Getting rid of the fluff is getting rid of the things that aren’t working for us. It’s the central idea behind my Simple Living project, the heart of it. I’m working on this idea both at a personal level and, as big as it sounds, at a planetary level. Because I do worry about how things are gonna fare for the generations after us. How am I gonna do it? Goodness knows but my rule is to make it up as I go, to be curious and learn, to stay open, to experiment and to relearn to see as best I can.

By relearning to see I mean noticing things, being aware of things, uncovering things. Because getting rid of the fluff is not as easy as it may sound. It’s often hard to see what’s not working. And it’s not because our eyes are not working properly or because our intuition, or our reason, or you name it, is failing us. Most of the time we fail to see what’s not working because it’s too close to us, or too familiar, or it’s something that simply became the done thing.

There are two things that have been helping me to relearn the way I “see.” 1) I try to spot the discomfort and observe it (as opposed to react to it). The discomfort is an unpleasant sensation I feel in my body, usually in my chest or my stomach. It can be triggered by something that I experienced or something that I read or learnt. Then 2) I ask myself ‘Why?.’ Why am I feeling this way? Why is this happening? Why did this come to be this way? That usually takes me down a curious rabbit hole where I explore different feelings, information and thoughts that eventually lead me to run some experiments. And I try to stay open to the possibility that my conclusions might be wrong.

An example of that ‘discomfort > why > rabbit hole > experiment’ sequence is my very own hairy body. If you follow my social media you’ve probably seen my Hairy Ladies collages. You probably also know that I haven’t been removing my body hair for close to four years now. Not even when I go to weddings or similar occasions.

One day I realised how much I hated removing my body hair. I have sensitive skin and getting rid of my body hair often caused me rashes. I also didn’t like the physical sensation of it (I used to use an epilator) and by golly, it took so much of my time. I spotted the discomfort and the discomfort took me to the why. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing something that makes me feel insecure if I stop doing it? Why did women start removing their body hair in the first place? The why took me down a rabbit hole where I learnt very interesting things. Check out the first edition of my Cut & Paste sessions if you want to know more about this particular rabbit hole. Then the rabbit hole led me to an experiment I’ve been running for nearly four years that’s pretty much a response to this question: what would happen if I stop removing my body hair entirely?

I got rid of the fluff of removing my body hair because it really wasn’t working for me. And my life did get a little bit simpler. I don’t experience the discomfort that comes with body hair removal practices and I’ve got a lot more time to spend on the stuff I care about. So this is what I do now. I’m trying to simplify my life by asking myself: what else can I get rid of? What else is not working for me personally or for the planet? What’s fluff? What could be simpler? What am I not seeing? What else are we doing just because it’s the done thing? What about things like career, or lifestyle, or how we make money and what for? Ooh, there is so much to explore.