So sick of living inside the machine. Where to go? page 4

[Darky1963]

Dude
Do what my wife and I did, take 6 months off, load the car with camp gear and the kids and take off. We did a migration around Australia with no plan. I know you have to come back to the real world however it makes it all a bit more bearable and just having to worry about food and shelter only for six months straight is rather good for the soul.

Regards Darky

[Ouaouaron]

Loved that book and movie.

This reminds me of the indian in Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" whose mental derangement (or not) was that the "combine" had its wires in him. The book is an interesting allegory and relevant to the discussion here.

[Ouaouaron]

trying to enjoy where I live right now with my wife and son. getting chickens this coming spring, fun

[ryanmercer]

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.

Depending on where you live, you need 5-50+ acres for a single cow to do it wholly on grass, this is assuming you want to feed it hay from your own pasture in the winter.

[meeshar]

We lived in our RV for 9 months, but were limited to an area for work (husband was looking for telecommute jobs but none panned out). Even then, it was a wonderful experience and we'll probably do it again at some point in the future. We lived in a nearly empty state park (off-season) on a lake for months on end, it felt like having it all to ourselves. We're tired of living in the machine as well, but are making it work for now so that we will have the resources to homestead and/or full-time RV later on.

[texas.grok]

The closest that I have been able to opt out from society is living and working overseas. I have spent the last 4 years in Egypt about 1.5 hours from Cairo. While not primitive it is pretty secluded. I don't have to go into Cairo often and my interaction with others is limited to when I'm at work.

Not ideal, I don't live in a cave or have to chase down my food but I can buy truly organic veggies, grassfed meat, eggs so fresh they still have feathers and chicken shit on them. People leave me alone and I leave them alone. I can choose to partake in parts of Egyptian culture that are as modern as anything in the US or go to places, like with the Bedouins, where their way of life has not changed completely from what it was a century ago.

There are other parts of Africa where you can disappear and try to survive. As modern as this world has gotten, there are still dark and primitive parts to be found.

[sbhikes]

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 typical response is really closed-minded. Just because you haven't found the hole in the wall doesn't mean others haven't found it and slipped through it already. I posted 6 links in this thread with examples of people who have done it and ideas for ways out of the machine. And there are many more ways to do it other than the small examples I provided. It does not necessarily require "living off the land."

[zoebird]

I think it is true that subsistence living can be very challenging, and it can also be a joy. It really depends upon the person, I suppose.

It's not hte life for me, which is why I spoke to other options. It would take me a fair amount of time to learn to grow my food, forage, hunt, and fish -- and I'd rather watch movies. That's just the bold fact of it. I'm not interested in those activities. And when the zombie apocalypse comes, I'll be screwed, but carpe diem.

[joelwlcx]

Read the book "My Side of the Mountain".

[fuzzylogic]

Not closed-minded. I just think it is really really funny when someone tells me they want to live off the land because they're tired of working so hard.

I've hauled a days worth of water from a pond for cattle, hauled more to water my garden, stayed up til midnight and the next morning canning food that was going to spoil and done it by woodstove in 99 degree heat. I've cried as I put down dog-savaged sheep and pulled baby goats and lambs myself because I couldn't afford a vet.

Cutesy ideas of living in an RV as authentic back to the land are just that: cutesy.