frugality

To deal with the explosion of information available to us, we’re told to avoid the filter bubble by seeking out a variety of sources. Or we’re told to pursue a low information diet. But we’re also told that to be informed is one of the duties of citizenship. What are we to do? Here are some other options: Stop caring about what doesn’t affect you. There’s apparently a Syrian refugée crisis in Europe.

In the popular sci-fi movie series “The Matrix”, a handful of humans discover that the perception of reality has been artificially engineered by computer software. By taking the red pill1 a person can be released from the deception, thereby seeing things as they truly are. About material “stuff”, I’ve had the same sort of epiphany. Three years ago, we decided we needed to build a house.