NW-Bound
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2008
- Messages
- 35,712
With the advent of the Web and the ease that anybody who wants to can write a blog to tell their life story, I have found several interesting stories. It started when I was researching and reading RV'er blogs, particularly those of full-timers. Then, I found accounts of people who live in cars. It makes for very interesting reading, as I always wonder how people end up in situations like that. And quite often, it was by choice.
There was this story of a woman who lived in her car. She had been working at a small remote mountain town where jobs were scarce and did not pay much. She did not like to move to a more populated place where it would be easier to find work, preferring to be closer to nature in that small town. So, she lived in her car, and camped out in the wood. She worked a bit here and there for spending money. She wrote that she rather had her life that way, then spent time in a job just to pay rent and to have a "regular" life but less time for herself.
I did not detect an envy from her for a "rat race life" that she detested. Is she any different than us who want to ER, and forgo the fancy stuff we can get if we continue to spend time in a cubicle like most people do?
Now, I did not know about this woman's education, but her writing was interesting enough for me to read. She is a lot poorer than many immigrants who do not speak English well, let alone being able to write. But she lives her life the way she wants.
And then, any country will have hard-core drug addicts who simply cannot hold any job, or people with mental problems, or criminals.
I am not saying all poor people are like the above examples, but we can never have zero poverty, the same way economists say we can never have zero unemployment. There are always some people quitting their job out of boredom, moving to a new place and looking for a job that they like, etc... The utopia that we all like to see does not exist.
There was this story of a woman who lived in her car. She had been working at a small remote mountain town where jobs were scarce and did not pay much. She did not like to move to a more populated place where it would be easier to find work, preferring to be closer to nature in that small town. So, she lived in her car, and camped out in the wood. She worked a bit here and there for spending money. She wrote that she rather had her life that way, then spent time in a job just to pay rent and to have a "regular" life but less time for herself.
I did not detect an envy from her for a "rat race life" that she detested. Is she any different than us who want to ER, and forgo the fancy stuff we can get if we continue to spend time in a cubicle like most people do?
Now, I did not know about this woman's education, but her writing was interesting enough for me to read. She is a lot poorer than many immigrants who do not speak English well, let alone being able to write. But she lives her life the way she wants.
And then, any country will have hard-core drug addicts who simply cannot hold any job, or people with mental problems, or criminals.
I am not saying all poor people are like the above examples, but we can never have zero poverty, the same way economists say we can never have zero unemployment. There are always some people quitting their job out of boredom, moving to a new place and looking for a job that they like, etc... The utopia that we all like to see does not exist.
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