homeless

HOMELESS
We've covered being a hermit, squatting on public land far away from the public. Living out of a vehicle, with or without a family. Living on junk land, a cheap legal squat. The only thing left I can think of your apartment dwellers one paycheck away from eviction or mortgage holders fearing the pink slip that will see utilities cut off in a month and a sheriffs eviction in three to six months can do is to think about homelessness. I get all paranoid, screaming in your deaf ear that we are all doomed, the end is nigh, and for the love of all that is good and holy, man, hurry up and get a van to live out of or a piece of junk land to park the trailer on. However, you need to understand, if you don't already, that this is simply my prejudice shining through. My priority. I've been homeless a time or two, nothing extreme or major. No long periods of time, always the prospect of a job just around the corner. Just enough to keep me pretty darn paranoid, fearful that I might not have a place to go to.
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Some people don't care about being homeless. They are eternally optimistic, looking at the whole thing as an adventure. To others it is a preferred way to live, optimising freedom. To a certain extent I can see this, feeling at times that most of my worldly goods keep me chained down and working long hours for their benefit. I would, at times, love to hit the road and go to sunnier climes and drop the wife off along the way to regain my sanity. Alas, I can daydream for many hours but in the end my fears get the best of me and I cling to the security blanket of all my crap. That cozy feeling of a years supply of food is not something I can give up now that I've tasted its intoxicating warmth. I'll never go back to being unarmed, dependant on distant authorities for my protection. And I'll never again be without the jingle of precious metal coins to see me through any economic storm. I know I'm trapped by my possessions and I don't care. It is what helps me sleep at night. Alas, I would be better served with a working knowledge of Stone Age skills, able to survive in any environment with that skill alone. Waiting in ambush for revenuers with my bow and arrow, wrapped in layers of rabbit furs. Come and evict me from the National Park, John Law, I can survive out here all year ( cackling vengefully with a wild spark in my eye ).
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If you want to survive without a lick of money, this might be just the trick. Buy ( or go to the library ) five or six books, read up on these skills. Sell all your crap and go to a primitive survival school. Or just go out in the woods and practice. Buy a Greyhound ticket and go to a more secluded area if you are trapped back East. No money needed, really, just the devotion to get some serious on the job training. Of course, have a better back up plan than a bag of rice, living in an abandoned transit bus in the wilds of Alaska. If you just simply suck at this you want to be able to come back in to town, babbling incoherently as you are admitted to the Emergency Room, "Bears, I tells ya! And Lions! No tigers, yet! Feral Dogs! Booby traps around pot plants!". There are a few snags in this plan, mainly isolation from other people. You could always just make this a vacation plan. But I think the main thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to wait until you are forced to do this. Learn beforehand, while you can return to modern living. Don't wait for the mushroom clouds to rise on the horizon before you go hiding in the woods with your Danial Boone coonskin hat and a Boy Scout pocket knife.
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Also, I'm not talking about urban homelessness here. They are animals, preying on each other. The loonie factor amongst them is over 80%. And, most importantly, they exist on the surplus of society. In the coming years that will be a losing proposition as the surplus shrinks and then disappears, never to return. They are dependant on the best of both worlds, lack of responsibility and the excess of an industrial society. And so far society has pampered them. But it won't last. Go with the skilled rural primitive approach.
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