Bad Neighbors

I met my neighbor for the first time last Fall. I call him my neighbor because, to me, that's what he is. He lives with his wife in a house on the adjoining property. But to him, I am not a neighbor. I am simply a problem.

We met early one morning late last year. I was strolling behind my tent as he drove down his driveway, which is 30 yards or so behind my tent. The area is wooded, but there are breaks through the trees where you can glance through and see the back of my tent from his driveway. I happened to be standing in one of those breaks when he drove by so I waved to him. He saw me wave and we made eye contact, but then he quickly turn forward and kept driving, trying to ignore me. I shrugged and started to turn away, but just then he stopped his car and, after a short pause, put the car in reverse and backed up to where I was standing.

He got out of his car and started walking to the property line, so I began walking to meet him. We met at the fence line, I on my side, he on his, and he yelled, "I don't know who you are or what you're up to, but I don't like it!" Okay, I get that. He must be thinking the worst, I thought. Maybe once he gets to know me, he'll calm down.

 

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Late Spring

May is nearly over and I'm beginning to miss it already. March through May are perhaps my favorite months. I leave my door open this time of year and receive plenty of visitors, like lizards and mice and birds and all sorts of insects.

There seem to be more lizards this year than last, and the mice are happy to pop in and say hi, too. My relationship with mice has evolved a lot over the past couple of years. At first, I considered them menacing little creatures and trapped them without guilt. Then, earlier this Spring, I started to see them as cute little annoying neighbors that chewed up everything in sight. I no longer trap them. I just store my food in glass and plastic containers, keep my blankets in sealed plastic bags, and have resigned myself to wearing T-shirts with cute little hole chewed in them.

I saw my first firefly in flight last night, a sign of Summer. And I've enjoyed a number of thunderstorms. Their winds rocking the tree tops as well as my tent. The dark clouds causing me to light my lamps in the late afternoon. The heavy rain drops bouncing off my stoop and into my doorway, the door remaining open to let the cool wind evacuate the stale air from my tent. Temperatures quickly dropping from 80 to 65 as the lightning begins striking about, leaving me feeling mostly excited, but a little frightened, too.

The nights are still cool enough to require a blanket, but the heavy Winter bedding has been packed away since March. I still heat my bath water a little in the morning, but not nearly so hot. And my fuel costs are at their lowest this time of year since I don't have to heat the tent anymore. That won't start again until September.

My mornings are peaceful in spite of the birds in their frenzy at sunrise. There's plenty of early morning sun streaming through the cool air that still lingers from the night before, and a morning walk through the woods with coffee, and some guitar music to accompany the morning sounds.

These are wonderful days to live in a tent.

Time for Some Home Improvements

I've been living in a 12' x 14' canvas wall tent for 2 1/2 years now, and I love it. I live alone, which has some practical advantages. For example, I've been able to fully explore extreme simplicity with no constraints. I'd use my own personal values as my only guide, with no need to compromise or accommodate anyone else's needs. I'd come upon a problem, pick a solution that made me happy, and that was that.

As a result, I've simplified my lifestyle to my full satisfaction. I've eliminated most modern day comforts from my home like electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, refrigeration, and central heat and air, and I don't miss any of them. I light with oil lamps, carry in water, use a bucket for my toilet, heat with wood, and forgo air conditioning altogether. But throughout this entire experiment, I've only been concerned with myself. And now that I've found my own personal balance, and have experienced the incredible contentment that comes from living this way, I naturally want to spread the good news and share my lifestyle with others. And so I have. I've shared the details of tent living with many people from many different walks of life, and each time I have, I've gotten nearly the same reactions. On the one hand, nearly everyone appreciates my simple, stress-free way of living and wishes that they, too, could simplify their lives. But time and again, they stop short of changing anything in their own lives. And time and again, I hear the same concerns.

Here's a countdown of the top 10 reasons why most people would never explore my style of living:

10. It's just too crazy. Tent living is just too far out there for most people.

9. No electric lighting. Most people want to just flip a light switch and don't like the idea of dealing with candles and oil lamps full-time.

8. No air conditioning. Unlike Winter extremes, which can be controlled with a wood stove, the extreme heat of Summer is quite uncomfortable.

7. No central heat. Although I have a wood stove and am very comfortable in Winter, most people don't want the bother, mess and inconvenience of heating with wood.

6. No electronic entertainment. No TV, no Internet, and no stereo system. Most people believe they would be bored.

5. No refrigeration. That means no convenient leftovers waiting in the frig, and no cold beer in Summer.

6. It's no way to raise children. Many young families with children find my lifestyle completely impractical.

3. Not enough space. My entire home is around 170 square-feet, while in the US, the average per capita residential square footage is over 800.

2. No running water. Especially no running hot water, which means no bubble baths and no hot showers.

1. No flush toilet. This, by far, is the biggest concerns. My tent toilet consists of a bucket of sawdust, and almost nobody is okay with that.

It's also hard to entertain more than a few close friends at my place, especially in Winter when my living space is shutdown. And I can't really accommodate overnight guests.

So I'd like to extend my home to include the following:

• Better toilet facilities. I'm still trying to avoid a flush toilet, but I want to greatly improve my current setup.
• Guest bedroom. I really miss being able to invite guests over for a comfortable overnight stay.
• Room to entertain. I'd like to have eight or ten people over for dinner and drinks, even during the Winter.

My current thinking is to setup another tent to be used as a guest tent, build an outdoor bathroom, and improve my outdoor living space.

How Far Shall We Wander?

All of our efforts are voluntary, though it is sometimes hard to see. We are free to do as we please. Our free will and our innate sense and desire to help others are gifts from God to each of us. At our hearts we are giving creatures. But we are also selfish and greedy, and when those attributes are harnessed, they become work horses of incredible strength, able to pull entire economies and complex political and social systems. To deliver countless goods and services to market. And if we fail to control these beasts, they will quickly pull us into debt and servitude, and leave us feeling vulnerable and fearful as we sit in our well-appointed homes and gaze upon the beauty of Nature through our curtained windows, worrying about how tomorrow will be at work.

If we are free to choose our own enterprise, then how shall we know a good choice from a poor one? Our lives are short and our days are precious. Should we not take care to spend them wisely? To honor our gift of human life with good stewardship?

A wise man once said that the secret to happiness is not doing but rather being. And in Nature we see this truth most clearly with plants who are free to be only, their physical needs satisfied fully with no effort of their will. But we are animals of the highest form, so the truth of plants cannot take us so far. Instead, we see that all animals must work, and so must we. But the work we do now in this 21st century is rarely a holy thing. In our hearts, we are mostly unsettled about that fact. We often search for meaning and spiritual fulfillment and do not understand the emptiness that we feel even though our lives appear to be a great "success" in the eyes of others. Why does our lifestyle not satisfy our thirst? Without questioning whether we are on the right path, we often foolishly walk along it even faster. For is we are indeed heading toward fulfillment, does it not make sense to run instead of walk, thereby arriving at happiness that much quicker?

This, it seems, is the common state of the modern human. Feeling empty, we seek more. But the things that are offered to us on this path do not satisfy our spiritual thirst. The fruits of this labor do not nurish the human soul. Shall we gather even more, in the hopes of finding at least a morsel of satisfaction? Shall we continue to teach our children that this path is true and good and best?

In an ancient land, long ago, there lived many tribes of many people. Their needs, like ours, were real and pressing. Theirs was not a paradise, for there was sickness and hunger and death. And their work was not easy. Like us, they were creative and industrious and wanted a better life for their children. So when one of them found an easier way to carry water, or discovered a plant to heal the sick, or invented a way to gather more food, the whole society benefited and became more satisfied, their physical needs being met that much easier.

And so it went until they found themselves in a place of balance. For they still knew their place in Nature, that they were but one of many creatures. They shared the planet with the birds and the squirrels of the forest. They were humble and thankful for what God provided. And although they worked hard for their physical needs, as did the bird and the squirrel, their work was direct and necessary and meaningful. When they were thirsty, they carried water from the river. When some became old or sick, the others helped and gave to them freely. Their work followed the seasons and they knew the rhythm of Nature well. The time to plant, the time to harvest, the time to prepare for Winter. They did not yet envy the freedom of the bird, for they were still free in spirit themselves, and still understood all the ways of the bird, and did not yet wish to trade. It was easy to teach their children, for the lessons were simple and clear, and the benefits of their education were obvious and unquestionable.

The point of balance they had found was perhaps the closest thing to paradise that can be found for mankind. An equilibrium between the physical and the spiritual. A place where the fruits of their work fed both body and soul. They had arrived at their destination without even realizing it. 

And from that place of greatest perfection, they struck off again to explore the path even further, not yet realizing that the pursuit of even more comfort and material things would one day eat away at the very souls of their children's children.

And now, here we are, in this 21st century, so far down that path that our ancestor's trailhead can no longer be seen but can only be imagined. It survives only as folklore. But its echoes still ring in our hearts, if we care to listen. We all sense the truth of it, and we all feel the emptiness of wandering so far from paradise.

An Old Leaf Falls from My Tree

All things have their season. Like buds on a tree, new things arise in our lives from time to time. At first, we must nurture them, but as they grow and mature, they nurture us in turn, until one fine Autumn day, after having served us so well for so long, they inevitably fall away.

For more than two decades I worked for a society that was founded by international bankers and financial institutions. My full-time job was to help them succeed. I remember how excited I was to be hired by this society all those years ago, and how challenging and interesting the work was. How I nurtured my new, budding career, and believed in the great cause in which I was engaged. The projects I worked on helped international bankers across the planet, and they in turn did their part to create the global economy that we see today.

My last day on the job is December 31, 2014.

I've accepted an "early retirement" package. Inside the package, there is money. But the outer wrapping is the real interesting part. Yes, there are hints of "Thank you!", but the more prominent message is, "It is time for you to leave". The calculation has been made at corporate headquarters, and I am now a net liability. My work is no longer nurturing the corporation and must be shed.

And so it goes. The leaf of my career in financial telecommunications is sealed off from the corporate tree, and has already started to yellow. But there are new buds forming, too, and the life force in my own tree has never felt stronger. Dropping the old leaf of my corporate job is making room for new growth, and I'm excited about these new buds, and thankful that I am so blessed at this stage of my life.

As I ponder all the opportunities for change in my life that this moment brings, I realize there's nothing about my lifestyle that I want to change. In fact, I appreciate even more the benefits of tent living. That my living expenses are nearly zero, and that I have virtually no maintenance, and that I can easily relocate, and that I'm living a virtually stress-free life close to nature.

So as I fashion my dinghy and prepare to leave the mother ship, I'm happy that I don't have too much cargo in the hold. Instead, I can just gather a few things and paddle my canoe into the sunset.

Wait a minute, or is that a sunrise?

On Being in Debt

The economic systems of today rely upon credit. I'm no economist, but it's obvious that if all of us had to pay as we go, then our resulting economic systems would be unrecognizable compared to today. Expensive consumer goods, like cars and houses, would have to be purchased with cash. Business growth would slow to a crawl without outside financing. And governments would have no choice but to balance their budgets. It is precisely the billions of contracts and agreements between debtors and creditors that make our economic systems possible.

Debt is a powerful, powerful tool. With it, we can build cities and skyscrapers and businesses, on credit, and employ millions of people that produce goods and services to be sold to millions of other people, on credit. It's at the heart of our most predominant social structures. Can you imagine a society without debt? It would certainly not be anything like what we see today.

Interestingly, debt is also one of the very few areas in which we all agree, as a society, that one party may take the property of another. (I have found only two such social arrangement: debt and taxes.) In exchange for the enormous social benefits realized through debt, we have all agreed that creditors may rightfully take the property of debtors in case of delinquency, for such taking is for the greater good. (It is this "taking for the greater good" idea that is also at the heart of taxes.)

So debt is good for us all, right? With debt, we live a better life and are more able to raise a family and carry on as a species, right? But if debt is such a good idea, why don't we find it in Nature (for I've looked closely, and it's not to be found)? In Nature there is "giving" and "reciprocity" and perhaps "gratitude", which are sort of "debt-like", but I've not found "borrowing" and "owing" and "interest" and "collecting". And it should be there in Nature, shouldn't it? After all, debt is about acquiring "stuff", and all living creators require "stuff", right? Wouldn't the bird enjoy a nicer home? The squirrel, more nuts through Winter? Or is there a downside to debt that we overlook? A downside so enormous that it disrupts the very fabric of Nature and therefore cannot be part of Nature's design?

To find the downside, we need only look as far as the human spirit. Because while debt feeds the body, it also starves the spirit. By acquiring all the new things that we desire, we leave less room to appreciate what we already have. By having all of our physical needs met so easily, we leave less room to help each other in times of trouble. By being dependent upon our economy for our very sustenance, we lose our faith that Nature would also provide, if we gave her the chance. We become slaves to the social systems that we have created, and we feel vulnerable and helpless.

Maybe that's why debt is not part of Nature's design. Better to live simply and have faith that all the things needed by the body will be provided. So the bird builds her simple nest each year, and it is enough. And the squirrel gathers his nuts in Autumn, and it is enough. They enter into no contracts, and they are free. And they know that Nature is a good and fair partner. One that never charges interest.

Land Search Update

Have you ever wished for something, got your wish, then realized that what you had in the first place was actually better? Yeah, me too. I've done a lot of that throughout my life. Always wanting something better. More, more, more! You'd think I would have learned by now, but apparently the lessons are not over.

Last October, I started searching for a new place to live. It was an exciting and interesting process that took me in a lot of different directions. I met some new people and learned a lot along the way. I especially learned a lot about myself thanks to a few dear friends that helped guide me along, keeping me on track.

My search led me to a 70+ acre parcel of raw land, surrounded by hundreds of acres of more raw land. Exactly what I had wanted, right? Or was it. Wait a minute, why did I want to move again? What was I looking for exactly? This place was beautiful and wild and essentially untouched, but also very remote, and I would be very isolated. I would have very few visitors. I would be snowed in deep in the Winter. And I would have to "up my game" significantly. Four-wheel drive. A gun in case of bear. Water from the stream. And although the idea of living there was a little exciting, I mainly felt apprehension.

I'm going to visit that spot one more time, and wander more, and try to get a better feel for it. I won't make a final decision until I do that, but I sure did like getting back home to "civilization" after visiting that spot, and I'm having serious second thoughts on the whole matter.