The Rat Race

[AltTransBikes]

Couldn't you be more of a minimalist by living on a piece of land instead of a van or car?

Certainly possible and by a substantive margin.

 

[highdesertranger]

so what are you going to do on this piece of land all day? how are you going to pay the taxes? how are you going to get food? how are you going to get water? I could go on and on but I think you get my point. highdesertranger

 

[GotSmart]

so what are you going to do on this piece of land all day?  how are you going to pay the taxes?  how are you going to get food?  how are you going to get water?  I could go on and on but I think you get my point.  highdesertranger

I would pave it and put up a parking lot.  A dump station internet cafe and a wi~fi Hot Spot!

Charge all the van dwellers $1.50 each to use them!

(Apologies to Joni Mitchel.) 



I have been thinking on how to set up an earth sheltered cargo container.  A truckload of water would last a while with a composting toilet.  Our ancestors survived on much less than we have.

 

[Konaexpress]

I would pave it and put up a parking lot.  A dump station internet cafe and a wi~fi Hot Spot!

Charge all the van dwellers $1.50 each to use them!

(Apologies to Joni Mitchel.) 



I have been thinking on how to set up an earth sheltered cargo container.  A truckload of water would last a while with a composting toilet.  Our ancestors survived on much less than we have.

Most cargo containers will crush if not reinforced. I think it's like a soda can, outward force good, ext bad.

John

 

[FALCON]

This is an interesting and challenging subject to think about. There are so many sides to the subject. This is something that Jacob Fisker at earlyretirementextreme.com has considered a lot and written about a number of times (Sorry I don't have a link for you). Here are some of the realities, as I see them:
- It is indeed possible for the rat race as we know to end. That doesn't mean that there would be no cars or consumer goods. It could generally mean that overall humankind works much less and also produces and consumes much less. This might mean some people work very hard for 10 years or so and then they have enough, and some people work a few months out of the year and have enough, and some people who like working just work forever. The end of the rat race as we know it is 100% possible. But it's also 100% unlikely.
- It is EXTREMELY unlikely for a large scale change of this kind. Current habits and traditions are set in very deeply. Change of this scale is very difficult to predict or manage.

People like Bob and Jacob Fisker have been successful in influencing the behavior of thousands of people. They've been quite individually successful in this and maybe depending on your own views, have contributed significantly to society and to lessening it's impact on the world. Triggering the kind of mass change that Bob and Jacob desire might require about a billion Bobs and Jacobs trying to change society.

I've been in the rat race my entire life. I've been working full time for over ten years since college. I crafted my escape plan about 5 years ago and now I'm getting quite close to quitting. It's been interesting to have this on my mind over the last 5 years. Sometimes it's quite sad thinking about how my co-workers are doing basically the same **** again and again and again - spending so much of their life doing this. The company I work for is very good, but even still, the prospect of spending the majority of one's waking hours and creative energy working there is a waste of the one life each of us get.

Some of you may have hear about the Plato's cave allegory. In the story, when the theoretical escapee goes back to the cave (or in this case, work) to tell the people there is so much more to the world, they can't comprehend. They don't believe. And they won't leave the cave.

 

[gcal]

Yes, indeed, they did. They survived without internet, for not thing, and cars and internal combustion engines and trucks to haul the waste away or bring water in and electricity to run Mr Buddys and without sewers to takeaway sewage. Few people really want to go back in history in any serious way. But a lot of us would like to stop consuming blindly and simplify our lives. People get tired of spending long hours doing work that does not satisfy so that they can pay off bills for things they rewarded themselves with that don't satisfy, either. 

But often, the biggest part of the problem is that people are lazy and want to take the easy way. They don't put the effort into finding out what their talents are and getting training to make a living with them. Do you think that Richard Finestein got bored a lot? Or Georgia OKeefe? Or the Henry Ford? Even Donald Trump is having a ball at what he does. It is not hard work that is bad for us. It is the wrong work that kills our spirits.  But intraspection and self awareness are hard and uncomfortable.  It is easier to go with the flow and let someone else do our thinking for us, and then live in frustration.

 

[AltTransBikes]

Couldn't you be more of a minimalist by living on a piece of land instead of a van or car?

Certainly possible and by a substantive  margin.

so what are you going to do on this piece of land all day?  how are you going to pay the taxes?  how are you going to get food?  how are you going to get water?  I could go on and on but I think you get my point.  highdesertranger

Following along the sequence of replies in the context of this thread, Mobilesport postulated the question regarding options of minimalist living.

The questions of what one does all day, taxes, food, water, etc. remain, regardless of lifestyle, mobile or not. It might certainly be said full time living on the road without a base can represent it's own set of challenges. How one finances any chosen lifestyle remains an assignment all must bear up under.

It's an individual thing of course, everyone's situation needs review on a case by case basis, no one size will fit all. My contention is, landed minimalist living can be satisfyingly achieved for not a lot of money because I have done it. My slightly less the 500 sq ft cabin on a couple+/-  wisely chosen acres with well, compost facility, developed vegetable and fruit cultures and woodlot goes long on maximum self reliance with minimal footprint and done for less than say...what a new full size extended cargo van would cost.

It's been a project that has required shrewd patience, morphing from hunting retreat to primary residence, requiring more time than money though IMHO both well spent. If/when the itch for further domestic travels strikes, van dwelling remains a consistent minimalist choice, just as is having a home base to return to.

 

[AltTransBikes]

Yes, indeed, they did. They survived without internet, for not thing, and cars and internal combustion engines and trucks to haul the waste away or bring water in and electricity to run Mr Buddys and without sewers to takeaway sewage. Few people really want to go back in history in any serious way. But a lot of us would like to stop consuming blindly and simplify our lives. People get tired of spending long hours doing work that does not satisfy so that they can pay off bills for things they rewarded themselves with that don't satisfy, either. 

But often, the biggest part of the problem is that people are lazy and want to take the easy way. They don't put the effort into finding out what their talents are and getting training to make a living with them. Do you think that Richard Finestein got bored a lot? Or Georgia OKeefe? Or the Henry Ford? Even Donald Trump is having a ball at what he does. It is not hard work that is bad for us. It is the wrong work that kills our spirits.  But intraspection and self awareness are hard and uncomfortable.  It is easier to go with the flow and let someone else do our thinking for us, and then live in frustration.

Very good post with some well made points, particularly "It is not hard work that is bad for us. It is the wrong work that kills our spirits."

 

[highdesertranger]

I was referring to taxes on the land, money. if you are going to grow your food you need arable land, more money. where is the water for the crops coming from? out west in most areas you need to buy water rights, more money. someone said no fossil fuel, so that means you are basically stuck unless you bike or horseback ride in and out. btw owning a horse cost as much or more as a car. I am not saying owning a piece of land is bad per se, but you still need transportation. preferably a vehicle that can haul stuff. I really don't see how owning land can be cheaper than living in a vehicle. highdesertranger

 

[buckwilk]

I believe in personal responsibility. If you are in a job you hate, that is not the responsibility of society, that's your issue. If you are caught up in living outside your means that's on you. Making bad choices and then blaming others is not reasonable or realistic. There are millions of happy, satisfied folks living and working in this country. I think far more than the other side of the coin.

 

[mockturtle]

If you think you can literally live off the land nowadays, think again.

 

[ascii_man]

Depends on what land, how much of it, what you do with it, and how much you have to begin with. And how much the taxes are, of course.

 

[flying kurbmaster]

the rat race?" working forty plus hours a week at a meaningless job, commuting in traffic 30 to 60 minutes or more, twice a day in a car on payments with leather seats stolen from a murdered cow and a nice stereo, spending 6 to 8 hours in front of a screen telling them how to live and when and what to eat, locked in a large house with an even larger mortgage filled with every conceivable accessory, dressed in clothes matching their favorite movie or sports star, dreaming of two weeks vacation every year, at the resort from the brochure that came with all the flyers in the newspaper that no ones reads other then the horoscope while happily raising ungrateful kids in the same philosophy, that suck every last penny from them, only to waste it on a whole bunch of stuff they are only casually interested in, constantly scratching by from one pay check to the next with a credit card debt that drops only slightly with their tax rebate etc.etc..... No wonder people are stressed out, there are alternatives, no one has to do that and frankly I am not sure why anyone would want to, maybe the nice stereo. If someone is living like that, it is their choice, the issue is that they are wasting a whole lot of resources that belong to the rest of the people on the planet, they should have to answer for that kind of criminal activity and in some ways, they are, by having poor health, being unhappy, stressed and in a form of imprisonment however that still does not fix the issue of resources and pollution. The good news is that there are a lot of movements to bring awareness to this, that are working and that are slowly improving this problem, unfortunately, things are likely to get a whole lot worse before they get better thanks to those ungrateful little grandkids that are now inheriting the wealth of those grandparents that finally after 40 years have accumulated some equity but can't enjoy it because of poor health, death or fear of unlocking their doors and stepping out based on the information that has been fed to them for all this time through their favorite tv programs. That is how I would define the rat race?

 

[GotSmart]

Murdered cow?  

Someone needs a week away from civilization.  

 

[flying kurbmaster]

Murdered cow?  

Someone needs a week away from civilization.  

maybe I'll go steel some flyers out of a mailbox see what is on offer.

 

[GotSmart]

maybe I'll go steel some flyers out of a mailbox see what is on offer.

A free Resort timeshare package weekend?

Some of them feed you.    (To the Rats so they run faster!)

 

[akrvbob]

I believe in personal responsibility. If you are in a job you hate, that is not the responsibility of society, that's your issue. If you are caught up in living outside your means that's on you. Making bad choices and then blaming others is not reasonable or realistic. There are millions of happy, satisfied folks living and working in this country. I think far more than the other side of the coin.

The Gallop company has been doing an poll of job satisfaction since the year 2000, they've interviewed over a million American workers and the results are always very similiar. 
http://www.gallup.com/poll/181289/majority-employees-not-engaged-despite-gains-2014.aspx

Engaged = like their job, glad to go to work
Not Engaged = don't like their job, just going through the motions to keep it
Actively Disengaged = hate their job and are trying to hurt their employer by sabotaging it 

Very consistently about 30% like their job and 70% dislike or hate it.

This is a recent one:

 

[buckwilk]

Thank you Bob, for once we agree. I have seen those polls also. The fact that an overwhelming number are unhappy in their work points out what I am saying. Bad choices, the employer didn't make those choices, the employee did. Employees in this country are not slaves, they can choose to do what they want, that they aren't happy isn't the employer's fault. Don't like your job, quit. Don't like your wife, quit. Don't like paying taxes, quit. Choices, we all have them, make the wrong ones, live with it. Don't blame the society you live in for it.

 

[buckwilk]

There are 140 million people employed in the U.S. Use your numbers, that's 45 million people happy with their jobs. Perhaps the others ought to make a change.

 

[AltTransBikes]

As my dear old dad said to me 'you're not owed a living'. I took that to heart. I should count myself as lucky I guess. I liked my job, 25 years serving the country, a good work-life balance, made a good living with benes and RET, lived and worked in various places around the world. Most of the colleagues I worked with felt the same, good bunch of people. No regrets here on choices.