I was at the Schumacher Conference last Saturday and promised I'd write a poem on the conference theme: "Less is More - Can we live better by consuming less?" I think the answer is obvious, nevertheless I said I'd listen throughout the day and come back at the end with a Less is More kind of poem reflecting what I'd heard. So I did - although, to be honest, half of it was written in anticipation the day before.
I have boldly chosen to illustrate the Less is More theme with a lovely flat minimalist sculpture, left, by Tony Smith, entitled 'New Piece'. It looks to my mind a little like a solar panel, but perhaps that's a red herring.
The first thing you'll notice about the piece I came up with is that it fails abjectly to embody the less is more brief itself, and goes on for ages. And the word poem is maybe stretching it a bit. It's somewhere between a wishlist, a list poem and partial paraphrasing of partially digested (and even more partially understood) snippets of talks…
The bits in italics were where I asked the audience to join in. They were told what I wanted them to say, but I wouldn't cue them in, trusting they would know intuitively (and they did!)
Less is More
Can less be more, can more be less?
Well, yes and no, and no and yes
Well, more or less…
More bikes, fewer cars
Less haze, more stars
Less haste, more time
Less reason, more rhyme
More time, less stress
Fewer miles, more fresh (vegetables)
Fewer car parks, more acres of available urban soil
More farmers’ markets, less produce effectively marinated in crude oil
Less colouring, more taste
More mashing, less waste
Fewer couch potatoes, more spring greens
Fewer tired tomatoes, more runner beans
More stillness, less inertia
Less illness, more Echinacea
More community, less isolation
Less just sitting there, more participation!
More wells (not oil ones, obviously), fewer ills
Fewer clean fingernails, more skills
More co-operation, less compliancy
Less complacency, more self-reliancy
Less competition, more collaboration
Less passive listening, more participation!
Less attention defic…, more concentration
Less passive listening, more participation!
(Less repetition)
Less of a warm globe, more a chilly’un
More of a wise world, at least 34 fewer parts of C02 per million
Less stress-related cardio-vascular and pulmonary failure
More nurturing quality time in the company of a favourite clematis or dahlia
More craftsmanship, less built-in obsolescence
More political maturity, less apparently-consequence-free extended adolescence
More believed-to-be-beautiful, known-to-be-useful things
Less cheap, pointless, petroleum-steeped stuff
So Yes, less is more – and enough’s enough…