Less, many times: A book review of “The Abundance of Less: Lessons in Simple Living from Rural Japan,” by Andy Couturier

I picked this book up at Kramerbooks in D.C. (if you haven’t been there, it’s a fun bookstore- not as much fun as my beloved Politics and Prose, but still great), partly because, like many people with too many first world problems, I’m trying to scale down. How lucky we are, those of us following the minimalist ideas of less stuff, simpler lives, to even have this choice!

I loved this book. Well, if I’m honest with myself, the first half of this book. The idea of the book is to explore the lifestyle and thought process of rural Japanese people, mostly elderly people, and how we might learn from them. The book reflects their lives- poetic, quiet, honest and humble. Many of the people are nuclear power protesters, and the book I picked up is a revised edition, with an update on the lives of these people post-Fukushima disaster. All of these people have opted to step out of the frenetic lifestyle of working, attending school, etc., from sun up to sun down in relentless pursuit of some external goal, for different, probably more authentic goals: time, family, connection with community, art, and slow living. While this is stepping outside the box in America, it’s REALLY stepping outside the box in Japan, and many of these individuals reported strong disapproval from their families. I admired them.

The problem for me was, halfway through the book, starting a new chapter, I started to dread the story: the individual as a young person, protested nuclear power/landfill/environmental problems, and decides to go against their families’ advice to:

• travel to Tibet/India/Nepal to
• study traditional weaving/traditional calligraphy/traditional religious texts/traditional music,
• then decided to come back when Tibet/India/Nepal became too modernized, and
• lived in the mountains in Japan where they
• raise their own food/work the land/play music/do aforementioned traditional craft in Japan.

In the end, I felt that I could probably read half the book, and get the same story, only half as many times- is there an editor in the house??

I think there’s a way to read this without getting burned out with the similarity of the stories: don’t read it the way I did. Read the book a chapter at a time, savor their story, and then give the book a rest. By the time you come back to it in a few weeks or months, you won’t recall that the last person had almost exactly the same story, and you’ll feel the same way about the book when I started it: inspired by the peace, quiet, and rough edges of the simplicity of these lives.

If you’re interested in reading this book, I’ve attached the affiliate link to Amazon below.

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Author: lisayoung57

I’m a Board Certified psychiatrist, practicing on the East Coast of the US. I started this blog because I love planning, efficiency, minimalism, and technology, but am also strongly interested in making life better! I strongly believe that personal technology can make our lives easier, and minimize the time we do things that are less important to us. I hope you’ll come along on the journey with me of how to combine high-tech and the best of low-tech to make our lives better. I love Apple products, and will write about about uses for them in my own life and others on these pages. I am not affiliated with Apple, or any other company. Other things I like to do are read, meditate, drink coffee and tea, travel, hike, cook and spend time with my husband and two children. I have recently written a textbook chapter for Oxford University Press. View all posts by lisayoung57