Jynx started off the fascinating discussion on simple living,
asceticism, and technology use [0]:

"I think that my perfect life scenario is something akin to a cabin
in the woods with no roads leading in. No humans for miles."

That pretty much sums it up for me, although I'd insist on the
companionship of my wife. Our kids are getting older, too, and she
has expressed interest in moving to a more remote locale in the next
five years. Her ideal is a farm but I'm quite content with a simple
cabin. Those of you who are married to an, *ahem* strong personality
can tell immediately how that will end. So I'd better start
researching how to run a farm.

Solderpunk continued, pondering a sort of reverse hedonic treadmill
[1]. In my opinion this is doable. Before it went offline, I used to
read the blog "The Archdruid Report", in which he proposed that we
should try to "collapse now and avoid the rush" (the author has a
book of the same name that is quite good, you can duck-duck-go
it). That is, move our lives back to something near a far more
sustainable 1950s level of technology, while keeping our modern
social sensibilities.

Anyway, I've been trying to plan for our future in this way for some
time. Moving from the US to Canada was part of that plan - getting
out from under an oppressive mortgage and down-sizing our
life. Paying off all credit cards. Un-linking healthcare from my
job. Moving somewhere where your kids can get a college education
_without_ going into soul-crushing debt. When we moved we filled
three large dumpsters full of accumulated, worthless life crap (we
sold off the rest), and drove a single u-haul north. What is left in
storage is mainly books. We now rent a much smaller house, and are
debt-free. Just being relieved of that financial stress has made
life more enjoyable, even though we kept the same level of
technology.

Jynx replied to the reply [2], and among other things discusses his
use of technology. I try to avoid any proprietary software or online
services where I am the product. My main workstation has Debian
(pre-systemd) installed with the XFCE desktop. My writing I do on
SDF's iceland or the metaArray, in a console emacs session. My
social media use is limited to G+ - and that only as a means to
schedule games with my online role-playing group. I run my own mail
server. My primary calendar is paper. I have several firefox
profiles, to strictly encapsulate the more invasive sites like G+,
personal browsing, and work.

I think "work-life balance" should just be called "life balance", to
de-emphasize work. As I get older I realize how absurd the
always-available aspect of modern work is. When not on-call, I don't
check work email or answer calls I suspect are from work. It's my
time, damnit, and I have precious little of it, even if I do live to
old age.

[0] gopher://sdf.org/1/users/jynx//cgi-bin/slerm.cgi?20171008.post
[1] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/solderpunk/phlog/asceticism-or-something-like-it.txt
[2] gopher://sdf.org/1/users/jynx//cgi-bin/slerm.cgi?20171020.post