One of those moments....

It's been a while since I've splattered my thoughts on this virtual page. It's not like I haven't wanted to. So many events have gone by in the world in the past month and during the day while out foraging for wild bills and coins I would think of many clever comments that I could make, but as soon as I get home in the evening my brain turns to mush and the aliens swoop down with their big long greasy spoons and scoop the thoughts out of my head and leave me in a vegetable state for the remainder of the night. So you will never get to read my profound thoughts about Michael Jackson or my astute comments on the latest Obama plan to make us all healthy, wealthy and wise. Pity...

I ran across something yesterday though that really triggered a mental landslide. It kind of left me in a mental state akin to trying to hang on to a thin slippery fraying cord suspended over a 10,000 foot chasm.

This state started with a book I've been reading lately entitled "Nickel and Dimed, on (Not) getting by in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich. Published in 2001, it chronicles the adventures of a well schooled, very successful writer as she tries to make ends meet on the minimum of both wages and respect. She spent one month in each of three states, Florida, Maine and Minnesota, simply trying to earn enough to pay the next months rent, working in poverty waged service sector jobs. I haven't finished the story yet but I don't suspect it has a happy ending aside from the fact that she wrote a best selling book about the ordeal. But reading this has exacerbated my feelings of outrage and disgust over the way humans treat life on this planet and the life sucking system that we are all forced to endure. I used to think that it was a failing on my part that I didn't want to be a boss and I really haven't had much financial "success" in life. I can now see it more as a virtue. I had long ago figured out the the economic system of this planet was inherently evil and was bringing about the destruction of all life on this planet. But that was an inconvenient truth that I tried to forget, because after all one has to make a "living" and contribute to the society that has contributed so much to your quality of life, right? It's so much fun living a lie, isn't it kids? Please say yes, misery loves company, but better yet misery loves to come disguised as prosperity and infinite growth,and "living in the greatest country on God's green earth". I am so sick of this game.

So here I am, in a deep funk, wondering if I should fill out an application for Al Queda, when I see this story on the Yahoo front page about a guy that has lived without money for 8 years. Hmmm. Is this a message from above? The article, taken from Details Magazine tells the story of Daniel Suelo, who lives part of his days in a cave in Moab, Utah. The story was interesting but only whetted my appetite. So I looked up his web page for more details and found that he is not the only one. There is a small but growing movement in the "first world" countries towards a moneyless society. As I looked over this information and watched the short films about Daniel and another woman in Germany, the rocks started falling in my head. Here before me was what I could have been had I not tried to bury the truth so long ago and hopped aboard the American dream which is now in the process of derailing and ending in a million car pile up. I could have been a man with nothing...except the knowledge of who and what I am, something to aspire to.

Well, while I try to move these rocks around and dig myself out of the dirt I'll leave you with the links so that you can contemplate this for yourself.

(Can't seem to get these links to post properly, so just do the copy and pastey thing.)

http://sites.google.com/site/livingwithoutmoney/

http://www.livingwithoutmoney.tv/

http://www.everythingahead.com/watch.html