Dancing like You're a Four Year Old Listening to Metallica
On living a way that suits you, not other people
Simple + Straightforward is a weekly letter filled with essays, tips, and ideas to live life more simply and intentionally. This is a public post so feel free to share with friends and family you think would enjoy a dose of simplicity every Friday.
When I was babysitting my four-year-old niece the other day, I remembered my brother told me she loves the song Master of Puppets by Metallica.
An odd choice for a four-year-old, I thought. Surely she’d be more into the Encanto soundtrack or something. But hey, there’s an hour before my brother collects her to fill, so let’s run with this and have a metal dance party in the kitchen. If nothing else, it’ll keep my rock and metal-loving husband entertained.
So we stuck on our favorite songs from the 90s and 00s and watched my niece’s reaction.
It really is something to watch a four-year-old mosh to System of a Down’s Chop Suey.
As the party continued, my niece would quickly tell me what she did and didn’t like a few seconds into the song. She loved Nirvana’s Smells like Teen Spirit but wasn’t so keen on Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun for instance.
Her reactions were a great reminder about how much our pre-conceptions can shape what we do, how we consume content, what we consume. Black Hole Sun for instance has been decreed by society as waaaay cooler than Smells Like Teen Spirit and a more self-conscious person might be nervous to stick the latter song on for fear of eye rolls and what that “says” about them.
It was therefore refreshing to watch a four year old dance to a song just because she likes it, not because it says something about her.
That’s words for life, right there.
***
As they say these days, content is king. It’s what we spend seven hours of our day doing and that’s not even counting the four hours a day the average American spends watching television.
What we choose to consume shapes who we are. If we’re choosing it based on other people’s preferences - the show everyone is talking about, the music everyone is listening to - we’re likely doing a disservice to ourselves.
That’s bad enough, but it’s indicative of a wider, more serious problem.
That we’re much keener on fitting in than many of us would like to admit. It’s something I’ve noticed whilst hurtling towards my forties - how ideas of “normality” shape how we live our lives, sometimes a detrimental amount.
I call it What You Do™
Going to college is What You Do. Getting a safe job is What You Do. Getting married, having kids, spending leisure time in society-approved ways, house buying, making as much money as you can at the detriment of everything else - they’re all examples of What You Do.
Some of What You Do is cool. If you’ve carefully thought about it, and have made an intentional decision that What You Do is actually what you want to do, then more power to ya.
But so much of it is blindly followed because we’re tired. We’re skint. We’re just trying to get through every day relatively unscathed and it’s far easier to go with the flow than spend time and energy swimming against it.
Simple living is no different. I mean in 2022, living within your means, slowing down, - it’s not exactly What You Do and that’s what makes it so hard. I’ve written before that simple living is a counter-culture and I fully believe that. You’re going against what society says is good for you - and you’re likely to come up against plenty of resistance.
The key is learning how to resist.
***
I’ve never met so many different people living lives worlds apart from What You Do as I have on the road these last two years. And I’ve noticed that every single one of them possesses the same quality.
Much like my niece with her predilection for unfashionable metal, they don’t give a hoot about what their lifestyle says about them.
They’re resisting What You Do because they’ve all gotten to a point when they can’t not. Much like Janice’s foghorn analaogy in an early Friends episode, traveling calls out to them:
You seek me out. Something deep in your soul calls out to me like a foghorn. Jan-ice, Jani-ce. You want me. You need me. You can't live without me.
Ultimately, that’s the point most of us have to arrive at before we can make meaningful change, simple living being no exception. Something inside us calls for a clutterless house, meaningful experiences, and a quiet life. We know that What You Do isn’t working for us. Something has got to change.
So we fire up Spotify, we stick on Master of Puppets and we dance around the kitchen like a four-year-old.
And then we get to work.
Well, this is exciting
Next week marks one year of writing Simple and Straightforward. And even though I truly believe that anniversaries are arbitrary, I always said I’d change things up 365 days after I sat in a Barcelona cafe and launched this newsletter to precisely 0 subscribers.
Since then nearly 3000 of you have chosen to read my simple living essays every single week, and I am in love with you all.
It’s time to ramp up this party.
My Friday newsletter will be continuing as usual for free, for everyone. But next week I’m launching a subscription model for those who want to supercharge their simple life. There will be free ebooks for subscribers. There will be simple living courses. There will be waste-reduction recipes to help you cut that all important grocery bill. And most impotantly, there will be community.
All for less of the cost of a stamp, per post.
More info hitting your inboxes next week.
Setting up your weekend
3 articles from my collection (paywall free)
Mastering Intentional Spending Is the Best Activity You Can Do Today to Simplify Your Life
Traveling in Your 30s and 40s Is a Different Beast from the Halcyon Days of Your 20s
3 of the best pieces of content I’ve consumed this week
Substack - The Examined Family
Courtney Martin deep dives into family, life and as she calls it “the brokenness of the world.” Engaging stuff indeed.
Article - I can afford to put down 20% for a house, but I'd rather keep renting for 5 reasons
Something I’ve been pondering for a while is how whether people who can afford to buy a house ever choose not to. Whilst doing some research for a story on this, I came across this article. Agree with her reasoning or not, it’s a thought-provoking read.
Article - 3 Signs You Are Letting Your Intelligence Decline (Sean Kernan on Medium)
Did you know IQ declines with age? And it’s nothing to do with physicality, more our behaviors.