I’m planning to take up this kind of life, and I’m certainly not rich.
I am, however, lucky in that I’m a street performer, a musician, and do things like graphic and web design that I can do from wherever. My wager is that I can make enough money to live comfortably IF I have minimal expenses.
The plan is to do a bus conversion into a tiny home / RV. It’s not exactly living out of a backpack, but it does involve downsizing. I’m also making a concerted effort to generally reduce my possessions to just things I actually use.
I think I’ll spend a couple years doing summers here in New England, and winters down in Florida. I’ve got a ton of hotel experience, so it means I’ll be able to also maintain a day job as long as I need to while I transition to full time freelance.
I’ve been real homeless before. As in poverty-stricken, nobody to take me in, homeless. This feels different.
It’s not so much that this guy doesn’t have any possessions–it’s more like he is able to pay the rest of the world to hold on to all of his possessions when he’s not using them and have them ready when he needs them.
To be fair, I read that he has never owned a credit card…but then neither have I, or you, or anyone anywhere that I’m aware of. Maybe in some other countries you can own a credit card, but none I’ve visited long enough to get one in.
& the last time I tried to get a debit card that wasn’t also tied to VISA I was refused because that establishment simply no longer offered pure debit cards. You could place restrictions on the card you could get tho.
but I doubt he’s being semantically disingenuous in his choice of words, and while I’m glad he’s happy? to say he is happy? I envy him not one bit, wealthy or not. Writing constantly about yourself seems like a ridiculous thing for a person with a full life to do.
Speaking as someone currently with a toothache, all I can say is I would never want to be living a life where I’d need a letter from my lawyer or banker to prove I’m solvent enough to afford a dentist. It is hard enough getting a quick dentist appointment, let alone preceding it with a quick banker appointment. (Of course, the right solution is single-payer national health…)
I never got over his attitude over setting fire to 300 acres of woods…
Who are these men who are said to be the owners of these woods, and how am I related to them? I have set fire to the forest, but I have done no wrong therein, and now it is as if the lightning had done it. These flames are but consuming their natural food
To be fair, he only said it was easy to imagine it. Not a word about going through with it (and have you seen his Rolls Royce? Hell, I don’t care about cars but I wouldn’t give that up!)
Worked hard and went full on for the mcmansion filled with accumulated junk, the SUV to haul junk around, the rented storage unit for more junk, and then one day said f’ it, why am I doing this? and are now wealthy enough to try on the role of opposing everything they’ve ever done
Were pretty ascetic/frugal to start with; generally followed what society said to do but never spent or accumulated a lot because they just weren’t interested, and ended up rich enough to buy their freedom relatively young because of that
When you’re living on the streets, you make it a point to find safe places. Plural because you might not be able to get to one, might get locked out, it might get demolished, or become unsafe. So maybe not constant or reliable, but you have your places.
The hard part when you’re not rich is that everything is so much more expensive in time and effort (and usually money too). No car? You’re walking and/or scheduling everything around the limited public transit schedules. No home? You can’t store anything, so you get disposable stuff and have to rebuy it every time you need it. No money? You get the cheap stuff that wears out and have to rebuy it again. Trying to get a job? That’s a full day planned to get across town, get ready, do a 1-hour interview, and get back again. Have an appointment for assistance or medical? Another full day. Submitting job applications? Another full day. Cashing a check? Hours and a significant percentage of the check lost. Being broke can be a full-time job with an expensive lifestyle.
And since so many simple things are full-day quests, you’ll need to consider bathroom breaks. Downtown, they’re all locked ‘For paying customers only!’. In the residential neighborhoods, you risk becoming a registered sex offender if you have to pee in the bushes.
If you’re wealthy, all those problems fall away, so it’s much cheaper and easier to be poor if you’re rich. Not so much because of the stuff or the place, but because of all the friction that affects basic day-to-day activities. I’ve never seen the rich minimalists address those frictions.
Yet pretty much a requirement for being one of the .01%
He’s so completely out of touch with reality that A - he’s also completely unaware of the disconnect, and B - he’ll likely never find what he’s really looking for, and that is a sense of purpose in life. He’s locked in this tight little circle of introspective navel-gazing that’s all about himself to the exclusion of all others. Until he actually actively cares about others as more than merely specimens presented for his observation and judgement he’ll always be a depressed and lonely man. (Skimming through his blog the writing absolutely screams it!) I’ve seen this happen before with highly intelligent people and it’s sad, hopefully he finds a (healthy) way out!
Bound to be excellent money in it though. As long as people keep killing each other in messy ways, and as long as people generally aren’t comfortable picking bits of skull out of the pavement.
