I’m periodically dropping out – first, university, then, “the system”, and now, “the scene”.
I feel Ran Prieur’s article, How to Drop Out is something I’ve found super useful and interesting over time. I particularly like the fact that it’s updated, renewed, developing.
In particular, here’s some stuff that’s been particularly relevant for me:
If you make an effort to combine your income and your love, you are likely to end up compromising both, making a poverty income by doing something you don’t quite love, or no longer love. For example, if you decide to become a chef because you love cooking, it will probably make you hate cooking, because cooking will become linked in your mind to all the bullshit around the job.
It’s what happened to me with web design. 🙁
Recently, I quit cooking for money because it was bad for my health. I started to hate cooking and was living on a diet of crisps, chips and beans on toast. Eek! I was also finding it really stressful. Since giving that up, I’ve been eating much better, in general, but I’m stressing about money instead now.
Dilemma.
“Get the most low-stress source of income that you can find, and then do exactly what you love for free” is what I’m working towards now.
6. When you begin to get free, you will get depressed. It works like this: When you were three years old, if your parents weren’t too bad, you knew how to play spontaneously. Then you had to go to school, where everything you did was required. The worst thing is that even the fun activities, like singing songs and playing games, were commanded under threat of punishment. So even play got tied up in your mind with a control structure, and severed from the life inside you. If you were “rebellious”, you preserved the life inside you by connecting it to forbidden activities, which are usually forbidden for good reasons, and when your rebellion ended in suffering and failure, you figured the life inside you was not to be trusted. If you were “obedient”, you simply crushed the life inside you almost to death.
Freedom means you’re not punished for saying no. The most fundamental freedom is the freedom to do nothing. But when you get this freedom, after many years of activities that were forced, nothing is all you want to do. You might start projects that seem like the kind of thing you’re supposed to love doing, music or writing or art, and not finish because nobody is forcing you to finish and it’s not really what you want to do. It could take months, if you’re lucky, or more likely years, before you can build up the life inside you to an intensity where it can drive projects that you actually enjoy and finish, and then it will take more time before you build up enough skill that other people recognize your actions as valuable.
This is where I am now. I’m effing miserable! Combine a diminished lifeforce with a lifetime of sexism, racism, queerphobia and what do you get? Me!
I’m working on it, looking for therapy / counselling, trying to focus on my bodily health too (through my hair mostly, I’m finding it helpful, but also massage / body work, dancing, relaxation, working less and less stressfully).
Do you have any advice to others trying to live on $7,000 a year?Yes, read this blog or just ask your grandparents. $7,000 for one person, which translates into ~$14,000 for our two person household (which is located in a city with a cost of living index of 131) seems extreme today, but if you go back 50 years and compare how people lived back then, it isn’t all that impressive. Furthermore, by many accounts people were happier back then. They weren’t zooming around trying to buy the newest cell phone model or waiting for the waiters in order to eat, and stressing out about their resumes in order to keep living their leveraged and amped up lifestyles—if you call that living. Okay, I rant, but from my perspective, my lifestyle is the sane choice, and it’s everybody else who’s extreme.
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-year.html
My surviving grandparents moved to England from West Africa and got sucked into an aspirational consumer lifestyle. Working themselves into the ground and spending money on stuff that breaks and needs replacing, they are definitely not in a position to give me advice on how to be frugal.
My parents are great at saving money… they’re also great at spending money on “assets” they really don’t need. They are growing a lot of their own food, amongst other stuff they do.
I have a lot to learn from them.
On the other hand, my dad has just told me I need to “get a proper job”, even though having one made me really miserable (hence why I left), conflicted with most of what I believe and wouldn’t leave me any time to do the things I think really matter.
And why is it that they’re hurt me repeatedly and without even trying?
I’m trying to figure out what to do; I find it hard. I have debt that is a weight around my neck. I have barely no buffer between me and poverty. Scratching a living, hand to mouth… I’m not close to starvation or malnutrition because I have a lot of privilege by living in a wasteful Western society. I have a lot of educational privilege too, somehow I don’t use it to the full extent.
Under voluntary poverty, Wikipedia currently states, “Among some individuals, poverty is considered a necessary or desirable condition, which must be embraced to reach certain spiritual, moral, or intellectual states. […] Benedict XVI distinguishes “poverty chosen” (the poverty of spirit proposed by Jesus), and “poverty to be fought” (unjust and imposed poverty).” In many ways, I chose poverty, as a necessary condition for doing less harm (not continuing to turn the gears in my job of social evil); but since then, it’s become imposed and it’s very difficult to get out of it.
Okay, so some guidance.
…drop all pretense of a smooth transition and allow for some mistakes along the way… if you don’t mind roughing it…
I reckon that those who will succeed in this are those who from one day to the next can proclaim: “Okay, I will not eat candy bars again” and actually not eat candy bars again.”
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/about-the-blogHere are some other things I’ve found useful from that blog, which I’m not going to edit together into a coherent whole.
“Don’t worry
. There will be no cutting back in this program. Instead things will be cut away completely
. Trust me on this one: It is much easier to deal psychologically with not having access at all compared to having restricted access. Restricted access only serves as a constant reminder of what you are missing. No access on the other hand changes your priorities and values and soon those are seen as the ideal state and your previous state is seen as something undesirable.
There won’t be any small baby steps either. Although it is of course strictly up to people to adopt what they want, I favor an all or nothing, that is, an extreme approach. A Blitz Krieg of shock and awe if you will. Attacking full force on several points leads to synergy. For example, I will be recommending commuting by bicycle. I will also recommend getting in shape to save on heating costs and medical bills. These two fit together and they will fit with others things, and so on. If you do one, you get the others for free. If you are only willing to do either one but not all, you will still have to spend time on the other one in some form thus wasting effort. The whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/day-0-the-early-retirement-extreme-30-day-makeover.html
“There’s a strong limit to what money can buy which is easily surpassed with time and effort.” http://earlyretirementextreme.com/why-so-few-succeed.html
“Why not spend some money to “live a little”? The reason I saved my money is so I can live a lot!”
“Only the poorest and the richest can easily increase their income.”
“Success is having everything you need and doing everything you want. It is not doing everything you need to have everything you want. If so then you do not own your things, instead your things own you.”
“I am what I eat and I look what I do.”
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/about-the-blog
- If or when you have decided to commit, start immediately. The “I’ll go on a diet, starting next year” has never worked. Feel free to take your time thinking it over and build some commitment. Don’t commit on the spur of the moment, but don’t wait until the excitement has gone away either.
- Make yourself accountable. Different people are motivated by different things. If you honor your word, you can make a public statement (feel free to use the comment section below). Obviously you should not use something that is counterproductive to your goal such as spending money to celebrate meeting your savings goal, duh!
- No exceptions! No exceptions! No exceptions! Exceptions are self-destructive in so many ways.
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/day-0-the-early-retirement-extreme-30-day-makeover.html
Let’s go. Vamos. Yalla.
