Stephen Rowe: Ideas and Musings: April 2012

I live in a trailer I bought new for $26,000 in 1996, on three acres of rural land I acquired for $16,000. I have two Chevy Impalas bought new a total of 286,000 miles ago, and don’t plan to replace them for some good while yet. I have one 18” television that my wife watches, one old computer, and no cable or internet. My cell phone doesn’t send or receive text, I don’t want it to, and I certainly don’t want to surf the internet on a phone … I walk, run, or drive to the Fremont Public Library to do that for free, porting files back and forth per a cheap flash drive, leaving virus protection, software installations, operating system updates, etc to the library.

Are you getting the idea … I AM FREE!

I never eat at restaurants and don’t want to, though I do buy coffee now and then, mostly to just sit and see what the world is like these days from that window.

I don’t buy new clothes as long as my old clothes are servicable. I don’t buy electronic or other toys, though I do have a couple old radio/tape/cd players. And so on … I am free

The key is basically acceptance and detachment: I don’t buy anything I don’t need; I don’t want what I don’t have; and I have the wisdom to know the difference (between want and need).

What about “health care?” Basically, my body takes care of itself and so will yours if you let it. That is all the insurance I need. Of course I get sick, but I also get better, just as people have for years and years.

Yes, some day I will get really sick and die. We are all mortal. I accept this with grace, and LIVE FREE in the mean time.

So what that I live free? Such a stunted life style, who would want that?

I am glad you asked. As human beings, our primal, authentic nature was shaped at least thirty thousand years ago, utterly independent of the superficial trappings and artificial electronic experiences we value so much today … trinkets and beads, really. [In 1626 Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the local Indians for trinkets and beads].

Today the trade is different; most of us don’t have land to trade, so we buy our shiny modern baubles by selling our time … hours and hours and hours of unnecessary labor for nothing but trinkets and beads. It is a shame, as time is our most precious commodity.

But I am free.

I am happy.

I am content.