Living in a cave for 10 yrs on ZERO money

[AnnInLa]

via Andrew Sullivan, this article (3 pgs) about an educated guy, who gave up money, literally. He lives in a cave in Utah, and provides for his own basic needs without a job or $$. Could you do it? (Would you even want to?)

http://bit.ly/3X7883

[Taitertots]

1. Sounds like the next unabomber n/t

[kestrel91316]

5. Not necessarily. Many people simplify their lives in ways you and I might find

extreme, and do so for perfectly valid and even honorable social reasons.

Heck, my pipe dream is to get a little piece of land in the countryside, with just enough water, and provide for myself. Chickens, goats, vegetable garden, orchard, etc. I don't need much in the way of consumer goods - that part of my life/lifestyle is dead and gone.

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. I did that.

Damn hard work, easier to manage when I was 20 years younger. You gotta be real ok with much solitude and no need to leave the property for long periods of time.
glad I did it when I had the opportunity, glad I can still do it if the need arises.

[kestrel91316]

35. I'm ok with solitude, lol. I have no social life, and don't particularly

want one. Maybe it's the constant demands of work, talking to staff, talking to clients, ad infinitum. When I go home, I don't want or need to talk to anybody.

[Maru Kitteh]

2. No, because I do not go to work each day solely for my own benefit, I help others.

Subsisting for myself alone is worst-case scenario for me.

[MercutioATC]

3. I plan to simplify my life when I retire, but Suelo's hardcore.

I'm going to build a small house and live completely off the grid, but I do intend to have electricity (though no air conditioning) and indoor plumbing.

It's an interesting choice, but I don't think I could take it that far.

[hfojvt]

9. giving up AC is pretty hard core

I would give up indoor plumbing before I gave up AC. At least for toilets and sinks. I would hate to give up showers, although I was running through the sprinkler on Friday. I know this because I lived without central heat, ac, running water, etc. As I sat there in the cold, reading and writing, I was also think 'damn, I would love to take a shower'.

[MercutioATC]

28. Especially because I'll be in Costa Rica.

8 degrees off of the Equator is hot....but you acclimate.

[kestrel91316]

38. Costa Rica is beautiful, I hear. Everybody else in my family has been

there on at least two vacations, but not me.

[MercutioATC]

45. Everybody should experience it at least once.

The pace is too laid-back for a lot of people (timeframes are rarely met and government systems are VERY inefficient) and that drives some people nuts.

I'm lazy by nature, so it works great for me :)

[eShirl]

32. have you ever been in a cave? no AC needed

[kestrel91316]

13. Indoor plumbing is optional for me. I have used cat holes while backpacking,

and the outhouse on the ranch where my dad grew up. A modern sawdust compost bucket toilet a la Humanure Handbook is pretty aesthetic in comparison, and I could handle that.

But I think I need my internet.

[MercutioATC]

29. I do plan to use a composting toilet...

...but I won't give up showers.

It WILL be purified rainwater, though...not a municipal supply.

[timeforpeace]

4. Might be educated but I bet he wasn't successful.

[Coyote_Bandit]

7. Could be that

he doesn't share your definition of success.

If you measure success in monetary terms then I don't share your definition either.

[arcadian]

21. timeforpeace is the most ironic poster I have ever read on here.

[Coyote_Bandit]

27. Ummmm......

Any irony is lost on me. And apparently on several other DUers as well.

I have to assume that timeforpeace intended to convey the common meaning of his words. I have no reason to believe there was an intent to convey an opposite meaning. I prefer not to infer meaning or motive. I'm simply responding to what was posted.

[Ikonoklast]

10. He's done exactly as he wanted to, for ten years.

Sounds like the very definition of a success.

[BR_Parkway]

11. Depends on how one defines "success" - our modern American

way of mass consumerism certainly isn't the only way out there

From the article:

HE WASN'T ALWAYS THIS WAY. SUELO graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in anthropology, he thought about becoming a doctor, he held jobs, he had cash and a bank account. In 1987, after several years as an assistant lab technician in Colorado hospitals, he joined the Peace Corps and was posted to an Ecuadoran village high in the Andes. He was charged with monitoring the health of tribespeople in the area, teaching first aid and nutrition, and handing out medicine where needed; his proudest achievement was delivering three babies. The tribe had been getting richer for a decade, and during the two years he was there he watched as the villagers began to adopt the economics of modernity. They sold the food from their fields—quinoa, potatoes, corn, lentils—for cash, which they used to purchase things they didn't need, as Suelo describes it. They bought soda and white flour and refined sugar and noodles and big bags of MSG to flavor the starchy meals. They bought TVs. The more they spent, says Suelo, the more their health declined. He could measure the deterioration on his charts. "It looked," he says, "like money was impoverishing them."

The experience was transformative, but Suelo needed another decade to fashion his response. He moved to Moab and worked at a women's shelter for five years. He wanted to help people, but getting paid for it seemed dishonest—how real was help that demanded recompense? The answer lay, in part, in the Christianity of his childhood. In Suelo's nascent philosophy, following Jesus meant adopting the hard life prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount. "Giving up possessions, living beyond credit and debt," Suelo explains on his blog, "freely giving and freely taking, forgiving all debts, owing nobody a thing, living and walking without guilt . . . grudge judgment." If grace was the goal, Suelo told himself, then it had to be grace in the classical sense, from the Latin gratia, meaning favor—and also, free.

By 1999, he was living in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand—he had saved just enough money for the flight. From there, he made his way to India, where he found himself in good company among the sadhus, the revered ascetics who go penniless for their gods. Numbering as many as 5 million, the sadhus can be found wandering roads and forests across the subcontinent, seeking enlightenment in self-abnegation. "I wanted to be a sadhu," Suelo says. "But what good would it do for me to be a sadhu in India? A true test of faith would be to return to one of the most materialistic, money-worshipping nations on earth and be a sadhu there. To be a vagabond in America, a bum, and make an art of it—the idea enchanted me."

I'm working to simplify my life even more than I have, so I admire what he's done even though I don't think I'd want to do it. to chuck it all and live like that for several years takes a certain amount of courage at the least.

[kestrel91316]

14. You might want to actually READ the article before judging his level

of success, and what standards he uses. Money and power are not goals for many people.

He is an anthropologist and former Peace Corps worker, not a Wall Street banker.

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night...

...and in between does what he wants to do.”

Bob Dylan

[Obamanaut]

26. Perhaps he wasn't bothered by "wealth envy" or having lots of stuff.

Probably never said things such as "Tax the rich at 90%" or "It's not right that 'they' aren't doing their 'fair share."

[Enrique]

36. yeah, he wanted to be a Wall Street bankster

but failed so he's living in a cave. :eyes:

[kirby]

6. So how did he buy a cave?

I could live for free if I moved into someone elses house with no payments too. I dont mind isolation, but not for more than a week or two!

[kestrel91316]

12. Nobody said he bought the cave. But you knew that, right?

His cave is likely on public lands, like the vast majority of the land around Moab, UT.

He has followed an interesting path, and is not a substance-addicted failure, but rather a person who chooses to live his faith as he sees fit. I have no problem with him doing this.

[kirby]

23. So anyone can live on public lands?

I was not aware of that you could just go live on public lands rent free.

Yes, his path in interesting, but his current existence seems boring to me. He travelled the world doing many noble things, but just chills in a cave, dumpster diving, and existing for the past 10 years.

[kestrel91316]

37. You might find lots of things boring that others do not. Perhaps

you need to meet more people of different backgrounds and with different interests than yourself. It's a big world out there, and it takes all sorts to make it go 'round.

I find today's popular culture of cars and shopping and cell phones and tv watching and celebrity obsessing to be insufferably BORING. I do weird stuff like hand laundering clothes, making homemade soap, canning pickles and preserves and soups (yes, that "dangerous" pressure canning!!), and birdwatching, and walking FOR EXERCISE. Many young people would probably find MY lifestyle horribly boring, but I don't care.

[CakeGrrl]

8. I've thought about simplifying, but not to that extreme

I still remember the lesson of "The Gods Must Be Crazy": technological advancements aren't always for the best.

Couple that with the insane amount of destructive psychological pressure our super-capitalistic, overly consumptive society puts on people to earn and acquire and have the biggest or best or newest or highest-ticket of everything, and I admire those who make a real break with that conditioning.

I watched "The No. 1 Ladies' Detecive Agency" on HBO a couple of months ago, about life in a Botswana town. It was a really appealing picture of living a life that has some modern conveniences, but is light years from the level of glut and excess that's the norm here in America.

[kestrel91316]

17. I have been trying varying degrees of voluntary simplicity for

almost 20 years. Now that I am past 50, it makes sense to reverse the accumulation habits of youth and pare down my life bit by bit. When I die I don't want my next of kin to have to sort through cupboards full of hoarded margarine tubs and rubber bands and bag ties like we did when my grandmother died, lol.

[lpbk2713]

15. I just couldn't do it without money for very long.

Some things are vital. Coffee and sugar (for me anyway), soap, tooth paste, first aid supplies, kerosene.

Probably a lot more if I took the time to think about it.

[Warpy]

16. He's hardly the rugged individualist

Consider this, "Grinning, he presents the booty from one of his weekly rituals, scavenging on the streets of Moab: a wool hat and gloves, a winter jacket, and a white nylon belt, still wrapped in plastic, along with Carhartt pants and sandals, which he's wearing."

Were the rest of us too poor to throw good things away for him to use or barter for his beans and rice, he'd leave that cave pretty damned quickly and join the rest of us trying to scratch out a real living.

He's not the first literate bum I've known about, met quite a few of them when I was living in Boston.

Most of them just don't get written about.

The bottom line is that this guy is hardly unique and is not much of a role model unless you've romanticized that kind of lifestyle.

[Voice for Peace]

18. that's a great story. nt

[varelse]

19. I'm sure that would go great

right up until I got cancer, a gangrenous wound, or had a stroke. I'm sticking to the "grid" for now, although living in a cave without the use of money does have its benefits, I'm sure. Besides, how would I post on DU? :silly:

[varun]

24. I used to come across "Sadhus" or Ascetics in India

who had given up all their possessions and lived off the charity and donations from individuals and from the land.

It is not something I can do, but I admire those who can do it.

[kirby]

30. That article says that is where he got the idea...

From his time in India.

[Parche]

25. osama bin mormon

:rofl: :rofl: :hi:

[daggahead]

31. Wow. Don't know if I could live like that for that long.

What would I do without Rachel, Keith & Thom?

[dorkulon]

33. It's his choice, but I don't find it admirable.

First off, money is just a tool -- so if I have beaver pelts, and you need salt, I don't have to find some guy with salt who needs beaver pelts. It just makes commerce easier. Secondly, the idea that it's somehow impossible for single people with no kids to live within their means is silly. Get a cheap apartment; pay the rent. You can even take a shower once in a while. You don't have to go into debt. Thing is, that would entail working a job. I don't really see what separates this guy from any other homeless person except that he has a blog -- and a choice.

[cali]

34. I know a guy that's been doing that for nearly forty years

He lives on a commune in Northern Vermont, in a very funky log cabin. He hunts and fishes. He makes beautiful rocking chairs for barter. Quite a character.

[DollyM]

40. we have been fed a lie over the years about what we really do need . . .

Have big screen TV sets and vehicles that cost more than some people make in a year, really made us happy?
I live in the same small community where I grew up. Next year, our town is celebrating it's 150 year anniversary of it's founding. My great, great grandfather was the original settler who moved here in 1850 and because of the lateness of the season, hunkered down in a cave in the side of a hill. He planned to just stay there for the winter. Instead he stayed in that cave, built on an extension and raised 12 children in that cave. He farmed the land around it and a town was born. 150 years later, our family cemetery is part of that land with generations of my family buried there since the original settler. The cave is still there covered by vines and brush and very hard to reach but it stands to the testament that we can do with much less than we think possible.

[heppcatt]

39. If i ordained as a buddhist bhikkhu i could.

[H2O Man]

41. Very interesting.

Many years ago, I used to spend a considerable amount of time in a cave on the mountain that I grew up on. Part of the time, I did some excavating, and found three levels of Indian occupation, from approximately 600 ad, 200 ad, and 3500 bc. I found projectile points (arrowheads and spears), pottery, and several pendants. Some of the material was from Ohio (I was in rural, upstate NY).

Until my first son was born, I enjoyed spending most of my time in isolation. I suppose that this has been true throughout human history. Most people prefer living in a group, while a few would rather be on the outside.

[NNN0LHI]

42. Where does he get the big buckets full of beans and rice with no money?

Something is funny with this story.

Don

[abumbyanyothername]

43. You know . . .

I feel this lifestyle calling me, but I'm pretty sure it's not gonna fly with my wife.

[bluedigger]

44. I always knew my BA in Anthropology was worthless, lol!

This guy isn't all that noble. He's just a social parasite. If he was really committed, he would wander off into the wilderness and live a life in true isolation. His partial withdrawal from society is no more likely to lead to enlightenment than dropping acid did for me back in the '70s. It's certainly no answer for humanity in general.

[Juche]

46. Would I want to? No

I like buying food rather than letting other people buy it, then digging through their garbage. How'd the guy get the beans he eats exactly? If other people are buying him food, he still is using money.

I could probably have a tolerable life while living in a tent, eating basic food and using a bus pass ($300/month or so in living expenses), but I don't think I could get by on $0.

Plus, money is something you exchange for labor. He still commits labor to obtain his things, he just isn't using money. ie, one person spends an hour collecting needles to make tea while another spends an hour at work and uses some of the money to buy tea. Same thing in my book. Labor is exchanged for goods and services.

"The more they spent, says Suelo, the more their health declined. He could measure the deterioration on his charts. "It looked," he says, "like money was impoverishing them."

I don't agree with that either. Even basic growth in wealth in the developing world can mean a life largely free of famine, malnourishment and communicable diseases. My understanding of the psychology of happiness is that after a nation has a per capita income of about $5000ish, more money doens't make you happier (ie, people in countries with per capita incomes of $40000 are about as happy as those who make $5000). However the jump in quality of life from $100 or so to $5000 is gigantic. So no, people do not 'need' SUVs or 3000 sq ft homes to be happy. However having enough wealth to avoid famine, vitamin/mineral deficiencies and serious disease play a big role in a person's contentment and happiness.

Anyway, no it isn't a life for me. Philosophically and personally I wouldn't want to do what he is doing. Its cool if he likes it, but I wouldn't.