So sick of living inside the machine. Where to go? page 3

[RaeVynn]

I'd kinda like to move to Belize or Ecuador... out of the US rat race, anyway, and a more laid-back, less consumerism lifestyle.

Otherwise, it's finding a few acres to raise our own veggies (well, I do some of that now), and maybe have a beef to grass feed.

[Tribal Rob]

The trick is not needing much money so you don't have to make a lot of money to be comfortable.

+ 1000

The flip side of the same coin is the more you have the more you think you 'need' and it's hard to force yourself to give up the stuff you convince yourself you need when you can still afford it.

I also find the less spending power you have the more you value every little thing

[solstice]

maybe even detaching from the Internet is a healthy place to start to re-evaluate?

[sbhikes]

Here's a couple more links for you:
Home Page
Rainbow Family of Living Light Unofficial Home Page

[fuzzylogic]

If we left, where could we go? What forests can we live in without fear of being hunted or harassed? Where are the deer plentiful?

I'm 30. This has all been crap. I want to wake up, find food, love my family, play games, work the land a little, and sleep free of B.S. I want every day to be the same.


I just don't know how much longer I can take this fake, fake world and these games we play, the money we have to make, the dreams we must kill to satisfy cultural norms. Why don't we take to the trees again?

Giggle. Do you know how hard it is to live without running water? How about heat and refrigeration? Sanitation? Where would your food come from? Deer are not a nutritionally complete diet: and one deer provides possible 40-50 lbs of meat IF you eat everything down to tongue, liver, heart and kidneys. Have you ever tried subsistence farming? What do you do when the squash bugs eat your vines, or the hail knocks down your corn?

How do you sleep and keep alert for predators? Have you ever built a shelter?

I've lived without running water, electricity, and used a woodstove for heat. I've raised and slaughtered my own animals and produced or bartered for the majority of my food. I've preserved it, cooked it, and picked bugs out of the flour when that was all I had. I've fed my kids and scraped plates when they were done and asleep to have food.

This romantic idea of life on the land is crap. You aren't ready to work that hard.

[JoanieL]

Knifegill, you are living in WA state. Land is expensive there. Land in less popular states is very much less expensive.

There's a lot of good advice in this thread, even from people who think you couldn't do it. I think you could - maybe not live in the trees because there's no more free homestead land in the US, but surely you could find a few acres somewhere cheap, and save enough money so you have your living expenses covered until you find something that brings money in.

Don't give up your dreams, baby. Even if you have to modify them a bit, you'll still be better off than those who accept the status quo. I have a little dream of land myself, but it includes being able to do city life a few months out of the year. I like the idea of off the grid, but I love good restaurants, museums, etc., also.

Make a plan. Set a time-line. Do it. Life is a work in progress.

[Him]

Fuzzy.... What's the deal with that last sentence? "You aren't ready..."

I mean, I don't know the OP, you probably don't know the OP, how would we know what (s)he is ready for?

I know what it's like, by the way. I've lived without running water, heat, refrigeration, flush toilets, etc. I know some of the strange ways it affected me (e.g. defecating only every 3-4 days in part because the facilities were unpleasant enough that I avoided it as long as I could, or the fact that after awhile "water off a duck's back" could also have ended "my hair"), I've built shelters and off-grid PV power systems, etc.... I could drop back into that if needed. I don't choose to because... Well... What I said before. The problem, the frustration, isn't external. We are not trapped in a machine. Rather, we're trapped in our thoughts...the machine is learned ways of thinking and behaving. You cannot escape by relocating, you cannot escape by moving to a shack in the woods, or a sailboat on the wide blue ocean. You can only escape by changing your mind....and you can do that anywhere. I suspect most people need to find that out for themselves though. So perhaps, ready or not, a year in the woods is something everyone needs even though they really don't.

I have driven around Alaska, Wyoming, etc looking at land and dreaming too...and that's a living dream for me...but it has nothing to do with machines.

[JoanieL]

I often agree with Him (the poster, not God), and I do agree this time also. The Eagles sang, "So often times it happens that we live our life in chains and we never even know we have the key."

[zoebird]

For us, we created a plan of what we wanted in life.

Both of us are now entrepreneurs (with one earning income from it), and our work experience is MUCH more positive (and so rewarding), and so it feels far less "rat race-y."

Likewise, we live very simply (minimalist-like), and we love making money with our rewarding work. We don't hunt/fish/whatever, but we have a good life that we love. We are nearly debt free (student loan debt!), and once we are there, then we are "scott free!"

But, yeah, you don't have to do a whole lot to live better, truly.

[Bluefish]

Giggle. Do you know how hard it is to live without running water? How about heat and refrigeration? Sanitation? Where would your food come from? Deer are not a nutritionally complete diet: and one deer provides possible 40-50 lbs of meat IF you eat everything down to tongue, liver, heart and kidneys. Have you ever tried subsistence farming? What do you do when the squash bugs eat your vines, or the hail knocks down your corn?

How do you sleep and keep alert for predators? Have you ever built a shelter?

I've lived without running water, electricity, and used a woodstove for heat. I've raised and slaughtered my own animals and produced or bartered for the majority of my food. I've preserved it, cooked it, and picked bugs out of the flour when that was all I had. I've fed my kids and scraped plates when they were done and asleep to have food.

This romantic idea of life on the land is crap. You aren't ready to work that hard.

This.