William Powers

The author William Powers had spent ten years as an international aid worker in war zones and the farthest reaches of the South American jungle.

When he returned to the US for a recharge, Jackie Benton of North Carolina offered himthe use of her permaculture farm while she was traveling. It included a self-sustaining garden, orchard and a completely -off-the-grid twelve foot square cabin. Off the grid means there was no electricity, internet or even water. Instead there were candles, wood heat, a composting toilet and a solar heated shower using water from the nearby creek.

Powers came to appreciate the luxuries of a simple life, even completely giving up his car for a bike. He luxuriated in the time to write, and get acquainted with his neighbors who had also left the hustle of daily life for the more simple existence of the creek. He estimated that he reduced his carbon footprint to 5% of the American average- similar to what he had seen in the developing countries.

And he had much time to think and philosophize as the following two quotes show:

“What’s sin?’ I asked her (Leah).
‘For me,’ she finally replied, ‘sin is when I’m the center.” P 196

“We’d been talking about our inner flatness, how we were habituated to a central evil of our time what the late Susan Sontag called ‘an American-style consumer society that spreads itself across the globe, destroying the past, and enclosing all horizons within a selfish materialism”. P 196

I don’t think it’s a lifestyle that many Americans want to emulate - and indeed many of his neighbors had to give up or change their idealistic choices. But there are lessons here as we reexamine our places in a world that will look substantially different to the next generations.… (more)