Why Off-Grid

People are forever aghast that I want to live off-grid. What, no electric? How could you live like that?! I hate to break it to you folks, but not only do millions (billions?) of people live without electricity this very day, a mere hundred years ago most of the people in the US didn't even have electricity! Yet another case of what I refer to as “thank god humanity managed to survive long enough for technology to save us from ourselves!”

The assumption seems to be that if someone lives without electricity, they are automatically doomed to a live of miserable squalor. Tin shack shanty towns with sewage in the streets, beggars on every corner, bellies inflated from malnourishment, and so on.

Stop and think – what do we actually *need* electricity for? (On a personal, not social, level – think homes, not hospitals.) Lights are usually the first thing to come to mind. With many people, the second thought might be a toss-up between television and refrigeration. Vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, clothes washers, computers, alarm clocks, cordless phones... the list seems nearly endless. But I have to wonder – how many are truly needs, and how many are simply wants? And is there a better way to fill some of those needs and wants?

With the ready availability of cheap electricity (and before you groan about your latest utility increase, consider either your [probable] wage increase or compare your utilities to your shelter or food costs and which you think is cheaper), we are freed from giving serious consideration to our consumption. But what if you *had* to consider your consumption? Do I run the dishwasher or do I vacuum? Would you then be more inclined to wash dishes in a dishpan or use a carpet sweeper or broom instead? That kind of awareness of consumption, of sustainability, is one of my underlying goals.

Long ago I heard a tale about the first woman in town who got a new device to each her housekeeping duties – a vacuum cleaner. With it, she no longer had to periodically haul her rugs outside, struggle to hang them up, and then beat them to get the dirt out – she simply left the rugs in place and used her new vacuum. At the next bridge club gathering at her home, she showed this marvel to her friends. Awed by its ease of use and ability, they also acquired their own wonderful new tools. As the demand for the modern invention increased, the manufacturer built a plant in the town to increase the supply of vacuums. The soot and other emissions from the plan soon filled the town and covered the rugs of all the women. But it wasn't anything a daily application of the vacuum cleaner couldn't handle. And when it broke down from frequent use, no problem – there were plenty of new ones being made by the factory right there in town!

I don't have anything against conveniences or electricity itself – I have something against mindless consumerism and its unintended consequences. From periodic rug beating to daily vacuuming. From personal effort to a machine that breaks down and has to be replaced, adding the broken one to a landfill (in somebody else's backyard, never in one's own backyard). From removable rugs to wall-to-wall carpeting. Exactly whose life was improved by this wonderful invention? And how many other inventions have stories that follow the same arc? And how often do we, as individual consumers, question our assumptions of improvement?

Surely there must be a better way to fill our needs and wants. Perhaps beginning with questioning those needs and wants in the first place?