The options here are sitting while working or walking while working. The options aren't sititng while working or disregarding society and returning to the forest.
None of this frees you from the contract, I’m afraid. Besides, it costs nothing to live as a hermit in the woods! But you probably quite like the benefits of the contract, e.g. all of society, so I bet you’ll stick around.
There’s a presumption in this conversation that taking time off work from burnout isn’t going to be solved by becoming homeless. If you were going to go that route then you could just claim it would only be a few hundred in supplies for you to live in the woods off foraged game and plants.
On top of that it’s illegal to live out of your car in many jurisdictions in the US.
As long as there are wild places in the world where you can hunt and gather, you are NOT forced to be employed. It's all optional. You don't need a cell phone, or a car or a house. You choose this lifestyle because you want the conveniences of "modern life". You can very easily strip off your clothes, go into the mountains of Alaska or wherever and live there, free of charge. May I suggest the first thing you do is kill a bear and make yourself a warm coat. You're going to need it.
Yeah. There's some professionals that do this lifestyle. There's some guy who's a web developer from Tennessee who works remotely and his wife home schools the kids... But trying to balance both work and play sounds like a challenge since not a daily schedule. Also there's some accountant who does this lifestyle too. Very jealous of the lifestyle. I know I rather be somewhere warm right now like Orlando or Texas haha. They go to Disney World ever year too.
Seems like some people RV by choice, and some people are forced into it. Like in some expensive places some people might take their last paycheck and buy a RV that barely runs so they still have some sort of shelter, still working locally, etc. I guess it's stereotyped for being homeless, or being retired while there are normal families who decided on this lifestyle. Some people even live on boats too. Some do it to try to save money, while some end up spending more than living in a house or apartment. Then the experience part, more of a adventure than the same boring same over and over.
I think if I did it, I'd probably stay a week or two in a area as I think moving every day would be stressful but a lot of neat stuff to see. Some people try and see every state in their first year... but if doing this full time can always come back to a place. But I guess planning and deciding on things can be hard since so much to see and do in this country. But I'd probably stick to campgrounds, rv parks, approved spots for boondocking... Sleeping on random streets just seemed odd to me, and I'd want the peace of mind of not being woken up by someone in the middle of the night.
Even some of the national forests seem to not be friendly towards people camping anymore. Coconino national forest I've heard complaints of, and as someone who studied a bit about civil rights I seen one story which I suspect the forest ranger totally broke the law, and not sure what the PC was... Someone had a truck camper, not the prettiest thing but he said the ranger was banging on his door and demanding all his info questioning him even though it was a legal spot on the map, sounds like the ranger was super rude and aggressive even though no law was broken he just wanted to know who was in "his forest" before leaving them alone. but apparently that forest is full of homeless people and not just people on vacation too.
Then some forests are understaffed, was reading reviews for one forest not too far from here and someone got their car broken in at a trailhead and no one even came to take a report, not sure what they did in that case since you need a report for insurance company. Then the forest fires out west has been a big drain on the budget too.
Some people want to privatize the national forests and parks. I'm kinda conflicted on that idea though. I feel like private companies would manage things better with more services, better hospitality, better made websites with information but probably be more expensive too. Then commercializing things take a bit away from nature, relaxing and disconnecting... I guess one of the ideas is to add WiFi, food trucks and same day Amazon package deliveries to the national parks as one of the proposed plans by the new administration to modernize the parks, which does seem convenience but I know people are against it too. Can see both the pros and cons of that idea.
I do feel the focus is more on the national parks though, seems like the national forests are being abandoned and some even want them shutdown or sold off completely which is pretty sad since some are being neglected. I guess the National Parks get higher priority when it comes to funding, probably since more popular too compared to the National Forests.
You're free to live in the woods if you don't like the deal. You don't get to use any of society's infrastructure if you don't opt in, though. You won't be taxed, of course, since you can't engage with any economic activity within society. I'm sure you could make a nice commune in the wilderness somewhere. Just don't bring anything from society with you, like tools, clothes, food, livestock, seeds. Good luck out there.
>If you don’t have any work that needs to be done, you can sit for hours at a time just doing nothing, just listening to the birds or the wind or the silence, watching the shadows move as the sun travels, or simply looking at familiar objects.
Anyone in the US can do this today if they really wanted to. Plenty of backpackers on the Appalachian trail just do a couple months of manual labor, and live minimalistically the rest of the year.
Yeah, but probably not. Very few people want a humble shelter and 2000kcal a day. Most want large apartments, entertainment, restaurants, travel, hotels, social media sites to discuss articles about 'workism' etc etc. And somebody has to build and run all those things so they can enjoy them.
The hermits going to Alaska with an axe, a saw, and a dream to build a small cabin and live off the land and watch the bears catch salmon, those are certainly ready to make that trade. But your average Western academic talking about work-life-balance? I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility, but it'd be a first.
Does that count as retiring? Presumably you'd still need money for stuff like electricity and manufactured goods that you can't make/forge yourself. Not to mention all the forging/hunting/crafting you'd have to do to sustain yourself.
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