No assets and living on the road
07-29-16, 01:53 PM
#51
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I do but it is not MY cabin. And I have moved out of it over the summer to make room for summer Hiolidaymakers. I live in my tent and get board in exchange for some basic volunteer chores (from trail maintenance and forestry to cooking' and cleaning). I was on a bike tour for six months LAST sumer, so this summer I am just taking short jaunts for a week or so when I want to check out details of this region and do some gem hunting.
07-29-16, 03:21 PM
#52
40 yrs bike touring
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In reading this thread I was struck by the First or Developed World nature of the problem exhibited. First Worlders have the luxury to make these lifestyle choices. The majority of the world's population does not have access to these choices.
Even without tangible assets even the poorest First Worlders can live off the discards of their societies through dumpster diving for food and reselling or bartering free items from Craigslist for what you need. Social safety net options offer food banks, medical care, cash assistance sometimes and subsidized housing and discounted cell phones plans.
The above arrangements are parasitic. Just as modern industrial culture is destructively parasitic on the earth. The USA has 5% of the world's population and uses 25% of the world's resources. (my guesstimate) So there are a lot of discards for the asset-less to scavenge.
Third world bike touring long ago reminded me of my privileged First World position in the world. Yet some of the most generous and happiest people I have met on tour were also the poorest. Their concerns were about access to clean water, food, fuel and the vagaries of weather disrupting their lives.
I live lightly in terms of resources used as best I can. The bike is a large part of that ethos. I prefer helping others directly not by writing a check or letting a charity do the actual work involved. It is not always easy or even successful but the effort is always worth it to me.
Even without tangible assets even the poorest First Worlders can live off the discards of their societies through dumpster diving for food and reselling or bartering free items from Craigslist for what you need. Social safety net options offer food banks, medical care, cash assistance sometimes and subsidized housing and discounted cell phones plans.
The above arrangements are parasitic. Just as modern industrial culture is destructively parasitic on the earth. The USA has 5% of the world's population and uses 25% of the world's resources. (my guesstimate) So there are a lot of discards for the asset-less to scavenge.
Third world bike touring long ago reminded me of my privileged First World position in the world. Yet some of the most generous and happiest people I have met on tour were also the poorest. Their concerns were about access to clean water, food, fuel and the vagaries of weather disrupting their lives.
I live lightly in terms of resources used as best I can. The bike is a large part of that ethos. I prefer helping others directly not by writing a check or letting a charity do the actual work involved. It is not always easy or even successful but the effort is always worth it to me.
07-31-16, 02:29 PM
#53
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First worlders have the luxury to make those choices because of many OTHER choices we and previous generations made about how individual effort and entrepreneurship lead to abundant wealth. The world is full of 3rd world ratholes that think because they have oil, coal, forests, gold, platinum, "rare" earths....ad infinitum .....they somehow just HAVE to be wealthy.
In my economics class I used to take a graphic of a starbucks cup of coffee and show how much went to the producer of the beans...the grinder...the roaster...the shipper...the distributor...and of course finally the company local. The cost of the coffee is two percent of what you pay.
The rest goes to the assemblage of entrepreneurs who bring it to your table. Otherwise the beans would still be rotting in Colombia unless they were nibbled by local llamas...which is how it's caffeine stimulant properties were discovered.
We always complain about highways and traffic but since the time of the Romans (not to rub it in, but some folks never learn) we have known that a topnotch transportation system (the American matrix of interstates, freight rail, trucks and cars) is the overwhelming key to wealth. I find I give the thumbs up sign to a lot of fellow road users. ROCK ON!
In my economics class I used to take a graphic of a starbucks cup of coffee and show how much went to the producer of the beans...the grinder...the roaster...the shipper...the distributor...and of course finally the company local. The cost of the coffee is two percent of what you pay.
The rest goes to the assemblage of entrepreneurs who bring it to your table. Otherwise the beans would still be rotting in Colombia unless they were nibbled by local llamas...which is how it's caffeine stimulant properties were discovered.
We always complain about highways and traffic but since the time of the Romans (not to rub it in, but some folks never learn) we have known that a topnotch transportation system (the American matrix of interstates, freight rail, trucks and cars) is the overwhelming key to wealth. I find I give the thumbs up sign to a lot of fellow road users. ROCK ON!
07-31-16, 02:52 PM
#54
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I don't know if this counts, but at the beginning of my summer I packed up my stuff and subletted my apartment for three months and traveled to a couple of different countries. I'm bike touring for 30 days in Iceland right now with my girlfriend.
All my earthly possessions fit into four big bins from Target, which is not bad. I want to bring it down to 2 bins. Nothing like having stuff in storage for 3 months to remind you what you do not need.
All my earthly possessions fit into four big bins from Target, which is not bad. I want to bring it down to 2 bins. Nothing like having stuff in storage for 3 months to remind you what you do not need.
07-31-16, 05:39 PM
#55
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I don't know if this counts, but at the beginning of my summer I packed up my stuff and subletted my apartment for three months and traveled to a couple of different countries. I'm bike touring for 30 days in Iceland right now with my girlfriend.
All my earthly possessions fit into four big bins from Target, which is not bad. I want to bring it down to 2 bins. Nothing like having stuff in storage for 3 months to remind you what you do not need.
All my earthly possessions fit into four big bins from Target, which is not bad. I want to bring it down to 2 bins. Nothing like having stuff in storage for 3 months to remind you what you do not need.
I love your "bin test." I also have four bins, since I have a few books, journals, and boots that I like to keep. The rest is clothes, which I don't want to give away.
Last edited by Roughstuff; 07-31-16 at 06:00 PM.
08-01-16, 06:55 AM
#56
This is a way to cut rent by going to places that are seasonal and pay rent or sublet in the off-season. Live at the beach in the winter or college-town in the summer. If you've got minimal possessions moving is easy. Additionally this makes better use of resources.
Last edited by BigAura; 08-01-16 at 07:07 AM.
08-01-16, 08:21 AM
#57
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Yup! MY long term arrangement is to be here in the winter when the place is snowed in and do maintenance and forestry work (and other stuff) and ride in the summer when it gets busy with tourists and party animals. I am here this summer because I needed a break after last summers 6 month tour...but I am hankering to hit the road again next spring. My real interest is to work at a logging camp in the winter on trail maintenance and general watchman, and bike in the summer. But true logging camps are now hard to find.
08-02-16, 07:43 AM
#58
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The allure of a carefree lifestyle of all of us doing whatever we want whenever we want is great, but I have a few concerns as to how that fits into overall society. The world we know is a collaboration of efforts. The bike you ride is affordable and efficient because some guy in some country goes to work 8 or 10 hours a day along with 1000’s of others to design and produce that bike. They buy the material from an even larger supply chain of many 1000’s of people processing that material and if you go a step more someone is mining the earth for the oar to make those materials from. Some guy working a job making mining equipment is buying food and clothes with the money he makes building for the common good and a farmer is working long hours growing that food. The chain of labor goes in a million directions even from a lifestyle as simple as living a free and carefree biking life. The roadway system you ride on was built by labor and materials and the time taken from someone’s life in exchange for money that goes around and around causing more change. If you crash on your bike you will end up in the ER and someone that spent their entire life training to fix your body will help you and they will do it with equipment that many others spent their lives designing and building.
Freedom is never free.
I don’t think people should work and do nothing but work and the guy that worked and wants to enjoy his retirement on the road is entitled to every second of it doing whatever makes him happy. The same for the person that fits their pleasure of a biking lifestyle in every free moment they can. My point is if we all said let’s enjoy life in whatever way makes us the happiest and start when we are young and go as long as we can, and do nothing but that, the things that would make us happy wouldn’t be there to make us happy without someone else providing them.
Doing the minimum to exist and then existing at a minimal level is enough for any given individual but it is not enough to make society go around at the level we are accustomed to.
That’s just my opinion. I don’t work to amass a lot of stuff. Most of us work because we have families and responsibilities and know there is a common good involved in doing so. We then find the time for our pleasures fitting them in here and there. The beauty of capitalism “a dirty word to some” is it doesn’t require you to participate in the process you are free to go in any direction you want and if you don’t want to work you don’t have to. True capitalism allows for doing nothing just like it does success. But in it you don’t get the benefits of the system without the effort. You don’t have to work but then again you are not entitled to what you need for free. In socialism you are required to contribute and your needs will be taken care of. We now live in a world where we want people to be taken care of but not have a system of contribution.
In those situation one person right to live free is because someone else is covering their expense.
Freedom is never free.
I don’t think people should work and do nothing but work and the guy that worked and wants to enjoy his retirement on the road is entitled to every second of it doing whatever makes him happy. The same for the person that fits their pleasure of a biking lifestyle in every free moment they can. My point is if we all said let’s enjoy life in whatever way makes us the happiest and start when we are young and go as long as we can, and do nothing but that, the things that would make us happy wouldn’t be there to make us happy without someone else providing them.
Doing the minimum to exist and then existing at a minimal level is enough for any given individual but it is not enough to make society go around at the level we are accustomed to.
That’s just my opinion. I don’t work to amass a lot of stuff. Most of us work because we have families and responsibilities and know there is a common good involved in doing so. We then find the time for our pleasures fitting them in here and there. The beauty of capitalism “a dirty word to some” is it doesn’t require you to participate in the process you are free to go in any direction you want and if you don’t want to work you don’t have to. True capitalism allows for doing nothing just like it does success. But in it you don’t get the benefits of the system without the effort. You don’t have to work but then again you are not entitled to what you need for free. In socialism you are required to contribute and your needs will be taken care of. We now live in a world where we want people to be taken care of but not have a system of contribution.
In those situation one person right to live free is because someone else is covering their expense.
I don't see it as cut-and-paste expense. While I do get a warm feeling in my heart when I work and contribute (I teach at a university), I don't begrudge anyone who doesn't, even if they're using hospitals and clean drinking water and supermarkets.
Why?
Because I work and contribute tax dollars to my country so that our society can be a tapestry, from the highly capable and highly contributing members down to the lost souls. I don't want to live in a country that hates the homeless, blames the welfare users, and is prejudiced against those who cannot take on their "fair share." I'm happy to support a freeloader once in a hundred people, because that person has their own reasons for being alive and that, in some small way, contributes to a beautiful, diverse society.
Not to mention, there are plenty of people that work and contribute for part of their life and then spend the other part as a non-member of the capitalist machine, simply for their own reasons. That's awesome too!
So, keep wandering, wanderers. I got your back!
08-02-16, 12:49 PM
#59
Senior Member
I don't know if this counts, but at the beginning of my summer I packed up my stuff and subletted my apartment for three months and traveled to a couple of different countries. I'm bike touring for 30 days in Iceland right now with my girlfriend.
All my earthly possessions fit into four big bins from Target, which is not bad. I want to bring it down to 2 bins. Nothing like having stuff in storage for 3 months to remind you what you do not need.
All my earthly possessions fit into four big bins from Target, which is not bad. I want to bring it down to 2 bins. Nothing like having stuff in storage for 3 months to remind you what you do not need.
08-02-16, 02:03 PM
#60
Banned
Pack it into shipable containers, Maybe You dont want to return
And can have your Prized stuff sent to where You are settling.
And can have your Prized stuff sent to where You are settling.
