because we assume if anyone can have the rich life, then everyone should be able to live the rich life. Privilege, rights, and the political questions of what qualifies as either is at the root of democracy. And before that, technology as well.
Let’s start with the technology piece. There’s a story that long ago two neighbors shared adjacent fields, and one day one of the neighbors started using a cart with circular wheels and was able to plow much faster. Upon seeing this, the other neighbor got jealous and quickly made a wagon with circular wheels. Technology in this theory spread through sight, action and outcome. In a similar way, in 2022 a group of killer whales attacked sailboats in a slough of three separate incidents. Since then, more orcas have targeted rudders, as if to purposefully sink vessels. These examples share the reality that life learns through sensing, primarily from peer-to-ecosystem relationships and emotionally charged experiences.
When we perceive others as outperforming us on social media, it triggers an evolutionary response to strive for better, and to follow suit. In this way, our perception of equity is warped to perceive the “top” as an unattainable, always moving ceiling. Crossing that wealth threshold would feel like what I imagine astronauts might feel when pushing through the blue sky into nothingness as they enter space. Privilege and rights are two sides of the same coin– a game of perception about what we should have.
Athenian democracy, widely accepted as the first democracy of the world, arose because aristocrats, the small wealthy class, had changed the laws to benefit themselves. The Draconian constitution was drawn to make legal proceedings accessible to the literate public, and was the first written constitution to introduce laws about intentional vs unintentional homicide. Democracy was born from a need for transparent information. The freedoms that connect us all are the freedoms to know and to have a claim in our future.
What do government structures have to do with luxury? Consider first that “government” is a technology humanity created to solve a problem– how do we ought to live and get along with one another? How can we agree on decisions that have repercussions, and what should we do when humans inevitably create unintended consequences?
Aristotle and Draco, King John, The Founding Fathers, leaders throughout history created opportunities to change how society was run. In that way, political leaders are like the engineers or designers of government technologies. Throughout history, like-minded groups of people have decided to lead change, particularly in disruptive revolutionary periods that mark oppression.
Simplify Luxury brings into question what each of us need to live a good life. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs operates on the assumption of a bare minimum necessity, but I hope to break from having those kinds of rules, per-say, and instead recommend adaptable boundaries.
Laws have allowed us to make sense of how we co-habitate. Their intention was to bring about equitable access. But laws only ever are effective to an extent. While I am amazed standing in the monumental maze that is Times Square, I also feel terrified that any person has the potential to make a normal place dramatically more dangerous. Humans are exponentially more dangerous in areas prone to scarcity, corruption, exploitation, and violence. We can point to psychology, culture, technology, or any number of systems, but ultimately humans are just not very good at following rules.
Boundaries help us deal with complex issues as they arise. They provide strategies for holding ourselves and those around us accountable when we make unpredictable errors in judgement.
One error in judgement is our tendency for instant gratification. We tend to opt for the easier, more enjoyable, more delicious choice. Unless we sacrifice momentary pleasure, which we hardly ever do in Western society. Instant gratification drives many Americans' daily habits because we have a culture that promotes an overwork-indulgence viscous cycle.
In myself, I’ve noticed a thought pattern where I give myself something really enjoyable because “I earned it” or “I deserve it”. This is also represented by the “treat yo’self” meme, overshopping on holidays, and scheduling rare vacation weeks with exhausting activities. It’s like we binge on pleasure due to being structurally exploited.
I stepped onto the yogic path when I was struggling with depression and anxiety. As a young adult I felt a constant dark cloud over me, and excruciating pain pouring from my chest all the time. I cried often and felt despair about the future. I scrolled social media for hours, and could never feel I had a handle on life’s constant barrage of stress. I did not start practicing Yoga because I thought it would help me be less sad. Rather, I had a hunch that my mental state was somehow connected to the physiological issues I was also experiencing at the time that were just as mysterious. I was bloated, rash-prone, and sick regularly. I felt like my skin and nails were not healthy, and my mind was fatigued even after just waking up. After years of negative tests, anti-depressants, and skin creams, I wanted to give up and try something else.
I can’t accurately trace all of the reasoning that led to my first Yoga class, but at some point, everything began to click. I found a system of knowledge that confirmed my suspicions that our human nature is tied to actual Nature. I created space for myself and thus, learned to draw stronger boundaries with others. I built better habits, consumed more intentionally, and connected more authentically. None of this is to say that this is the only way to find peace and wellness, or that I am an expert at all. Try everything yourself to experience what works for you.
Cultivating awareness was what led me to understand and map connections between neurotransmitters, vitamins, immune responses, hormones, and the body’s microbiome. I began listening to knowledge from Eastern and Western sources. Dr. Andrew Huberman claimed one of the most important recent discoveries in neuroscience was that dopamine was more closely related to motivation and craving than rewards. Dopamine is often quoted as the reward molecule, touted by the experiment in which two rats housed in separate cages triggered food with a little lever, and they experienced a release of dopamine each time. The assumption was that comforting experiences like eating, having sex, or the sensation of becoming warm if cold, triggered the release of dopamine. Huberman continues,
but someone had the good idea to deplete dopamine in one of those animals and then what you find is that the animal without dopamine still enjoys food and still enjoys other pleasures. So, dopamine is not really involved in the enjoyment of those pleasures, it's involved in motivation, because if you force the animal to move to get the lever, the animal with dopamine will work to go get the food and will go through some effort. Whereas the animal, or turns out the human, without much dopamine can still experience pleasure. [Without dopamine, humans] can sit on their couch and cram their face with pleasure inducing calories, or watch pleasure inducing things on the television. But, they have very little motivation to go pursue things that will deliver them pleasure. It's actually what's really driven forward the evolution of our species: the desire to go seek things beyond the confines of our skin.
This linked well with passage 2.18 in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, “prakāśakriyāsthitiśīlaṃ bhūtendriyātmakaṃ bhogāpavargārthaṃ dṛśyam” which Sri Swami Satchidananda translated to “The seen is of the nature of the guṇas: illumination, activity and inertia; and consists of the elements and sense organs, whose purpose is to provide both experiences and liberation to the Puruṣa”. To explain what Patanjali meant by this sutra, Satchidananda provides two metaphors, one from Hindu mythology and the other from the life of a silk moth.
In Hindu mythology, Indra, the king of the gods was punished and forced to take the body of a pig. He enjoyed rolling in the mud and mating with his pig wife. He was so happy as a pig that he insisted on the gods joining him. “Sir, we can’t let you go on like this,” the gods said. They killed his piglets, and then his pig wife, and he was in despair. The devas, gods, decided to take away his pig body as well. Once he was released of his pig body, Indra looked down and gained clarity. “I don’t want any more of this, let’s go back.” According to Satchidananda, this story illustrates that those who enjoy life’s luxuries are ignoring the truth of the world. Luxuries are entanglements that keep us from experiencing reality as it is, and ultimately connecting with our inner knowing.
The silk moth story tells a similar tale. When silk moths are born they are as small as a hair, several can fit on a finger. In a day you will need the palm of your hand to fit them all, and they grow exponentially from there. All day and night they consume leaves until the end of their first month when they begin to sleep as one does who overeats. Those who have tried to sleep on a full stomach know that indigestion happens, and this causes restlessness. Silk moths roll about, and while they roll, saliva streams from their mouth, turning to paste and silk thread. They eventually bound themselves in their own silk, a cocoon. The story goes that in their cocoon they begin to regret their choices, wondering what they did to themselves. In the silence and solitude they meditate, reflect on their indulgences, and repent. It is at the moment the worm decides to live a selfless life that two wings appear, viveka (discrimination) and vairāga (dispassion), along with a sharp nose that represents sharp, clear intellect that allows them to free themselves from their own prisons.
These teachings present a guide for balance throughout mind, body, spirit, and home. Each on their own represent an aspect of home, but home is also the extension that is a shelter. How to keep house and garden are reflections of a subconscious, and influence behaviors and habits. I am more creative and sensual when my home is clean and expresses my voice. Work, or manifestation, is my action. It is what I plan to do and how I execute. Work is reliant on my whole home feeling secure.
Simplify Luxury focuses on connection, validation, and delight. We seek novelty in the form of cultures, entertainment, and hidden mysteries. Look to calm the nervous system and notice the small luxuries given from nature and daily life.
Read more in The Charter 1.0, and simplify luxury with My Retreat.
