What is a simple life?

On this question, we were asked what we could do to simplify our lives. I thought and thought, and I couldn’t come up with anything, and then I began to wonder what simplification meant.

I was thinking about the resources we use—car, electricity, water, etc, etc. I thought about dumping cable and stopping fluther. I thought about moving out to a rural area and becoming a subsistence farmer. Then I began to wonder how these things could be a simpler life.

If I were a farmer, I’d be working much longer hours with much harder, physical labor, and I’d probably be living hand to mouth, while trying to eek a living from the earth. If I stopped using cable and the internet, I might have to entertain myself with books, games and friends, but would that be simpler? Finding friends seems to take an enormous amount of time and energy.

If I cut out electricity and water, and if I gave up the car, where would that leave me? I’d have to move to a rural area, but then I’d be spending even more time gathering wood for energy and schlepping water and traveling on foot or bicycle.

Perhaps urban living is the most efficient and simplest form of living although most wouldn’t think of it that way. With public transportation and an efficient water delivery system, and… well, on and on… urban living is the lightest living on the planet. And funny, it’s also the most comfortable living on the planet.

Anyway, what do you think simplification of life means? What is simplicity? What is a simple life? Is it better or worse than the alternative?