Posted by cav on April 04, 2005 at 05:54:06:
In Reply to: all the cows are cashin' posted by giveawayboy on April 03, 2005 at 13:26:28:
I can understand how the car thing in Tampa is isolating. Honestly, I remeber telling you I thought it was a bad idea. But I'm glad it worked out for you, and I'm glad I wasn't right. Although I missed seeing you as much as I could have, but maybe that was good too, or at least necessary, as cutting off of relations was a big thing for both of us recently (it led us to feel free to move here). I'd also like to encourage you about getting a car. Owning one does incur necessary hassles, but it doesn't have to mean you give up the lifestyle entirely. We just get so lazy when we have a car. But you don't have to drive it if you can walk, or bike. You can still choose to live close to your work and school, but you'll have that option to travel and the convenience of mobility when you need it.
I know Kathy and I have decided we will not live so far from everything again. We were utterly dependent on a car for everything we did. And the lifestyle in the country wasn't that great. Now a small rural town like we live in here, that still has basic services is great. We can walk all over here. Though we have a car for other uses. We hope to maintain that in America.
As an example of someone who keeps his life grounded, I worked with a man who was an engineer, made lots of money, and his wife was a partner at a dental practice. Still they chose to buy an old house in hyde park and he walked to work downtown everyday. He refused to spend alot on a fancy lunch, which is easy downtown. He was a real sensible guy all the way around. You may know his wife, she's on billboards...or was when we left. The name's Steighlen. Or Steiglen...something dutch that I can't spell. Pronounced "Stylin". I always thought that was ironic.
: I've seen a wave of this. First moving to Atlanta and then again to Boulder, got me out of my false sense of knowing who I was. It got me out of settling into a pattern of living that was comfortable. Since returning home I did two radical things which helped me in many ways. The first was moving into THE PINK PALACE w Marcos. He and I practiced a simple way of life there that constantly brought us to our spiritual roots. We were constantly restructuring and pruning things. The life of simple prayer and spiritual reading which we practiced, combined with an open attitude to visitors allowed us to constantly revisit the ordinary and hallow it again and again. The second radical thing I did was to refuse the use of a car for quite some time. It seems odd that now when gas is hovering around $3 a gallon that I'd seek now of all times to get a car, but for at least a few years it has helped me greatly to live a simpler life and a joyful one. Although I had to do without many comforts as a result, I learned so much about myself in the process. I really reconnected with actual life. I began to see things I would have missed out on with the car lifestyle I was used to living. I'm not saying that having a car is somehow unheroic or anything. All I'm saying is that my Japan might have been isolating myself from the car culture aroud me. And Tampa is a hard place to do that. To be honest, if I were not thinking of attending school in the near future, I'd most likely stick with the lifestyle I'm living now. I prefer it. I've never been happier in my life. And that's the truth. I'm very close to contacting Wes Jackson and seeing what it would take to go join him and the others in Kansas. Hahaha! We'll see.
: Bill