I spent last Sunday at Crossword book store in Kemps Corner, reading Timothy Ferris’s ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’.

Given Tim’s ‘live it up’ image, I expected it to be a book about having more; instead, it turned out to be a book about finding happiness in having less.

The basic premise of the book is that we have a choice between work and leisure. An income of $100000 a year means very different things when it requires a 60 hour work week and a 40 hour work week. At more than 60 hours a week, typical of Asia and America, it inevitably results in stress-related health disorders. At less than 40 hours a week, typical of Europe, it results in a happy work-life balance. At 4 hours a week, typical of Tim, it means nirvana.

Tim is not for or against consumption. Instead, he differentiates between three types of consumption — spending money to own things, spending money to enjoy experiences, and spending money to free up time for the experiences. Tim believes that having new experiences is the key to happiness, that owning things distracts us from the pursuits of new experiences, and that time and not money is the limiting factor in having experiences. Most of us work too long, own too many things, and enjoy too few experiences. Tim’s mantra is to work as little as possible, own as little as possible and free up all your time and money for enjoying experiences.

It’s an important distinction, one I have become aware of myself over time. Most of the items in my thirty by thirty list involve doing or experiencing things, not owning things. Not only that, almost two months into my experiment, most of my withdrawal symptoms are caused not because I’m not able to buy things but because I’m not able to have the experiences I crave for. I miss not being able to eat out on a date, or meet up with friends at a coffee shop, or watch a play or a live music concert. Most of all, I feel frustrated at not having enough time, because I waste time walking to work, or cooking, or cleaning up my house. So, as I read ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’, I was pleasantly surprised at how Tim’s writing resonated with my own thoughts.

The nice thing is that even as I crave for these familiar experiences, I have opened myself up to other hitherto unexplored experiences. I’m absolutely amazed at how much free culture is available in the city, for those who are interested. My attempts to find new ways of meeting people have resulted in interesting experiments like Saturday night movie marathons and I have learned that learning to ask can be a fulfilling experience in itself. In the end, the entire experiment itself is undoubtedly the most important experience of all, an experience that is bound to change the course of my life.

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Throughout last week, I have been asking my friends to make me aloo parathas.

It started last Sunday, when Kanishka and Avantika came over for lunch. My cooking range is limited to pasta and pulao so, if you eat at my place regularly, you might find the menu a little repetitive. Knowing that, I had made two different types of pasta — farfalle, bell peppers and spring onions in Mexican salsa sauce and casarecce and baby corn in cheese and wine sauce — and added mushrooms on toast as a side dish. However, I wasn’t really surprised when, five minutes into lunch, Avantika took a break from picking at her food and asked me —

Aren’t you bored of being off consumption yet?

Well, I’m not bored of being off consumption yet, but I am indeed tired of eating muesli, fruit, salad, sandwiches and pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner, day after day. Avantika’s comment had seeded the craving in my mind and, by Monday evening, the craving has taken definite shape — aloo parathas.

As a child, I was very fond of aloo parathas. However, I have more or less stayed away from them ever since I grew up and discovered that both doctors and women like a trim waistline. So, I was a little surprised when I started obsessing over aloo parathas in the same way I used to obsess over McDonald’s paneer salsa wraps.

I thought of all the times years ago when I had finished off half a dozen aloo parathas in one sitting. I walked around Kala Ghoda and Colaba for an hour, looking into restaurant windows and wondering if they made nice aloo parathas. I even called up half a dozen friends to ask if they would make aloo parathas for me for dinner. I was heartbroken that all of them had either already had dinner or were eating out.

In the end, I came back home and heated up the leftover pasta from Sunday. Thankfully, it didn’t taste as terrible as I expected it to.

The next three days, however, were absolute aloo paratha bliss. On Tuesday, my ex-girlfriend forced me to come home for lunch; she had made me aloo parathas, in an almost successful attempt at reconciliation. On Tuesday, a friend brought me aloo parathas for dinner; I reciprocated by opening a bottle of my best Merlot for her. On Thursday, another friend at office brought me aloo parathas for lunch, even though she herself eats at the office canteen.

Of course, there were others who laughed it off as a joke, offered to buy me dinner instead, or looked at me as if I was insane, but that’s not the point. A few months later, I’ll only remember that I asked my friends for a gift and three of them gave it to me.

Last week, I learnt that there’s equal joy in both giving and receiving, when it’s done with ease, in a state of grace. My friends thought that my asking them to make me aloo parathas was really sweet, just as I thought that their making the parathas for me was really sweet. That’s a lesson I’ll do well to remember, both in asking for or receiving gifts and in giving gifts myself.

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I haven’t watched TV or read newspapers or magazines for more than a year now, with one exception — twice a month, I stop by at the roadside magazine stall opposite my house and hand over thirty rupees for a copy of Time Out Mumbai.

However, even though I have been buying the magazine for almost two years now, I only started to think of it as a necessity when I started my experiment.

The thing is, when you decide not to consume any paid entertainment, you need to know what free entertainment is available in the city, and, even in the age of free information via the Internet, Time Out Mumbai remains the most comprehensive listing of such events.

So, every fortnight, I pick up my copy of Time Out Mumbai, read the reviews of all the new movies and plays I wouldn’t watch, look longingly at all the live music gigs I’ll miss, and tell myself that the few free events during the fortnight are more interesting than all the entertainment I would have otherwise paid for.

Sometimes, that is not far from the truth.

This fortnight, for instance, I’m almost spoiled for choice.

Friday, May 2, 6 pm

- Screening of Helke Sander’s film ‘The All Round Reduced Personality - Redupers’. Max Mueller Bhavan.

Friday, May 2, 7 pm

- Patrick French reads from his book ‘The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V S Naipaul’. Crossword, Kemps Corner.

Saturday, May 3, 6:30 pm

- Screening of Helke Sander’s film ‘The Subjective Factor’. Max Mueller Bhavan.

Sunday, May 3, 2:30 pm

- Master Class on Film with Shekhar Kapur and Sudhir Mishra. National Center for Performing Arts.

Monday, May 5, 6:30 pm

- Screening of Eric Rohmer’s film ‘My Night at Maud’s’. Alliance Francaise.

Wednesday, May 7, 6 pm

- Malin Suri draws links between mathematics and literature in a lecture titled ‘The Mathematics of Fiction’. American Center.

Wednesday, May 7, 6:30 pm

- Screening of ‘Preuves a l’appui: Eric Rohmer’, a documentary about the filmmaker. Alliance Francaise.

Thursday, May 8, 6:30 pm

- Screening of Helke Sander’s film ‘The Trouble With Love’. Max Mueller Bhavan.

Friday, May 9, 6:30 pm

- Screening of Helke Sander’s documentary ‘Liberators and Liberties’. Max Mueller Bhavan.

Saturday, May 10, 6 pm

- Screening of Michael Moore’s documentary ‘Sicko’. Little Theater, National Center for Performing Arts.

Tuesday, May 13, 6:30 pm

- Screening of Eric Rohmer’s film ‘A Good Marriage’. Alliance Francaise.

Thursday, May 15, 6:30 pm

- Screening of Eric Rohmer’s film ‘Pauline at the Beach’. Alliance Francaise.

So, if you are in Mumbai and want to meet up, do drop in at one of these events and buzz me at +919223366624. If we don’t bore each other to death in the first few minutes, we may even end up spending the rest of the evening sharing one of my last ten odd bottles of wine.

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Sean Penn’s ‘Into the Wild’ is a brilliant movie adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s bestselling book about the real-life (mis)adventures of Christopher McCandless.

I had been dying to watch ‘Into the Wild’ ever since I read about it in the April 2008 issue of David Report. So, I was delighted when GK brought over the DVD for our Saturday Night Movie Marathon session. It is such sweet serendipity that reaffirms my faith that the universe reaches out to give you whatever you ask for.

The movie itself is mind-blowing, especially in the context of my own experiment, and I went through an entire spectrum of emotions over its two and a half hour run.

Emile Hirsch is superb as Christopher, the idealistic, but troubled, twenty-something protagonist who, inspired by Tolstoy and Thoreau, decides to abandon his career and his family, give away his $24000 savings to charity and hitchhike to Alaska to live in the wilderness.

Christopher deals in extremes and evokes extreme reactions. It’s easier, therefore, to idolize him as enlightened or reject him as naive than to identify with him.

However, my first thought when I saw him was how similar we were — “Wow! That’s me!” — in our angst over our broken childhoods, our ennui with owning things, and our idealistic search for an alternative approach to happiness. I immediately got why someone like him (”us”) would want to leave a life of ease and search for something more.

Christopher spends the next two years on the road as an ‘aesthetic traveler’, chasing the next adrenalin rush (kayaking down the Grand Canyon into Mexico) and befriending an interesting assortment of hippies and loners, while sustaining himself by doing a variety of odd jobs (cooking fries in McDonald’s).

It is here that my sense of identification turned to awe — “Wow! That’s cool!” — at his physical and social ease, at the range of his experiences, at the extremes to which he goes in search of ‘ultimate freedom’. Like there’s no limit to owning things, there’s no limit to renouncing things, and, compared to the extremes to which he takes his renunciation, my own experiment felt woefully inadequate.

Once in Alaska, Christopher settles down into an abandoned school bus and spends his days exploring the territory, shooting small game, reading Thoreau, and recording his experiences in a journal. However, as days turn into months, loneliness sets in and he begins to tire of solitude, and long for human relationships. As he sets out to return, he realizes that he is trapped, as his path is blocked by a seasonal river. Weakened in body and spirit, Christopher dies; a few days later, his body is found by a hunting party.

For the most part, ‘Into the Wild’ is a story about the relentless pursuit of joy. In the end, it’s also a story about the futility of that pursuit, because, after we have traveled the whole world searching for joy, we realize that we have, in fact, left it behind. The catch is that unless we set out to search for it in the first place, we’ll never know that we already have it.

So, maybe, the key is to start with the premise that we already have whatever we need, and look inwards, and not outwards, as we search for joy.

That sounds a little like my own experiment.

Anyways, I have been listening to Eddie Vedder’s ‘Hard Sun’ non-stop for the last two days. Have a look and find out why –

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To begin with, fewer people turned up — and, while twenty is perhaps the right number for a party — five works better for a movie marathon.

Then, GK turned up with a few DVDs of his own and we decided to leave aside my lineup of classic World War 2 movies and watch ‘Into the Wild’ instead.

I have been dying to watch ‘Into the Wild’ ever since I read about it in the April 2008 issue of David Report. So, as we settled down on my futon with two bottles of wine, a bottle of Johny Walker Black Label scotch, and miscellaneous munchies left over from my last big party, I was already high on the sweet serendipity of being able to watch it so soon after reading about it.

It’s a mind-blowing movie, especially in the context of my experiment, but the spectrum of emotions it triggered off in the next two and a half hours deserves another post.

As I served dinner — penne and mushrooms in a cheese and wine sauce — GK tried to bring us out of our thoughtful mood by telling us about his escapades in Los Angeles during the filming of his Hollywood movie ‘The Ode’.

After dinner, I opened my last bottle of Sula 2007 Late Harvest Chenin Blanc for dessert. It’s a really sweet wine that I often rely on whenever I don’t want to serve dessert, and I’ll miss serving it to my guests through the rest of the year.

I didn’t expect the next movie to match the intensity of ‘Into the Wild’, but it did. Ang Lee’s ‘Lust, Caution’ was the perfect follow-up, as it extended the theme of extreme idealism, but also pulled us out of our thoughtful mood by pulling us into a whirlwind of sexual and political treachery.

After two brilliant movies, Gavin Hood’s ‘Rendition’ proved to be a little anti-climactic and I watched in only in bits and parts, as sleep tugged at my eyelids. I did wake up in time to watch the key climactic scene, so I don’t think I missed much.

After sleeping through the morning, I spent the the afternoon re-reading Judith Levine’s ‘Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping’, one of the books that inspired my experiment. Even though there are several similarities between Judith’s experiment and mine, we approach consumption from different perspectives, and our books are likely to be very different from each other. But, like ‘Into the Wild’, ‘Not Buying It’ also deserves another post.

One of the high points of my daily routine these days is to watch the sun set over the sea. So, early in the evening, I walked over to Marine Dive to watch the sunset. Later, on my way back, I saw the sky lit up with again, with firecrackers; the Bangalore Royal Challengers had defeated Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League twenty20 match at the Wankhede Stadium.

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Perhaps the biggest challenge of being off consumption is the difficulty of maintaining an active social life.

When you take away the context in which social interactions happen — eating or drinking out, or going out for a movie or a play — you basically make it really difficult for people to spend time with you.

A home-cooked meal, or a walk along the sea, works well once or twice, but, eventually, your friends are likely to tire of such simple pursuits, even if you don’t.

So, unless you invent new social contexts, not only dating, even meeting friends may become a problem.

It’s less difficult for me, because blogging provides me a context in which I can make new friends and keep up with my old friends. If you read my blog, you already know me, so meeting up for a walk or a home-cooked meal (or even my sleeping on your couch) will probably feel natural.

I’m hoping that Saturday Night Movie Marathons will become another such social context.

The idea is simple. We meet up on a Saturday night at someone’s place and watch four back-to-back movies, from dinner to brunch.

Last weekend, I hosted the first Saturday Night Movie Marathon at my house with an Alfred Hitchcock theme. The movies on the schedule were North by Northwest, Vertigo, Dial M for Murder, and Rear Window, with Strangers on a Train, Mr and Mrs Smith, The Rope and Stage Fright as backups.

Ten people turned up, apart from me, out of which two left after dinner itself, two left after the first movie and six stayed more or less through the night.

I cooked pasta and served drinks and munchies from my stock. One of my guests insisted that he wanted to eat pizza, so we ordered one. I’m sure that’s against rule #4, even though he paid for the pizza. As it turned out, he didn’t like the pizza, because it had a weird base, so I made him some sandwiches instead.

In the end, we watched only two Hitchcock movies — North by Northwest and Vertigo — before shifting to The Pink Panther on popular demand. Two of my guests got drunk between the second and third movies, so the rest of us had a tough time deciding if their antics were more funny than Peter Sellers’.

The theme for tonight’s Saturday Night Movie Marathon is classic World War 2 movies. We plan to watch The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, The Great Escape and From Here To Eternity with The Dirty Dozen, Von Ryan’s Express, Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List as backups.

I’m hosting it at my house, once again, so if you are a movie buff, and if you are in South Bombay tonight, do give me a call at +919223366624 and come over.

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She made appreciative sounds when she saw my Bvlgari body lotion and Burberry perfume, but was much perplexed when she couldn’t find any aftershave lotion.

Here’s a more or less faithful reproduction of the conversation that followed –

Lady Friend: (clearing her throat) Which aftershave lotion do you use?

Gaurav: Actually, I don’t use one anymore.

Lady Friend: (resuming her inspection of my toiletries) Oh! So, you use an aftershave gel. Those are good too.

Gaurav: Actually, I don’t use aftershave at all — no lotion, balm, or gel.

Lady Friend: (turns around sharply) How can a man not use aftershave lotion? (encouragingly) Come on, it’s okay if you use Old Spice or something. Anything is forgiven in a man who uses Bvlgari body lotion for a back massage.

Gaurav: (laughs) I told you about my off consumption experiment, didn’t I?

Lady Friend: (tentatively) Yes?

Gaurav: So, basically, throughout the year, I’m not allowed to buy anything that is not a necessity. (pauses) I finished my last bottle of aftershave two weeks back and decided that aftershave was not a necessity.

Lady Friend: (even more perplexed) So, when you run out of your Bvlgari body lotion, you’ll not buy another bottle.

Gaurav: No.

Lady Friend: (positively shocked now) So, you are basically using you last half bottle of Bvlgari body lotion on a back massage.

Gaurav: (smiles naughtily) Well, I can’t really think of a better way to use it.

Lady Friend: (smiles back naughtily) In that case, why don’t you give me another one?

Well, after three weeks of not using aftershave, I had to visit Wikipedia to remember why I ever used it in the first place.

It’s good that I finally managed to buy a pack of phitkari (alum) today (it seems that no grocery shop in Cuffe Parade stocks it); after reading about the astringent properties of aftershave, I have suddenly discovered a slight itch on my face (even though I’m sure that it’s psychosomatic).

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I’m the king of the world!

Yes, you heard it right —

I’m the king of the world!

Once more, with a little ‘yay!’ at the end —

I’m the king of the world!Yay!

I hope you remember how it feels to stand up and shout it out –

I’m the king of the world!

If you have forgotten, here’s Leonardo DiCaprio himself to remind you –

I have made it my life’s mission to be able to say that to myself when I wake up every morning —

I’m the king of the world!

Every little thing that I do is a step towards being able to say that to myself when I wake up every morning —

I’m the king of the world!

Because what’s the point, really, if I am not able to say that to myself when I wake up every morning?

I’m the king of the world!

That line is a declaration of pure, undiluted joy –

I’m the king of the world!

I’m happy to tell you that I feel that joy most mornings –

I’m the king of the world!

The point of the ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ is to learn how to feel that joy even without buying things —

I’m the king of the world!

The point of the ‘The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption’ is also to learn how to bring back that joy into buying things —

I’m the king of the world!

I’m both the object and the observer, so, the book is about me and, yet, not really about me. The video clip, with the sub-titled details of the special effect techniques used to create it, is an apt metaphor.

I know that it’s a little confusing, but I think it is a nice way to share with you what I learn, both as an individual and as a marketer, in my year-long pursuit of the joy of not buying —

I’m the king of the world!

I also know that I’m not really modest, because nobody who is modest says that —

I’m the king of the world!

It also says something about both of us, really, if you are offended at my saying that –

I’m the king of the world!

— because if you felt that joy yourself, you would join me in saying –

I’m the king of the world!

So, the only promise I make, dear readers, is to not let go of that joy —

I’m the king of the world!

– even as I let go of all the things that are supposed to help us get in touch with it.

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But I knew that when I went off consumption. I knew that, to resist the temptation to buy, I’ll basically need to be happy all the time. I also knew that I’ll face my first big test as soon as I hit a bad day.

Today has been a particularly bad day.

I took three weeks off from work (out of my accumulated leave totaling up to more than hundred days), starting last week, in order to write more, put a little traction behind the book. I did write a little, but I have twenty unwritten posts queued in my mind, fading away with every passing minute.

As it turned out, my three weeks of leave has shrunk to three days, and I even spent a substantial part of those three days working from home.

Today, I was back in office, copying table after table of numbers from excel sheets to a power point presentation. I’ll not be able to take time off this week because I have to do more of the same tomorrow and the day after that.

Part of the reason I haven’t written much is because I have been writing and deleting posts responding to comments (from friends and strangers) about how “crass and classless” I am, apart from being “pompous, self-centered and self-obsessed”, and how my experiment is a “gimmick”, a “self-publicity stunt” to get “vanity coverage” in media.

Part of the reason why I haven’t written much is because I have been spending far too much time cooking my food, cleaning my house, fixing things at home, and walking to wherever I want to go.

I don’t want to go back to my house tonight because I don’t want to be alone when I’m feeling blue. I also don’t want to go back to my house tonight because it’s still dirty after the ‘let’s watch four Hitchcock movies in a night’ get together on Saturday night. You haven’t read about it yet because it’s post #13 in the queue of unwritten posts in my mind.

So, here I am, sitting on Marine Drive, hunched over my laptop, hoping that the sea breeze will clear my head and brush away my blues.

Except that I’m pissed off that people in Mumbai have no sense of public space. I had to move twice because someone would sit next to me on my hitherto quiet stretch of the promenade and start playing a Himesh Reshammiya song on his mobile phone’s loudspeaker.

So, as I try to finish this post before my laptop battery runs down, I wish I was not off consumption so that I could eat a one liter brick of Amul Kulfi ice cream at one go, knowing fully well that I’ll feel terrible about it tomorrow.

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Last Tuesday, when Riddhi called me to say that she had read my blog and wanted to do an interview, my first (very audible) reaction was –

Ah! Finally the first interview! It has been fifteen days since I started the experiment and I was beginning to wonder why nobody has called for an interview!

To her credit, she didn’t sound shocked at all.

The interview was published yesterday on the front page of the Delhi edition –

– and the city section in the Mumbai edition –

One interesting thing I learned yesterday is that different editions of a newspaper may publish different versions of a story.

The Mumbai Edition published the full story — see text below — complete with my rules and URL.

The Delhi Edition published a much shorter version of the story — also available online — but it was on the front page and I’m not complaining at all.

Now, I’m waiting for the television crews to land up on my doorstep.

The Simple Life

Marketing professional Gaurav Mishra has embarked on an intriguing experiment: a no-frills, no-indulgences, low-consumption life

Riddhi Shah, Mumbai
riddhi.shah@hindustantimes.com
Sunday, April 13, 2008

Imagine never being able to eat out; not even a vada pav at the station. Never being able to go shopping for clothes or for gadgets. Or being able to go to the movies. Imagine not using a car or a taxi, walking as much as you can and taking the train. And having to do all the housework yourself.

Sounds like your worst nightmare? For 28-year-old Gaurav Mishra, it’s just an average day in his life. Not because he’s living a life of poverty; in fact, he’s an assistant general manager at one of India’s leading automobile companies.

But for an entire year, Mishra has set off on an experiment to go “off consumption” - which, by his definition, means that he won’t buy anything unless it’s a necessity .

“I got tired of trying to equate happiness with consumption. I’d bought so many clothes, books, DVDs and immersed myself in luxury I had success, I had money, but . didn’t know the purpose of my life,” says the Patna native.

His yearlong experiment, he says, is an attempt at finding a way to lead a simpler life. “Besides, I’ve realised that people getting tired of consumerism is going to be a big trend. And as a marketer, it’s a trend that I want to study I’m hoping this year will give me insights into what marketers need to prepare for in the future,” says Mishra, who holds an MBA from IIM-Bangalore. And like any good marketer, he also knows the latent potential of his unique experiment - Mishra is waiting for that big book deal to come through even as he writes about his daily experiences on his blog (www.gauravonomics.com). Necessity or not?

Whenever he tells people about his experiment, says Mishra, the first question is always: how does one define a necessity? But he deliberately refrains from a concrete definition. “Part of the point of the project is to figure out what exactly constitutes a necessity. That’s one of the insights I’m looking for,” he argues.

In the three weeks since he’s given up consumption, he’s already learned enough about marketing and the future of consumerism to fill a few chapters of his book: For in- stance, he says that even if he’s given up McDonald’s burgers, he’s still buying relatively expensive muesli because he considers the latter a necessity. So, he concludes, “Health food will continue to grow as a segment even if fast food doesn’t.” Or, he relates, “Because I can’t go to restaurants anymore, I’m beginning to experience the absolute lack of public places in the city It would . be a great marketing tactic for Barista and Café Coffee Day to position them selves as free spaces rather than exclusive cafes.”

He’s also tapping into the increasing populari ty of the ‘swapping economy’, after being forced to look for alternative accommodation instead of a five-star hotel the next time he travels on business. “I signed up for something called couch surfing, in which people offer their couches to strangers for free. Such free or barter arrangements promise to be a huge thing in the future,” says Mishra.

But it’s only early days. There are another 344 days to see through, and he foresees, “The biggest problem promises to be my social life. I’m worried about how I’ll continue to relate to my friends if I can’t go to a restaurant, a movie or a bar. Right now, they’re still willing to come over or meet me for a walk, or cook for me when I visit them, but at some point it’ll become too much of an effort. What will I do then?”

And of course, there’s the problem of maintaining a love life – how does a 28-year-old take a girl out on a low-consumption date? “So far, I’ve been creative and gone to Juhu beach once and cooked dinner twice, but at some point I might run out of options,” Mishra confesses.

There are other possible roadblocks. While cleaning and cooking doesn’t seem like much of a chore right now, there’s always the possibility of coming back to a dirty house, and getting desperate enough to ask his maid to come back.”

For right now though, Mishra is focusing on make the project as much of a public spectacle as possible. “It’s a way of keeping myself in check. The more people know about it, the bigger fool I’ll make of myself if I fail to see this through,” he says.

It’s not going to be easy, of course. “I’ve completely taken out all comfort food from my life. Even something as simple as eating ice cream is a problem. So,” jokes Mishra, “I’m just going to have to be happy all the time.”

Mishra’s Laws of Low Consumption

- Only basic groceries, toiletries and household items are allowed.
- Eating out and going out for paid entertainment are not allowed.
- Buying clothes, accessories and gadgets is not allowed, but repairing and borrowing them is.
- Buying books, music, or movies is not allowed, online or offline.
- Mass media are not allowed.
- Household help is not allowed.
- Buying gifts is not allowed, but giving and receiving gifts is.
- Consuming what he already has is allowed. He will only replenish if necessary.
- Work is sacrosanct; he will not let his experiment interfere with his ability to work.

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