Life Without

I don’t have particularly strong feelings regarding grocery shopping- I look at it as a necessary task, like washing dishes or taking out the trash. These things approach miserable only when postponed for too long. What I don’t like doing is price-checking, keeping track of coupons or haggling. I tend to go through a process of taste-testing every brand of a particular product and then insisting on purchasing the one I like best. If it’s out of stock, I tend to not purchase anything rather than substitute a brand I’ve already tried and don’t like.

My girlfriend and I are both vegetarians, and I usually do the shopping for both of us. We exclusively make home-cooked meals. I am competent at cooking a few things and she is quite good at a wide range of dishes. Our bill for food, beverages and toiletries, which also includes food for a large dog and food and litter for two cats, averages $128/week or $18.25/day. She thinks that’s a lot, but it doesn’t seem overly luxurious to me.

For some reason, I always seem to come home from the store with one incorrect item; something similar to what I intended to purchase but with overlooked fine (but usually large and prominent) print. Actual examples include: Pomegranate red wine vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, instant oatmeal instead of oatmeal, sweet onions instead of yellow onions, diet juice and juice drink instead of juice, stewed tomatoes instead of roasted tomatoes, diced green chiles instead of whole green chiles… the list goes on but you get the idea. “In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round, –for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost, –do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.” –Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I dislike wasting food, and nearly always eat leftovers up until I can see mold growing. Actually, if it’s bread or cheese, I’ve been known to keep eating it after cutting the moldy parts off. “Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary.” –Ibid.

I lived from ages 4-12 on an acreage where we raised our own crops, chickens and pigs and fostered horses. We got free hot school lunches and sometimes waited in line for big bricks of American cheese. I recently saw one of the boxes that cheese came in at a thrift store and found it very nostalgic. We shopped for toiletries and other things we didn’t produce ourselves at a strange warehouse full of damaged boxes. If there was an unopened box of something you wanted you simply found a box-cutter and got it out. I had a nice childhood. I mostly pretended to be a super hero while running around the farm or driving on the lawn mower. We went to the library once a week. I got a lot of Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures each birthday and Christmas and saved my $1-2/week allowance to buy G.I. Joe vehicles and a Swiss Army knife. We went on a one-week vacation once a year and frequently camped on weekends. I guess that’s why I’ve never been bothered by being poor. “In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we live simply and wisely.” –Ibid.

The other thing is; I feel the only ways to gain financial success are by working too much, getting lucky or being unethical. “The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward.” –Thoreau, Life Without Principle

My parents taught me, by example, to value industriousness, dedication and self-sufficiency. I was also taught that conformity is a bad thing, which I’ve since discovered is rather unique. America reveres the rebel, the defining characteristic of which is a willingness to intentionally make mistakes, and Americans go to great lengths to attempt to emulate the non-conformist aesthetic. We even appreciate independent thinkers as long as they are venture capitalists. But having the integrity to not go along or agree with others is heavily frowned upon in our society. There’s this episode of South Park where Stan decides to rebel, and joins up with a group of Goth kids after they advise, “If you want to be one of the non-conformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do.” In Hollywood, the outcast invariably aspires to become popular. Why is their rebel always insecure? I suggest it’s because they are considered nothing more than consumers.

Last night I watched Into The Wild (2007) and absolutely loved it. I remember not wanting to watch it when it came out, whining, “Oh boy, another drama about a Trustafarian kid looking like James Dean who runs off into the woods to “discover” himself- how original.” Considering my favorite book around third grade was My Side of the Mountain, I didn’t feel like I needed to see it.

Even as a child, I understood that not jumping on bandwagons, thinking with clarity, knowing how to survive alone and, perhaps most importantly, not caring whether other people liked you or not, were all part of being a true individual. Anybody motivated to impress, whether by obstinacy, audacity or originality, is a bullshitter. The non-conformist’s beliefs and actions are completely independent of others, which sometimes means doing or enjoying something despite its popularity. Demonstrating empathy can, and should, also be part of that equation; indeed that discovery in itself requires individualism, considering how heavily lobbied we are to be selfish. “I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead.” –Thoreau, Walden

An interesting choice is made in the movie that, because my favorite book is, in fact, Walden, stuck out to me like a sore thumb. The lead actor “paraphrases” (to quote the term he uses in the movie) Thoreau, and alludes to his line, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth,” but, in between love and money, he adds “faith.” WHAT? Are you fucking telling me you are going to misquote a tribute to truth? Oh, the irony. That occurrence profoundly illustrates the difficulty inherent to discovering truth- we are constantly compelled to twist it to conform to our desires. “Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things.” –Thoreau, Life Without Principle

Perhaps the author or screenwriter intended to reflect that the main character did not realize truth without faith is unattainable, but surely that’s giving him or her too much credit and it was really just added to portray the character as an atheist and confusing atheism for nihilism. Either way, it instead portrays Thoreau as a bloviating fool. His works are already taken out of context enough as it is; afterall, his essay about economic living and enjoying simplicity within walking distance of a thriving metropolitan area is somehow taken as encouragement to run off into the wilderness and eat poison berries.

I recently spent a couple weeks unemployed. The only income I managed to gather came through selling some practically worthless items on ebay. As I had gotten rid of nearly every superfluous thing I own just over two years ago, I didn’t have much to sell. This made me contemplate the concept of needs versus wants, and how there is such a huge subjective gray area between them. It really irks me how loosely the phrase, “I have to have this!” is thrown around. I have, throughout the years, managed to scrape together the funds for indulgences such as three meals per day, hot running water, contact lenses, a used vehicle and gently used thrift store jeans. It’s been a long time since I’ve purchased a new outerwear item, but if underwear is any indication, it’s way over-priced. I think Levis are a bit of a rip-off at $5.38 and I only buy a pair or two per year.

Some things others might consider needs that I have seldom, if ever, been able to afford include doctor and dental check-ups, haircuts and television. I am fortunate to have been gifted the two computers I have owned. I can stretch a one-year contact prescription to three. I am very grateful that free public libraries exist. I long ago gave up purchasing superfluous items like hair conditioner and after-shave. I’ve never owned a vehicle with working air conditioning, and only seldom one that retained windshield washer fluid. I feel like these trivial sacrifices are pretty familiar ones to a lot of people, and yet, I feel like a lot of people are embarrassed by having to make them. That, to me, is the sad part. Shouldn’t those wastefully indulging in every little thing while lacking the capacity to imagine how they could survive without them be the ones who are ashamed? “No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.” –Thoreau, Walden

Admittedly, a lot of these concessions have been made in order to save money for tattoos, which is ridiculous and shows how un-destitute I actually am. “If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the devil’s angels.” –Thoreau, Life Without Principle

One fortuitous happenstance is that my unemployment coincided with my tax return, which I used to pay off the remainder of my debt. This had been incurred in December of 2009 due to plane ticket purchases coinciding with unanticipated vehicle repairs. I am very thankful I don’t have school loans, car loans or a mortgage to repay. I loathe indebtedness; it is a euphemism for indentured servitude. “Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.” –Ibid.

Several years ago, struggling to make ends meet while living in Oakland, I walked to the mainstream grocery store across the street after work to get what I could to survive on until payday with the $20 I had left to my name. I usually got my food from the dented, damaged and expired store, but it was a bit out of the way. Among the few items I had decided to get was peanut butter, but the only brand this store sold that didn’t contain added sugar was a large jar that was over $6. I really do not care for sugar, but mulled over the options for several minutes pondering whether it was worth spending the extra money to avoid it. I decided to stand by my culinary laurels and splurge, and after receiving mere cents back from the clerk, I walked out of the store and down the sidewalk toward my car parked a few blocks away. Suddenly, I heard a crack, and looked down to see that jar of peanut butter spilling onto the sidewalk. My bag had ripped and the glass jar had shattered. I contemplated turning the jar upside-down and salvaging what I could, but quickly realized it was full of shards. The realization that I no longer had enough money to buy even the cheap, sugar-laden option hit me like bricks and I began to sob. I felt as if my entire existence was worth less than that broken jar. I thought about returning to the store and asking for a replacement, but it didn’t seem right to try and hold them responsible for my carelessness. I scooped what I could into a nearby trash can and went home.

Some months later, I moved to Portland, Oregon. I anticipated this would lead to new musical opportunities and had compiled a list of musicians to meet when I arrived, several of which were scheduled to perform at an event space a week after fitting all the belongings I could into my station wagon and driving ten hours to live with some guy I’d met on Craigslist who immediately scolded me for showing up while he was eating dinner. Traveling expenses, rent and deposit meant I would have no money at all while desperately looking for a job. Admission to this event space gig was $6, which I hoped would pay off in musician contacts possibly leading to gig bookings, etc. I still had an ash-tray full of coins in my Saturn reserved for paying parking meters in the Bay Area, and I fished $6 out of it, which ended up being mostly nickels and dimes, as any quarters that had been there had already served their purpose. I then apologetically dumped this pile of change onto the card-table at the entrance. The girl working the cash-box, I’d soon learn, was named Whitney. We would become friends and hang out often for the next several months until she moved to New York City, and is among the most genuine, generous, kind-hearted, non-judgmental and, as an aside, talented persons I have ever met.

I guess all this is to say I feel very grateful that I now have two jobs. I am lucky to be able to drive to a store and purchase food. We have a small garden that produces things like basil to make pesto with all summer. My girlfriend taught me how to make pretty phenomenal pesto. Perhaps most of all, I am glad that I don’t have to look very far to realize there are many things more important than recognition, money and the like. “The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are merely make-shifts, and a shirking of the real business of life- chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.” –Ibid.