We are a family of three living in the UK, and trying to live a more sustainable, self-sufficient, lifestyle than the ‘normal’ presented to us by our civilisation. Side Stepping Normal seeks to find a better way to live our lives in a time of ecological collapse and climate change.
Our names are Matt and Caroline. Hello!
This website acts as a hub for Side Stepping Normal. Here we will share our experiences, offer hints & tips, recipes, and ideas for making your life more sustainable and happier, without the baggage of consumerist destruction, that comes with modern living. We will also investigate ideas and knowledge found elsewhere from movements such as Permaculture and Minimalism and from the many other people seeking ways to make the world a better place.
We hope you will join us on this journey.
Why Sidestep Normal?
The world feels worse than it did just a few years ago, doesn’t it? The promised utopia is fading fast. We are edging closer and closer to dystopia, if, indeed, we are not already there. For ordinary people like us, there is a feeling of helplessness (perhaps even despair) as life gets harder and the possible solutions seem ever more unlikely. Our future is out of our control. What can we possibly do to make things better?
These are hard times to live through, there is no doubt about that. But there is hope. There is always hope. Wherever there is a darkness pinpricks of light emerge. It is inevitable. Hope is eternal and we will find a way.
Side Stepping Normal then, is about resurgence, resistance, and resilience. It is also about being more intentional in how we live our lives.
It is a resurgence because we seek a revival in the way we live, following a period in which our societies have done very little to make the changes necessary to confront climate change and ecological decline.
It is resistance because by sidestepping some of what society expects of us as normal citizens, we resist the fossil fuel-obsessed lifestyle fostered upon us and choose instead something different, something more sustainable and Earth-friendly.
Resilience, because climate change is only going to get worse. We need to be more resilient if we are to do more than simply survive but thrive!
Intentional, because the only way forward is to consider our actions and motives more carefully; to ask the question: is what we are doing going to do harm or good?
More about Matt & Caroline
Our background is nothing special or unusual. We both went to school and then university. Matt continued to do a PhD, taking the humanities route. Caroline took the medical route. We both ended up in the world of work. There we did what everyone suggests you should do; we built a career, got a mortgage on a house, got married, and had a child. But all the way through that there were nagging doubts about the way our civilisation operated.
As a response, we spent much of our thirties attempting partial self-sufficiency. We grew as much of our own food as possible, kept chickens, and even tried our hand at beekeeping. When the Covid pandemic hit our lifestyle, where we were, felt unsustainable. We left for London and made other substantive changes to our lives. Matt went freelance and took a Permaculture Design Course. Caroline temporarily took over the brunt of our financial needs. Our son attended nursery 3 days a week.
Where we head next is uncertain. We have learned a lot over the last decade or so and have taken a path of experimentation and exploration so that we can find a good life in these challenging times, and find ways to become more resilient, happy, and sustainable. This is a journey. We are not there yet. And that journey, well, we call that journey side-stepping normal.