Ran Prieur (Page 1 of 2)

>to whom it may concern- excellent new category.......

There's  a Yahoo group called simplyoffgrid, a good resource I think.  The moderator is walking the walk: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/simplyoffgrid/

Hey guy I read some off his stuff and it seems to be kinda how I was raised ironically I few years ago I would have never thought of dumpster diving or living like this.
Because as I was growing up my grandfather would be like this living on as little as possible, and I was stuiped and told him "What are you doing this is a America". I know better know.
And who is Stuart?

On a a side note would living like this put you in the bum catagory?
I hate the I have to ask this but as I was walking and and thinking about this, there were alot of bums near dumpsters.+

I think this is how I want to live my life.
I've been thinking, and yea I see I'm missing alot of skills.
What can I do know, as a high school student to prepare myself.
What books are really good, and so on.

Great article! 

I guess as a parent a lot of this really doesn't apply, but it's true what he says about raising a child within a community.  In a typical city, to make life managable (and legal?) for the children, one needs things like a car, steady income for food/supplies and a stable and managable household.  The problem is that there is so little help without a network of friends or family.  The only people I know are through work and most of them are much older than myself.  We rarely get out of the house.  Building a network takes time and I am patient and confident it will slowly happen as we meet people here.  A network of families would improve our situation greatly!

Although my wife would disagree with me, I love our apartment in town.  It's 15 minutes away from my work, so I always walk and we can get by with a single small car.  We spend very little on gas and insurance.  In the summer I walk past a produce stand every other day walking to work and typically pick up veggies and fruit there along with the weekly CSA box.  I haven't got into dumpster diving... yet !!!  I figure as long as I have sufficent money for food, I'll spend it.  It might not hurt to acquire that skill.  A good friend of mine from college now dumpster dives on a regular basis.  There are a million little money saving ventures that families can do.  Instead of buying baby wipes, I buy white paper towels, fold them two ways and soak them in water + alcohol.  I've hung clotheslines inside of our apartment to save laundry money.  Both my wife and I spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking meals and treats.  The cleaning seems like it never ends with two kids.  Although, cleaning is a great way to improve your mental skills!  We don't have a computer or cable television.  I'd love to get rid of the TV, but my wife isn't ready for that one yet! 

Keeping few possessions/attachments/addictions is the key to a healthy family life I've found.  I'm working on making my life my hobbie and enjoying all the little things that life brings.

Hello lyra, fellow Virginian!

I'd like to tell you, that I am a dumpster diver, and I really enjoy it. I also like to dig through the trash on the street occasionally too, and I have been homeless up until recently. I've eaten half-rotten food, been on welfare, wore raggy clothes, scammed, been all dirty and slept in public places... I am saying this, so that this all is not some big scary foreign "out there" concept - right here is someone who fits the whole disgusting horrible bogey-man that you described. And many of my friends would fit that description as well.

To be honest, it really isn't all that bad. If you have your health, and you're alive, then you've pretty much got it made. One of the worst things about living like that is the fear. For me, it's fear of things not turning out well, of getting hurt, etc. The thing is, with some basic common sense smarts, and keeping your eyes open, and learning from what you can, then you've got a good thing going for you. These fears can be quite intimidating, I know, but the great freedom, spontaneity, discovery, creativity, resourcefulness and adventure more than makes up for it.

You mentioned a number of times that these attitudes are because of how you were raised - all middle class, white, American and sheltered. That's great, I come from the same background too. And I agree, such a background really does a number on one's psyche, sense of awareness and adaptiveness. That being said, once you've noticed that personal response, attitude and background and what-not, then you can work with it. Like, you notice that, then you can go further, beyond even. Take your time with this, this is very important, for not doing so can make the whole thing appear non-sensical and non-existant for you.

For example, you notice those thoughts, the same thoughts that you just typed up all right here. OK, and how do feel in conjunction with those thoughts? Disgusted, repulsed, awe-struck and scared, I presume. OK, and how does that feel in your body then? Only you can answer that... And what does that mean for you? Maybe you're wanting a sense of assurance of safety, dignity and respect? Maybe you're concerned that a kind of consideration and fulfilling self-empowerment is not possible? I don't know, these are all just guesses - only you can unpack your own deeper personal meanings around all of this.

I am saying all of this for a reason, not just to be a contrarian know-it-all. That is, I am hoping to convey a sense of, a possibility of, the fact that what things mean and how they work does not necessarily have to be what it initially appears to you to be. What all this means for other people, and what it means for you too, does not exactly have to be what you first see it as. All your first wave of thoughts and judgements aside, regardless of where they all originally came from, does not necessarily have to be identified with "the way things are". I think that recognizing that, and putting it aside(as opposed to repressing it), can potentially have the effect of removing a veil - and what is seen after that is far more rich, more intricate and full of possibility than what was previously conceived. It is for this hope, that I am talking here.

Well, I probably gave the wrong impression with that post - trust me, I have no problems with adaptiveness and being a survivalist.  Montalk can vouch for that one!    The problem with that post is that the entire bigger picture of my experiences and who I am was left out.   So you have one teeny tiny bit, which makes it sound like I'm sheltered and lack "awareness" and "adaptiveness", like you said.

For me there's no need to work with anything like you say, because if I had to, I could snap into survivalist "soldier" mode...and have actually.  Again, my post was one small bit, and not representative of who I am in the bigger picture.   

Fear?  Over homeless people?   I don't think so.  !  Not to sound snitty, which this probably will, but I've been up against some things in life.  And homeless people is the least of my fears.   Seriously!   I used to take trips to San Francisco from empty, soulless Orange County, and hanging around with the homeless people in Union Square was always the highlight of the trip.  Because they were the only thing that was real.   (among other instances of me and my associations with the homeless, no need to get into it here....)

At any rate, the deeper personal meanings around all of this (talking about Portland here) was that the homeless there were completely different from the homeless I'd seen in other places.  In other places, they were more low key...not so desparate.  I was more surprised......not fearful.........just surprised at the level of desparation I saw going on in Portland.   In California, even the homeless are good looking and well off... 

...That's a joke, but, it's to make a point.  Things were just so different in Portland, in ALL aspects of life, and the level of desparate downtrodden-ness was something I hadn't seen anywhere else.  I didn't know people - so MANY people - could be that far gone and so that desparate in life.  Rampant alcoholism, people drunk, crawling, passed out on the streets, store shelves cleaned out of their alcohol, the highest unemployment rate in the nation at that time, a scroungy woman pushing an entire shopping cart loaded past the rim with 6 and 12 packs of alchohol, lines with dozens of people carrying bags and bags of aluminum cans to make money off of, people openly dumpster diving with that sense of zealous desparation.   Everywhere else, the homeless I'd seen were more laid back. 

Like I said, I could dumpster dive if I had to, I'm just not at a point where I'm willing to go to that level.  Yes, it's societal programming, but also I figure, why stoop to that if I don't have to, you know?  There may be plenty of time for that in the future, where I'll have no choice but to be rooting through trash, on the lam, running from TPTB and their NWO and microchipped society, and so be it....but til then, I'm going to enjoy not having to do so.     I *can* be in soldier mode....(it's almost like I've had abduction programming for how to be this way, because it doesn't match AT all my upbringing, there's no logical explanation for where it comes from....) but it doesn't mean I want to do so if I don't have to.

Heya lyra,

I appreciate this last post of yours, it clarifies a whole bunch that I was previously unclear about. I suppose that I jumped to making a stereo-type-based accessment of you, and then responded to that.

I am curious about this "soldier mode" that you speak of... What is it exactly? Does it really feel like you are at war?