Why are we doing this?

It is fairly common knowledge that human 'civilization' and 'development' are seriously threatened, not by any alien force but by the very development. One doesn't need to be an Einstein to understand that an infinite appetitie for growth and consumption cannot be sustained by a framework with finite resources (viz. Mother Earth). Enough voices of wisdom have warned us of our urgent need to change direction and choose voluntary simplicity. Yet we are only nosediving towards an abyss of annhilation, exponentially accelerated by modern science and technology. How can individuals help the situation? The answer is : opt out of the system; that is the greatest service we can do to the world. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, what the system direly needs is more people that are not a part of it!

To give an analogy, the system is like a bullock cart loaded with people. More and more people are getting on the cart because it is easier than walking. You only need to get onto the cart and fight for your space on it, and the bullock does the rest. (after all, isn't this is our idea of livelihood and security?). All the time the poor bullock is struggling to draw the cart, panting and bleeding - and what do we conscientious, pious, do-gooders on the cart do? We offer to fan the animal, treat its wounds, take up a collection for its food & medicine, conduct symposiums on the plight of the bullock - anything except getting off its back! The need of the hour is to get off, opt out - and this is what we mean by self-reliance.

If we keep reducing our consumption, we slowly but steadily become independent of the system and the more people get off the cart, the more sustainable it is. This is precisely what Thoreau successfully demonstrated at Walden:

`"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."`

This is what Gandhi meant when he said Graam Swaraj (Village Self Rule) and Schumacher propounded as Small is Beautiful.

While we mere mortals cannot be as brave as Thoreau or Gandhi, at our level we can try and simplify our lives and reduce dependency and sponge less off the system. Self reliance has a social impact by example.