My Experiments With Wild Things is an epistolary anthology where a reluctant wayfarer explores Tenpy’s tiny homes, composing a collection of affecting letters relating realisations, anecdotes, and experiences.

Dear Hobbes,

In each of us, there is a voice. A little morsel of the subconscious that clammers for attention. I’ve spent a lifetime – a solitary, nasty, brutish lifetime – ignoring that voice.

Why, you might wonder? Because that voice, when it manages to find volume, always encourages me to question my way of living. Not angrily or with contempt or in judgement. No, this voice is gentle. Sardonic, but never cruel. The voice has this way of making me rethink my worldview without telling me what is what.

With oblique questions, boggling riddles, and dry commentary, it nudges without interfering — and Hobbes, I’m starting to wonder whether it might be time to listen. To let there be interference.

To help you understand why I am standing on this precarious precipice of perspective change, we need to start at the beginning. To put it simply, I’m very fond of shiny things.

Covetousness might be a sin, but I indulged in it relentlessly. What others had, I had to have as well. Their grand houses and glitzy parties and glittering jewels and glamorous holidays. I truly believed, with all of my heart, that these were the ultimate luxuries of life.

How could I not? These visible, tangible frills were such obvious, flashing neon signs of what those around me considered luxury.

So I pursued them. Even when the voice inside me whispered that luxury is a private, personal value, and not a dragon’s hoard of things — I chased. I spent my life marathon training to acquire the short-sprint gratification of amassing things that others could coo over and envy me for.

See, that’s what it was all about: Having others covet what was mine the way I coveted what was yet another’s. A vicious cycle, a Grand Prix of grandiosity. And I was pedalling for everything I was worth, peddling the same hollow-boned philosophy.

But it’s all empty, is it not, Hobbes? I didn’t realise until in a moment of weakness – that I now know as true strength – I permitted that voice to goad me into spending one weekend under your awning. I’d change my mind, the voice had said, and I, delusional as ever, agreed, believing that was impossible.

Yet, the moment I arrived at your doorstep, the change was upon me. I, seeker of shiny things, discovered that houses and parties and clothes and holidays grew dull and muted in the face of things I could not own, but simply participate in.

The voice inside me rejoiced as I understood that the stars twinkled forever brightly through your skylight. The jade forests surrounding you glistened with dew each morning. The fireflies glowed, flitting around as dusk after dusk settled in.

Shiny things were no longer objects. My idea of luxury was thrown into contention — and hopefully, one day, it will fall into disuse.

Hobbes, you cannot fathom what respite this brings me. My life has been one where I simply hit the ground running. Race after rat race consumed me, exhausting me from the inside out until I could barely catch my breath.

I thought I was doing so well. I was not.

Then the voice led me to you, your simple ways, your homecooked meals, your proximity to the best nature has to offer. And I can finally breathe. I am trading my visible frills for the intangible peace — one that every individual ought to endeavour towards, as far as they have hope of obtaining it.

Perhaps that is the greatest luxury of them all: Hope. Hope that I never get mired in limited ideas of opulence. Hope that I am ever willing to let the simple life be my idea of a luxe life. Hope that the voice will forever nudge me where I need to be.

Hope that I might visit you again, and you might remind me – stars, forests, fireflies, et al – that affluence is not synonymous with sitting in the lap of luxury.

Signed,
Yours truly

Want to explore the laws of nature with Hobbes? Reimagine luxury at the sylvan daydream come to life at Elephant Country Homestay. Book a stay with Tenpy.

Read more experiments with wild things. Experience metamorphosis with the first letter to Tiny Rusty.