Hey, I used to identify with a lot of people that lived in “reclaimed” spaces but the life is too uneven for me and I’m prone to being anxious anyway. A certain amount of stability goes a long way.
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Freedom’s on the dial - make mine an 88!
Look, I’m poking fun, but I’m not “looking down” on people who live this way. I know people who do. And I used to hang with that crowd for a short little while, spending lots of time on the outskirts living naturally but it didn’t suit. I need to possess my art space for doing my projects and it cannot be interrupted with unpaid rent or the elements. So, people who can do it, GREAT! For me, it doesn’t fit.
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I questions I have are about sustainability. I used to live a certain way when I was 22 (or 26) but I couldn’t live that way 20 years later. I know people that live in all kinds of marginal situations voluntarily when they’re younger but very few that choose to live that way when they’re older. Health problems, getting tired of the shit, etc. and people want a certain amount of predictability in their lives.
For example, I can’t crash on someone’s couch anymore. I had back surgery and a few other health issues. I don’t sleep well, even in my own bed. I can’t go out drinking and then just sleep on someone’s floor. I’ll pay a price for it.
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THAT is precisely what kills me! People buck hardest at the notion that they actually learn something about this stuff which supposedly means so much to them. I have had whole threads go hostile at the suggestion that homeless people be taught (of all crazy things) how to improvise shelter. How to source food, water, electricity, etc. I wonder if people actually fear that if they need to learn about this stuff, it might mean that something is wrong. The idea of “making a living” is abstract if people don’t know the skills to actually survive, and furthermore, they actually feel threatened about this.
Being told that one can not, should not, concern themselves directly with the matters of survival might just be enough to force people to wonder about the direction of a given system! The cynic in me wonders if this conditions people to be more dependent and helpless than they would be otherwise.
I will try to limit my replies, because Monty Pulciano’s Flying Circus is on so I might be more inclined to rambling and typos.
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I can’t tell if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me.
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Yep. The irony is the price we pay for our actions so often transcends money. Which Popo can take to the bank as a victory for his philosophy. However, I prefer living in the monetary world. I can do so much more than I could if I had no ready ability to barter/pay for precisely what I need when I need it, on demand, every day. As things are now, there is no delay. I can hop on the internet, order parts and have them within the week, consistently. With foraging/nonmonetary type living, my personal activities would have to be substantially different. No big projects that need to sit in a garage as I work on the pieces, bit by bit. I’d have to have a different kind of project, if any, and I like what I’m doing now and don’t want to change.
If you’ve read Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed, Shevek is from a cooperative world called Anarres where resources are scarce and are allocated based on computer algorithms. Down to the calorie. But when people are working on engineering or other resource-intensive projects that are deemed valuable to the collective, they get all the stuff they need… eventually… The author by no means made it sound idyllic. She did it to compare Anarres to Urras, the twin planet with a rich abundance of everything (like Earth) and a rich abundance of wars and strife. I totally see where she is coming from with the book. It’s a classic.
That said …I’d rather live on Urras than dry, barren Anarres.
Monty Pulciano’s Flying Circus says yes.
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I tried to get that from the town library last week! Their system said it was there, but we couldn’t find it anywhere. I have yet to read any LeGuin, but I wanted to start with that one.
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That’s definitely the one to start with. But you would really love the sexuality in The Left Hand of Darkness.
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See, this is untrue. “Whole threads” did not go hostile, and the concern people express at your comments is not because you “suggested that homeless be taught how to improvise shelter”.
You have a negatively grandiose way of describing other people’s thoughts and actions when your ideas aren’t getting the accolades you think they deserve. But your ideas aren’t automatically better than anyone else’s. You haven’t necessarily thought more on a particular subject, even. If someone has issues with some part of what you’ve said, it’s not because they’re entirely hostile to you, or stupid, or too lazy to think. They might disagree because they know something you don’t.
What have you learned from anyone here? Can you think of anything, or is it always a one-way street with you trying to educate us while we are too stubborn to realize how much wiser you are?
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Is she still mad at Cory?
I wanted to try Earthsea the other day, but lots of holds on it at the library.
TLHoD and The Dispossessed are the only two things of hers I’ve read, I should read more.
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W-T-F?!?!
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I had the version with the tape of songs from it in a slipcase!
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Perhaps someone didn’t believe in the Dewey Decimal System hegemony and so shelved it wherever they pleased?
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This! A thousand times this!
The casual arrogance and condescension and just outright insulting comments about members of this very forum are astounding! I honestly do not get it at all. Why does everyone want to talk endlessly with someone that obviously thinks so very little of us? My mind boggles!
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Must… hide… true… feelings…
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Being the only person a difficult person likes can be very alluring, just don’t over look how they treat your friends. 
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Oh, sorry, I meant to (jokingly) imply that I think you’re all a bunch of apes (well, half-jokingly, we all are a bunch of apes).
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