THE FREEDOM WAY
(Page 3 of 26)
When you read in the papers that the atomic bomb can
destroy civilization it doesn't mean that everybody alive
on earth will be wiped out. It means only those who are in
the easy path of atomic bombs - that is to say, living in
crowded cities - will be destroyed. If you destroy the
cities, therefore, you destroy civilization. You have the
choice of being destroyed, if the cities are attacked, or
of saving your life. To save it, merely get far enough away
so that the attack will not carry you in its wake. See how
simple it is, how practical, how obvious to survive in an
atomic world?
RELATED CONTENT
The simple life is merely the life which gives up the
complexities and useless possessions of modern city life.
It doesn't mean reverting to savagery, eating raw meat, not
washing. It, indeed, means leading a fuller life than you
lead now - as ever so many educated, intelligent people who
have willingly gone back to the simple life will tell you.
There's that brilliant editor of Mears, Michigan, Swift
Lathers, for your first exhibit. As long ago as 1912, Swift
Lathers, law-trained, far-sighted, looked on city life,
turned his back against it, moved to an isolated little
village in the dune country on Lake Michigan, and started a
newspaper which is still the smallest weekly newspaper in
the world.
"Consider me at my age," he recently asked his youngest
son, Nathan, in describing the kind of life he hopes the
boy will lead. "What do I need? What do I want? Firewood,
food, shelter from the wind, a shelf of books, chess and
two good feet that will let me walk fifteen miles on a
March afternoon in the solitudes of the dunes. Night comes
and the smell of potatoes frying for supper. And the patter
of little children coming to spaghetti.
"There, Nathan, you have the recipe for a happy life. We
seek fire, food, shelter and riches of the mind. We have to
live only one day at a time. But every day should have a
little bit of heaven. And that might be five minute's time
to sit down on a rock in a new mown meadow or a half hour
of quiet reading solitude with Thoreau."
Another city man who decided on the simple life was Ted
Richmond. After years of struggle in cities of the South,
he bought a poor, worn-out 10-acre farm near Jasper,
Arkansas, in one of the last frontiers in America. He was a
city man, with soft hands, a liking for bright lights and
movies, and his friends all thought him touched.
After he had been living the simple life for a year, his
friend, Charles Morrow Wilson, visited him. He found
Richmond completely remade in health, in outlook on life,
in the measure of happiness he found. And he was living so
economically that his cash outlay for his flourishing life
was less than $100 a year, for everything. And yet he was
living better, more fully than when he was earning much
more in the city, and spending it all for "a living."
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