Living More With a Whole Lot Less

While browsing through Vimeo’s “Staff Picks” a few days ago, I happened across the following highly improbable phrase, instantly deserving of inclusion in my “Humans Are Endlessly Interesting” file (which seems perpetually filled to bursting):

Richard is the fascinating story of a travelling piano tuner who chooses to live outdoors.

I’ve always loved piano tuners. The white-mustachioed, soft-spoken fellow who stopped by the house to attend to our beloved baby grand was a fantastic combination of patience, precision, and musicality. I still remember him spending hours hunched over the keys, making inaudible (to me) adjustments ad infinitum, and finishing off with a burst of Bach just to make sure everything was in melodic order. Piano tuners are such interesting people.

The “Richard” mentioned above is no exception. Meet Richard Roberts, who’s been caring for acoustic pianos “in London for over ten years, and previously in Oxford and Portsmouth for ten years before that.” Also, he’s homeless, and intentionally so.

The long term goal of my lifestyle experiment is to find my own way to balance modern life with respect for our planet, in a lifestyle that’s both physically and mentally edifying and that still enables me to make my own contribution to the future of our race. I’m only consuming 10% of the energy and resources that I used to, and I want to keep the pressure on until I’m only consuming 1%, whilst still getting on with every project I feel is important.

On his blog, Roberts details some of the challenges of his Great Adventure (which he began back in December, 2001), such as packing and traveling as lightly as possible, sleeping by the Thames without a sleeping bag, and the under-appreciated value of a place to shower. (That last topic finds its way into the Vimeo clip, rendering it a touch more…revealing of Roberts than is strictly necessary. Be careful out there, people.)

I’ve always been drawn to these “Making Our Over-Sized Lives Human-Sized Again” pieces. Often, there’s something just a bit extreme in them, but I’m not a fellow who suffers much from being overly extreme; quite the opposite, in fact. And I think there’s something wonderful in the material detachment and return to simplicity these sorts of projects encourage. My own family size (and accompanying obligations) make it impractical/imprudent for me — for which Sarah is doubtless deeply grateful — so I must (or is that “get to?”) admire from afar without suffering from the actual consequences of said detachment or simplicity.

But I’m glad someone’s doing it, even if I can’t.

That being said, the most interesting part of the piece might actually be Roberts’ suggestion that a mathematically-tuned piano won’t sound as good — there’s something about the human ear that demands a bit more nuance and is not entirely quantifiable. I love that idea. (And besides, isn’t that sort of the same point Richard’s making with his own nomadic life?)

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