Comedian Chris McCausland got us thinking this week that we all really could benefit from making more of an effort at living (that doesn’t mean doing something big like say ballroom dancing, although if that’s your thing – dance away – Voltaire would approve!).
An antidote to pretension at the Hay Festival, where we saw him, McCausland’s insight as for any comedian, is based on observation of how ridiculous we humans can be. In Chris’s case (being blind), his ears are honed to pick up stupidity via sound.
In between making me laugh so much, my ribs ache still, was his serious point about how much effort technology has taken from us. Little things like changing a TV channel. Once we would physically move from our chair or sofa and cross the room to manipulate a button or dial on the TV itself. Then we sat where we were and merely pressed the button on a remote, and now we don’t even have to press anything with voice-activated channel changing. Technology is making tasks, and us, effort-less.
Technology means many of us are living much of our lives remotely. Remote from the experiences of living, remote from the little things that make us healthy, well-adjusted humans, and I offer a solution from personal experience if you feel you’ve become remote from your life.
Narrowboat living as a continuous cruiser. In narrowboat life, at least the way we live it, we are in the moment. We have to be. We practice mindfulness all the time, in the tasks of daily living. In washing up (no dishwasher). In collecting the water we need. We never turn on a tap without thinking about our consumption, and being grateful for the last time we physically went to the water point to fill our tank. In charging our phones, boiling a kettle on the hob, switching on a light, we recognise the effort of installing solar panels and the battery to store it.
We are, because of how we live, aware of our consumption and physically connected to what it takes to keep us going. We walk to shops with our backpacks, occasionally using click and collect but not home delivery although we know some boaters do. Where we can, we use farm shops and markets, buying local products in season from local producers.
In that respect, our lives hark back to simpler times, to life before shopping online.
Having spent part of this week at the Hay Literary Festival on the Anglo Welsh border alongside the glorious River Wye, (involving a herculean effort to get there) we encountered Chris McCausland and many other well known names. The festival made us acutely aware of how much reading we do on our boat. We benefit hugely from the book exchanges along the waterways network. They have brought us serendipitously into contact over the years with authors and ideas, prose, and meter we would never have encountered otherwise. Getting our books this way demands effort – finding book exchanges, getting to them, selecting and choosing what to read, and of course selecting and carrying to them what we are offering to others. On a boat, it’s one on, one off, or we get get way too overcrowded. That discipline demands effort, believe me!
We are very guilty of at least one effort-less thing. We don’t have a TV (voice activated or old school). We rely on an iPad to connect us to entertainment remote to where we are. We rarely make the effort to seek out and support local musicians, actors, and performers unless by chance. Rarely do we moor in the places which would allow us to enjoy the stimulation of live entertainment on a regular basis. We’ve just been moored on the Aylesbury Arm in the basin right opposite the Waterside Theatre. Did we visit? Did we support? No. Our excuse when we arrived was that what was on was not something we wanted to see, but we didn’t check the programme again later into our stay.
It’s often an expensive business getting out and supporting the arts. But if we don’t all make that effort of finding a suitable mooring, making that effort of investment of time and money, say once a month or once a quarter, then there may no longer be live music, live theatre, live entertainment to enjoy. We need to put the effort in, put on clothes suitable for being seen in public, get off the sofa, and make the effort to get out out.
We work remotely like so many now – but we recognise we don’t have to live our lives remotely too. We are lucky boatlife allows us a rare connection and contact with our surroundings, with nature and resources. Making more of an effort to live a directly connected and mindful life, ensuring we aren’t withdrawn and distant from the things that ground us and can give us pleasure, is something that can repay us all in physical and mental health and happiness.
You don’t need a narrowboat to adopt those principals (though I find it helps). Just think, “Where can I shun technology and put in some effort in myself?” And then DO IT! The sense of satisfaction, of achievement (even from something like washing up), is a positive.
As was reinforced for us this week, making the effort to get out and about, to hear new views, sounds and perspectives, and see new sights is invaluable in feeling connected with how rich an engaged life can be.Try engaging physically and mentally this week with whatever you can and just see how it makes you feel.
Pickingupducks 