Downshifting

I hereby pledge to slow my life down a gear, for the benefit of my health, my well being, my environment and for those around me whom I dearly love. —Tracy Smith, The Downshifting Manifesto The sixties had the hippies who were but a minority but whose lifestyle and values defined an entire generation. In the nineties and the noughts there was beginning to emerge in the affluent world "Downshifters" another minority whose appeal could have again defined a generation. Then came 2008 and the recession has pushed all other socio-economic and socio-cultural phenomenon firmly into the background as far as media and popular culture are concerned. However "downshifting" quietly continues to gain it adherents. The essential core of downshifting is when you shift to valuing making more time for yourself and your family than making more money. You get off the tread mill, quit the rat race and smell the roses not just the coffee. The necessary condition for one to downshift of course is to be successful in the first place. To give up making money, to paraphrase Swami Vivekananda, you must in the first place be making money. The downshifting culture in India is most evident among returning NRIs. With dollars salted away and an American citizenship to fall back on, they practice the art of downshifting in the heat of dust of India. Some combine it with efforts to reconnect their children with their roots before it is too late. Speaking of roots, the Vedas have recognized downshifting and its role in the evolution of an individual. The Vedas stipulate four asramas or stages of life - Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sannyasa. Brahmaharya: It refers to an educational period of 14–20 years which starts before the age of puberty. It supposes the practice of celibacy Grihastha: Refers to the second phase of an individual's life It is often called 'the householders life' revolving as it does around the duties of maintaining a household and leading a family-centred life and is recommended to cover the age period of 25 to 49 years Vanaprastha: This is a stage when a person gradually withdraws from the world and gives up material desires. Ideally this covers the age period of 50 to 75 years Sannyasa: is the life stage of the renouncer within the scheme of āśramas. It is considered the topmost and final stage of the ashram systems and is traditionally taken by men or women over fifty or by young monks who wish to renounce worldly and materialistic pursuits and dedicate their lives to spiritual pursuits As an aside, why did the Vedas, formulated many thousand of years ago, contemplate life stages that examine a life lasting up to 75 years when life expectancy must have been sub-thirty? Just being visionary or was life expectancy much higher in certain circles in the ancient world than is generally supposed?

Coming back to downshifting, is it a life stage or is it a life style that one can adopt at any age? In an age when everything is on steroids and most boundaries are blurred, life stages can cross age boundaries and everything, even Vanprashta asrama, come early to one's life. According to some downshifting is not just an alternative lifestyle or a natural life stage but a phenomenon that heralds the coming of a new age. Deriving in part from the cult arising from James Redfield's nineties books "The Celestine Prophecy" and "The Tenth Insight", the theory is that more and more people will "downshift" to bring about a more peaceful, prosperous, ecologically sensitive era. Nobody,as far as I am aware, spoke of the hippies in the same vein.Or did Jack Keoruc have a similar theory about the hippies? Must re-read his "On The Road" one of these days.