good idea. I had so much to do in the city that week that living the slow life in the country was impossible. I abandoned my trial run after just two days and hoped that I hadn’t overlooked anything too critical. I decided to stay with Claire in the city for the rest of the week, giving me a chance to spend some time with her in normal circumstances, which I felt was particularly important as we had only been seeing each other for a few weeks. Spending a few days in the city was a good idea; it bought me some time, took some of the pressure off and gave me a chance to catch up with myself. I had an instinct that the enormity of the year ahead would soon make more such chances almost impossible. This was when I really started to feel the pressure, with moments when I definitely thought about packing it all in and having a normal life, in which I got to spend time with friends, go for drinks and vacations, and maybe even have some time off every now and then.
Preparations for the free feast were going reasonably well. I’d scored 200 pounds of vegetables, about to be composted, from a local organic produce wholesaler. The problem was we had no idea how many people would show up and, given that we were organizing a free meal, cooked by chefs like Fergus, there was a chance it was going to be very popular. We needed much more produce.
By the evening of Thursday November 27, I was mentally exhausted. I wanted the year to start and to get back to living again. I decided to take the next day off, catch up on some reading and tie up a few loose ends. Oh, and go for that last beer.
CASHLESS COMMUNICATION
Before my moneyless year, I faced a difficult decision; whether or not to use two of the products – which most people would classify as luxurious – of financially-fuelled industrialization: a cell phone and a laptop computer.
It was a dilemma. If I decided not to use the tools that would enable me to communicate my experiment to the world, I risked being criticized for running away, looking out for myself and not contributing to society in any way. I also knew that if I did use them then I’d also be criticized, as I would be speaking out about money and industrialization using two pieces of technology that were reliant on both, which could be perceived as being very hypocritical. I decided to use them. If using them meant that I could let even one person know about moneyless living, that alone would be worth the accusations of hypocrisy.
Communicating without cash is obviously never going to be as convenient as with it, but it is still certainly possible. Communicating with those who live nearby has always been free; it just involves getting together. I’ve found it really beneficial to have been forced back into this situation. However, as cheap travel has enabled us to have family and friends dispersed across the world, we have a huge need for technological communication.
For email, there are quite a few options. You can usually get it for free at your local library, which doubles up as a great way of sharing a computer. If you have your own computer and Internet access, you can use Skype ( www.skype.com ) to make completely free computer-to-computer ‘phone’ calls with anyone else in the world who also has Skype. Many websites (such as www.cbfsms.com ) allow you to send free text messages, but be careful whichyou choose; some of them cost the person who receives the text message, which is hardly the point.
However, for all these, you need a computer. If you know how to put one together, you can easily get all the parts from Freecycle. Once you have the hardware set up, you can use Linux, a piece of free and open source software, as your operating system and OpenOffice for your spreadsheet, presentation, and word processing needs. OpenOffice is compatible with all Microsoft Office applications. Linux also has the added benefit of being really secure, so you don’t need to fork out on expensive security and
Preparations for the free feast were going reasonably well. I’d scored 200 pounds of vegetables, about to be composted, from a local organic produce wholesaler. The problem was we had no idea how many people would show up and, given that we were organizing a free meal, cooked by chefs like Fergus, there was a chance it was going to be very popular. We needed much more produce.
By the evening of Thursday November 27, I was mentally exhausted. I wanted the year to start and to get back to living again. I decided to take the next day off, catch up on some reading and tie up a few loose ends. Oh, and go for that last beer.
CASHLESS COMMUNICATION
Before my moneyless year, I faced a difficult decision; whether or not to use two of the products – which most people would classify as luxurious – of financially-fuelled industrialization: a cell phone and a laptop computer.
It was a dilemma. If I decided not to use the tools that would enable me to communicate my experiment to the world, I risked being criticized for running away, looking out for myself and not contributing to society in any way. I also knew that if I did use them then I’d also be criticized, as I would be speaking out about money and industrialization using two pieces of technology that were reliant on both, which could be perceived as being very hypocritical. I decided to use them. If using them meant that I could let even one person know about moneyless living, that alone would be worth the accusations of hypocrisy.
Communicating without cash is obviously never going to be as convenient as with it, but it is still certainly possible. Communicating with those who live nearby has always been free; it just involves getting together. I’ve found it really beneficial to have been forced back into this situation. However, as cheap travel has enabled us to have family and friends dispersed across the world, we have a huge need for technological communication.
For email, there are quite a few options. You can usually get it for free at your local library, which doubles up as a great way of sharing a computer. If you have your own computer and Internet access, you can use Skype ( www.skype.com ) to make completely free computer-to-computer ‘phone’ calls with anyone else in the world who also has Skype. Many websites (such as www.cbfsms.com ) allow you to send free text messages, but be careful whichyou choose; some of them cost the person who receives the text message, which is hardly the point.
However, for all these, you need a computer. If you know how to put one together, you can easily get all the parts from Freecycle. Once you have the hardware set up, you can use Linux, a piece of free and open source software, as your operating system and OpenOffice for your spreadsheet, presentation, and word processing needs. OpenOffice is compatible with all Microsoft Office applications. Linux also has the added benefit of being really secure, so you don’t need to fork out on expensive security and
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