I’m tired of our contemporary culture . . .
Well, not the entire culture; just tired of the disconnection . . .
saddened by the fragmentation —from one another . . .
our determined deselection of the environment from our daily routines.
For all, I’m afraid of the utter lack of empathy for one another, the celebration of excess, and our downright cruelty for all living things.
via Kevin Spraggett
This is why I and my family are breaking out from the four walls of wildness — entertainment’s wild adornment of stupidity, or the wild destruction of nature and other nations, or the wild abandonment of ethics in financial realms.
I’ve decided to be a pioneer for my family, to move toward a new wilderness, the creative landscape of fringe living. To live a new life of disruptive thinking, and true inventiveness. You can call it house-less, sustainable living, or innovation, or any other buzz words you wish to apply. But simply, it is my desire to become trusting of others I meet who also seek to change the current paradigm of fragmentation, to find others who celebrate ethical creativity, and the process of disruptive thinking for social good.
I have to admit, I was half-dragged into this new life.
I was upper middle-class just a short several years ago with an upward trending career, and now I find myself, unemployed, awake at night, listening to the demons of self-doubt and fear. —I believe this is the staple mental-diet for those who lose their jobs and have loved ones they support and protect.
House-less as the new bohemian dream?
My wife and I did not choose to live with her parents after the financial meltdown occurred, only to end up living transient lives —well actually, we kind of did decide to be transient. We didn’t rise against the corporate boredom(room) in favor to finally join a crazy commune (more about that in another post). There simply were not jobs available.
In reality, the cold and alien fact of the matter is, my family lives impoverished, as many good and honorable families do today. We live this way mostly because of greed and lack of empathy among our leaders at the corporate, government, and community levels. It is not from lack of ethics, or our willingness to work hard as many like to point out in extreme political commentaries. It’s something much more benign that sneaks up on even the most compassionate person, even myself: disconnection.
Like many families, we find ourselves in a society where a majority of people do not value connectedness to anything. We have shamelessly learned to find value in the many faceless Likes we accrue, and not in the authenticity of finding likeness in the neighbor across the street. (Surely, evolutionary scientist and our tribal ancestors would be ashamed of this unabashed self-centered behavior.)
But, something wonderful happens on the way to a houseless dream. You lose control of everything, and I mean everything. Simple things we all take for granted, such as where to take a shit, or being seen and heard by others. It’s important, and Maslow nailed that shit!
I’ve always had sympathy for the homeless and understood the plight intellectually, as I suspect most kind and intellectual people do. Yet, there were two things I learned while living on the streets that changed my views from intellectual understanding of the subject to more of an experiential stand under the weight of the subject. When homeless in Seattle,
- I found a job bussing tables at a local restaurant. Yet, I spent more money to take a shit —you have to buy something so you can use the bathroom in a public store— than I could save for a shit-hole, over-the-market-valued, apartment. There is something inherently wrong in a society where this occurs.
- I found people did not “see” me. I did not exist. (see: Daniel Marchant’s “Homeless is not Humanless”)And here is the paradox: You want to be seen, to be heard, to be engaged —even a simple, glancing eye of acknowledgment. And yet, you do not want to be seen — by the police, by the opportunist crack addict, or asshole street punk.
Via wili_hybrid
No doubt, It’s scary to be there, and have a family in the mix, too. You have no protection from the elements and other people. You have no rights because you have no place of belonging. You have no pseudo-community that is protected by pseudo-authority. But here’s the winner. The pseudo-world we belong to is just a myth, and it is our delusional grasping at a language phenomena called “participating in culture and society” (or Facebook) that keeps us within an ever failing paradigm of fragmentation.
But, if you don’t let depression, and/or alcohol and drugs take over, you can move into a wonderful view of the world.
Such as, you meet people. Real and beautiful people, who in a sense have retained much more of their humanity and empathy than your average person. These are people who have nothing, but are willing to share it, whether it be food, shelter, or literally the shirt off their back. And you meet others, people who dedicate themselves to love, and deep compassion for those less fortunate. And sometimes, you all learn to work together, to band together, to form a tribe. And this really is the fringe of our society. And to me, this a where the paradigm shift begins.
Yes, the most important lesson that homelessness has taught me: I want to connect and trust again, and I want to connect to you.
And that’s what I have decided to do, is to trust you again.
N.B. My wife, daughter and I live happily, safely, and are finally financially independent thanks to my marketing consultancy.
That's a tough road to go down when people are relying on you.
You make great points about the disconnected state of modern life. It's unfortunate that we need to hit a crisis before people discover the important changes that need to be made.
Thanks for having the courage to share your experiences. I wish you every success and happiness.
Thanks so much for reading. It was a difficult time, but eye-opening. I'm thankful for the experience, and have greater empathy for all sorts of people.