I seem to be having tremendous difficulties . . .

[kiya]

I had a noodle-rant on the subject of "lifestyle" on alt.religion.wicca.moderated. I reproduce most of it here because I sort of felt like sharing it.

The message-ID on my post is <1fkvcrs.ic2q9b153af0N%lilairen@subdimension.com>, it's in response to <p05010401b9e5ced8ba35@[192.168.1.205]>, in case anyone wants more googleable context once they roll over into archive.


I believe the formal definition of "lifestyle" is "a manner of living that reflects the attitudes and values of a given person or group". My feeling on the word is complex (and somewhat similar in origin to your objection, Baird -- I'm moderately prone to grump, "I don't have a lifestyle, I have a life").

As far as I'm concerned, a lifestyle has to do with what sort of food one eats and where one gets it, the sort of entertainment one pursues and where one gets it, the structure of one's household, one's common pursuits -- all of these things that compose a body's "manner of living". My internal stuff, such as my religious stuff, it isn't a manner of living that expresses my values unless it's _expressed_.

I think a lot of traits go into informing what a person may develop as their lifestyle; I suppose it's entirely possible to think of such as manifestations of a [trait] lifestyle if [trait] is something pervasive and all-encompassing, but I wouldn't think of it as such. My paganism is related to but not equivalent to my book-hoarding, to my gaming, to my music-obsession, to my gardening, to my animal-tending; it has no relationship to the aspects of my emotional life that give me the "lifestyle" willies from experience. In other words, I don't grow strawberries because growing strawberries is an outgrowth of a philosophy of closeness to the non-human world and a growing closer to nature through interacting with its species; I grow strawberries because I like strawberries, and that happens to be consistent with practice of some forms of nature religion too, especially since I was raised by an organic gardener to be an organic gardener.

Mind, I know people who are single-focus lifestylers, people whose entire visible lives are warped entirely around a single thing. I find them a little scary, to be honest; I think they distress me in the same way that monocultures do, by being extremely vulnerable to changing conditions. But for those people I might say they have a gay lifestyle, or a Wiccan lifestyle, or a Company Man lifestyle, or a fannish lifestyle -- that's the entire shape of the life they have.

I think my discomfort with the idea of Wicca, or any other religion, as being a lifestyle is that I believe that religion is not its external manifestations -- it is a root of the attitudes and values, not the manner of living that results. I worry that focusing too much on the manner of living sidelines the variety of lifestyle expressions that may come of similar value-sets, and also can divert attention into "correct" manifestation rather than a well-considered life.


Related thoughts: I have a hard time thinking of most people as having a [trait] lifestyle, because I believe that it takes a great deal of determined effort to entirely self-define and life-shape by a single trait. My flip response to the whole lifestyle question misses a great deal of my manner of living, after all. . . .

There's more stuff in my head, but it's not words, so I shan't keep pounding on it.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*nod* This is interesting, and resonates with me, wrt to my own struggles with religion and life/'lifestyle'. I'd write more, but I'm on break. :)

A.

[kiya]

I'm glad you found it usefully thought-provoking. If you want to write more this evening, I'd be interested in hearing. :}

[elynne.livejournal.com]

*applause* What You Said. :) More coherency maybe later.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I think my discomfort with the idea of Wicca, or any other religion, as being a lifestyle is that I believe that religion is not its external manifestations

I think that there are religions which are their external manifestations: some forms of Judaism, for instance. But I understand your point.

[kiya]

I was actually trying to come up with a way of saying something about such forms of Judaism when I was writing that, but realized that I couldn't actually do it without wandering far afield of my point in a highly digressive manner.

It seems to me, though given that I'm coming from well outside the practices and can't speak to them directly, that the correct actions are a manifestation of a belief that correct actions exist, and further that one has chosen to do so. I'm not sure I can express that in better language, though.

[oneironaut.livejournal.com]

Mind, I know people who are single-focus lifestylers, people whose entire visible lives are warped entirely around a single thing. I find them a little scary, to be honest [...].

I have a lot of trouble relating to these people, because I have trouble comprehending them as people at all. The moment I detect this sort of single-focus lifestyling, some bit of brain (one of the less forgiving bits, which narrows it down to ... all of them) declares that You Can't Have It Both Ways and that by being an <adjective>!!!1! rather than a person who is <adjective>, one forfeits one's right to be treated like anything more than a sophisticated but not very creative or interesting robot.

I have a serious problem with people who deliberately make themselves less than human.

Also, I can't remember the term for an adjective used as a noun, I suppose because it rarely happens in English.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

and that by being an !!!1! rather than a person who is , one forfeits one's right to be treated like anything more than a sophisticated but not very creative or interesting robot.

Hrmn. Having had people accuse me of being such merely for pointing out that certain adjectives are important to me, and having seen that done to friends of mine...it seems to me that there is a balance, which is at different points for different people, between making One Thing Only the Important Thing about oneself and not having any defining characteristics at all. People with nothing to them, nothing they seem to care about, can be frightening too; also, a person can seem to be All About One Characteristic due to time or context of interaction, when they're really not.

To the larger question: when I was younger I was exhorted to live my entire life as a Christian, around Christianity, (and also, by different people, around being Black) and that creeped me out because, well, there are so many things in the world, so many ways to live, that centering my life around my religion, or any other one characteristic, seemed kind of thin to me. Which is just a wordy way of agreeing with lilairen :)

[kiya]

Sudden thought: to have no characteristics is also a monoculture.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I know people who are single-focus lifestylers, people whose entire visible lives are warped entirely around a single thing.

I did that somewhat when I was a Christian (the Christian scriptures do rather encourage it). I did it because on some level I knew that my Christianity was a somewhat precarious thing, and ordering my life around it was a protective mechanism to stop it from shattering.

These days, I don't feel that I warp my life around Asatru or anything else. I do try to let Asatru pervade all aspects of my life, though. I don't like my life to be compartmentalised (more than is necessary for professionalism, anyway) - it feels unhealthy for me, probably because in my case, it's only achieved by restricting one or more of my personalities, and they don't like that ;-) One of my partners is the opposite, mind you, and can regularly be heard to rue all the things that went wrong when he followed someone else's advice (not mine!) to reduce the compartmentalisation in his life.

[dragonsclan.livejournal.com]

hi,

**I think a lot of traits go into informing what a person may develop as their lifestyle; I suppose it's entirely possible to think of such as manifestations of a [trait] lifestyle if [trait] is something pervasive and all-encompassing, but I wouldn't think of it as such.**

wouldn't surprise me to find that a lot of the people who ARE one-trait folks have learned to be afraid of their own variety, of stretching themselves and revealing who they might really be. or, instead, they feel others are afraid of it and may even use that fear as a way to get ahead.

that's a scary thought, but our society seems to encourage such obsessiveness. the more people see themselves as being any one thing (esp. being their job or, worse, their possessions), the easier it is for a few to manipulate them and the harder it is for large numbers of people to see that most of the things that really matter are communal.

gus