Nothing is free, nothing is allowed, if someone doesn't profit. On the freedom to sleep under the stars, lead a self-determined life, and what that even means.
A good friend of mine that I met on the GR20 in Corsica last summer is nearing completion of a three-year hike through all of western Europe's major mountain ranges. He mostly sleeps wild. He doesn't have all that much to say along the way, but I do expect at some point he'll write a book about this truly EPIC experience.
This essay is very apropos for me in my current career/creative manifestation. I suffer much guilt over the fact that I decided to work part-time so that I could write part-time. It means a slightly more constricted life (financially speaking) but an infinitely more enriched life (in terms of devoting time to my two great passions: reading and writing). Yet, I feel guilty - probably because I am not producing the income and financial stability at the rate of those other more “responsible” full time working people. It’s a difficult line to walk, mostly because of my own inner conflict around it. I struggle with giving myself permission to create, probably because of the social norms I hear in my head chastising me being self/indulgent in my determination to write .
I am fortunate in that I don't need to make a living from people paying to subscribe to my Substack. Some people do pay to subscribe, but that's just a bonus. I recognize that while the Substack platform is essentially "free" to me, it actually costs money to make it available, and that people are being paid to make it work, and that I am not really "paying my way" because the cut Substack takes from my paid subscriptions is a tiny drop in a big lake of cost. So I am free to do my thing, and to roam around, at least in the "free" stuff other creatives offer. Other people's earnings are paying my way.
Today, my free-roaming included reading your essay, which compares having a corporate job to being enslaved, and I wondered how actual enslaved people might think and feel about it. I am not sure your attempt to say you don't want to downplay the horrors of actual slavery does the trick.
I also got thinking that even though it might be lovely if all unoccupied lands were open and free to be used as people wanted- including sleeping out, you still have to get to those places. You might need roads, walking paths, bike trails, or a rail line, or a ride on a boat. We depend upon the infrastructure provided by society so much, that it is easy to take it for granted.
My Substack roaming is kind of a luxury, that depends upon the work, and investment of others, to provide the paths and the destinations. I am an educated, relatively privileged white guy in a world where there are still actual slaves with profoundly different needs and desires, and definitions, when it comes to "freedom".
I can agree with you that restricting the use of unoccupied lands so people can't camp overnight may seem over-reaching. I can't go the full distance with you, if you are suggesting the world would work better without private property, publicly funded infrastructure, or rules and laws to govern behaviour on public and private land.
My Substack "page", largely paid for and provided by the efforts of others, is a "protected space", as is yours. If there weren't rules or mechanisms to protect this space I work hard to create, I guess any random person could camp out there.
It seems we pay for a relative appearance of safety and life of convenience with the most precious thing we have been given: our one and only life.
A good friend of mine that I met on the GR20 in Corsica last summer is nearing completion of a three-year hike through all of western Europe's major mountain ranges. He mostly sleeps wild. He doesn't have all that much to say along the way, but I do expect at some point he'll write a book about this truly EPIC experience.
https://www.facebook.com/foudeurope
This essay is very apropos for me in my current career/creative manifestation. I suffer much guilt over the fact that I decided to work part-time so that I could write part-time. It means a slightly more constricted life (financially speaking) but an infinitely more enriched life (in terms of devoting time to my two great passions: reading and writing). Yet, I feel guilty - probably because I am not producing the income and financial stability at the rate of those other more “responsible” full time working people. It’s a difficult line to walk, mostly because of my own inner conflict around it. I struggle with giving myself permission to create, probably because of the social norms I hear in my head chastising me being self/indulgent in my determination to write .
I am fortunate in that I don't need to make a living from people paying to subscribe to my Substack. Some people do pay to subscribe, but that's just a bonus. I recognize that while the Substack platform is essentially "free" to me, it actually costs money to make it available, and that people are being paid to make it work, and that I am not really "paying my way" because the cut Substack takes from my paid subscriptions is a tiny drop in a big lake of cost. So I am free to do my thing, and to roam around, at least in the "free" stuff other creatives offer. Other people's earnings are paying my way.
Today, my free-roaming included reading your essay, which compares having a corporate job to being enslaved, and I wondered how actual enslaved people might think and feel about it. I am not sure your attempt to say you don't want to downplay the horrors of actual slavery does the trick.
I also got thinking that even though it might be lovely if all unoccupied lands were open and free to be used as people wanted- including sleeping out, you still have to get to those places. You might need roads, walking paths, bike trails, or a rail line, or a ride on a boat. We depend upon the infrastructure provided by society so much, that it is easy to take it for granted.
My Substack roaming is kind of a luxury, that depends upon the work, and investment of others, to provide the paths and the destinations. I am an educated, relatively privileged white guy in a world where there are still actual slaves with profoundly different needs and desires, and definitions, when it comes to "freedom".
I can agree with you that restricting the use of unoccupied lands so people can't camp overnight may seem over-reaching. I can't go the full distance with you, if you are suggesting the world would work better without private property, publicly funded infrastructure, or rules and laws to govern behaviour on public and private land.
My Substack "page", largely paid for and provided by the efforts of others, is a "protected space", as is yours. If there weren't rules or mechanisms to protect this space I work hard to create, I guess any random person could camp out there.