Sunday, November 15, 2015

Have you gone mental?!

This is... pretty much everyone's reaction when I tell them my plans to live in a tent for the winter - and hopefully longer. Why would I, a white middle class 21-year-old student who has sufficient money to live quite comfortably... decide to live in a tent? In the middle of winter?!

Well the answer is not as simple as I'd like it to be. But I'll try to be brief.
I believe that human society, as well as all non-human societies and those living creatures who are not in society would benefit if we humans were a teeny bit less materialistic. I think that our use of money places far too many degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed. I think that having less and sharing more is the key to happiness. I don't think that money is evil or anything of that nature, I just think that it has a rather addictive quality - like Pringles or methamphetamine. Like all addictions they can have both negative and positive consequences to the user and wider society. Most people would agree that the best way to avoid the risk of said negative consequences of addictions is to simply abstain or reduce usage of the substance.

Having thought about these ideas, I realised that I needed to actually put them into place a little bit more if I don't want to be a hypocrite. Unfortunately it is not within my comfort zone to go all John the Baptist/Buddha/Mahatma Gandhi... yet - i.e. give up everything and wander about the place. I've got a degree to finish and family to see who live on another continent.

For now I will use money. But I'm limiting my use of it in a number of ways while I can. The first of these ways was transport - hitchhiking and cycling. The second of these is food - as much as possible I try to take food that would otherwise go to waste. Now the third and possibly most expensive thing that I consume is accommodation - and of course that is where the tent comes in handy. I need not do a calculation to impress upon you how much of a difference this makes in terms of my contribution to the financial economy, but you can do it for yourself if you like.

I am, of course an enormous hypocrite. I quite like to spend money and go for a beer with my mates (although sometimes you find unopened cans discarded too), and I like to see my family sometimes so I spend big wads of money on flying in a tin can on fossil fuels across the ocean. But I'm trying and I hope that's what counts. At the very least it will make my transition into moneyless (or money-light) living a lot easier.

There are secondary reasons apart from the hand-wavingly-philosophical ones that I've mentioned above - for my living in a tent. One of the more paradoxical ones is that I will save money this year and therefore be able to travel once I finish my degree without having to work as much prior to that (I hope). Another is that I will spend less time on habits that I abhore - such as staring at a screen of some form; and more time on tasks that I think are beneficial - my degree, community work, exercise etc. There's no telly or WiFi in my tent. Further, I will learn what sort of weather I am prepared to face while travelling in a relatively safe environment.

I moved in, with the help of Daisy and spent the first night in my new abode yesterday. It would be a lie to say that I wasn't a teeny bit apprehensive, especially with the night's all too British weather. Actually, several times I asked myself the same question as everyone else "Are you bonkers?" after thinking about this for a while I realised that yes I suppose I am and always have been a bit out there, and as such it wouldn't make much sense if I didn't go through with it - or at least give it a good go.

Surprisingly, I was quite warm and comfortable in the tent. I of course woke up much earlier due to the sunrise and the songs of birds but felt very refreshed. I'd like to say a thank you to Peter and his partner Lee for offering their back garden for my experiment. Here's to the next three months!

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