Live Less But Live Well

‘Live well and you will live more’ is being hammered into our brains day in and day out. Of course… product is being sold. The market is hot! ‘Eat organic, take shitty pills, exercise, be selfish, meditate, do yoga, meditate again, go dancing, adopt a pet and torture it to hell with your Napoleonic complex to fill the black hole inside...it’s good for you… it’s all good for you!!

But if I may…

I’d like to change ‘live well live more’ to ‘live less but live well’

For me, humanity’s greatest achievements is not the fact that we have found the means to prolong our miserable lives for what, 15 years? Far too many people who deserved to live long and meaningful lives passed away way too soon, and far too many people… that didn’t even deserve to live at all, were born. But that’s not for me to decide and even if I could decide, I would not.

But why prolong our lives and for what? Where are we going? Where is there to go? What is it we are seeking by living a few years longer? How many species of animals have been eradicated from this planet earth and how much natural resources have been devoured by humans for the sake of humanity's insatiable desire to increase its own stupid lifespan to… what… 10 -15 years longer?

Life is simply not joyful for many people on this planet; many don't even have access to clean drinking water, partly because some of us have taken the liberty to prolong our own lives by any means possible.

One lifespan of a human being should be lived simply… with one or two (at most) simple joys. All of us should be able to do that. It's our birthright.

A simple joy for me will not be showing my child the amazing achievements of the iPhone, but the profound simplicity of say a Rembrandt drawing. I will get goosebumps excitedly showing her that while sipping a glass of wine. I will be buzzed, but my daughter will dig me and will never ever say ‘papa you’ve had one too many glasses of wine’. She’ll kiss my forehead instead, as she already does now, and cover me with a blanket as I snore away into an afternoon nap by a river under the coolth of a walnut tree.

I’ll die happy knowing that I have given her everything that she ever needs to live well - one simple drawing.