A New Life?

Anyone here ever consider ":dropping out" into an intentional community? or finding a new way of life. I want to LEAVE modern american life and go to a more rural community and find a small country church that has strong community, but husband is not with this plan. He says How will we survive and he has a point...but I think living as the outlying fringers that will never be accepted in a rich community is not my idea of happiness. While some may take pity on you and show a degree of charity, they never become REAL FRIENDS, [you know it because they never introduce you to their family and you remain at arms length]. One thing if you stay poor long enough and your family is middle class and above, while acouple may help you stay off their doorstep previously in life, they have less and less to do with you.

I even have debated moving to an Appalachian town, or something though I am open to rural places in my own state and near by, though I do need some medical care. I want to find a place with other poor and working class people that is down to earth. I lived in one, but I know husband's concerns about jobs AND STAY ALIVE TOO. The worse thing about being poor is the ALONENESS and ISOLATION. You get cut out of regular life? The normies don't want you around. I've been poor for most of my adult life, so yeah, this long down the line, I get it. Why not find life with other poor people or "drop" out into a new way of life if you are healthy enough. I find myself wishing there was a religious community of my religion, that would be open to a disabled member.

Has anyone else had these thoughts?

I don't know where one could go to "get away" zoning laws, municipal codes, etc.etc. they are everywhere.

if you go to a rural area, might be easier, one still needs some source of income (dollars) you will need electricity and heat....stretching those dollars is the key.

Panning for gold is an option (the price is so high)

Here's a little something else about happiness..................

Consider Pres Richard Nixon he felt he never fit in and those he wished to impress would never accept him....

Consequently despite his high intelligence and accomplishments he was a very lonely man...

elvis44102 wrote:I don't know where one could go to "get away" zoning laws, municipal codes, etc.etc. they are everywhere.

if you go to a rural area, might be easier, one still needs some source of income (dollars) you will need electricity and heat....stretching those dollars is the key.

Yeah I think rural areas are better. I want a place where others are poor or working class and like me. I lived in one that was easier to manage. I wonder if there are people who are just rejected out there no matter what they do. Nixon was mean though. What about those of us who are not?

This is so apropos to your discussion. Read this excerpt from the book "Outliers":

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316017930?ie=UTF8&ref=aw_bottom_links&force-full-site=1

I think from time to time we all wish we could just check out to somewhere less judgemental. I don't know if I could survive that though. I would miss the differences and the activity. There are days that I could do without it, but I think the isolation would get to me.

MaryKay wrote:I think from time to time we all wish we could just check out to somewhere less judgemental. I don't know if I could survive that though. I would miss the differences and the activity. There are days that I could do without it, but I think the isolation would get to me.

Didnt people previously in history leave to go somewhere new?

My options are fewer due to the health but sometimes as mean and as crazed as American society seems to be growing, I think they will be throwing the disabled into the ditch soon anyhow. I feel like a sitting duck.

need_a_break wrote:This is so apropos to your discussion. Read this excerpt from the book "Outliers":

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316017930?ie=UTF8&ref=aw_bottom_links&force-full-site=1

Hey ive noticed with the successful, they need strong social connections and family and community roots. So few of us have that nowadays, another reason success will fall.

Albert Speer, one of the top Nazis that were tried at the nuremburg trials after ww2 explained to some of the staff of lawyers that helped him, that to get ahead one must have "carisma" and "social skills"...

albert was responsible for thousands of slave labor deaths yet recieved only a twenty year sentence...seems he even BSed the court...

Springflowers...I was amazed to read your post...For the last 20 years I have felt that way, and I was employed then...HA! Around that time I had a spiritual awakening, you could say, and I began to see the world differently. I started to feel for those who were really down and out in their lives, the homeless, society's rejects, and saw them for more than what society thinks of them...people down in their luck, people that couldn't recover from crises, people whose strength had diminished. I used to joke with my friends and tell them that I wouldn't mind being homeless - they are all in the same boat, they probably all look out for each other, there is no judgement amongst them, no more living to impress society; And being away from the 'living", you would have more time to spend with your God. Now 20 years later, I find that this situation is not really out of reach for me...it could be me in a few months. Of course I would want to be where it's warm most of the time, or in a big city that had enough homeless shelters and food pantries, and accessible toilets. I've even told friends, if you see me on the street corner, throw me a pack of cigarettes, will ya, because I don't know how I am going to handle the withdrawal.

I've always wanted to go to the Appalachian mountains...or some third world country and live with the poor. I've read books from some missionaries who were sent to help them, only to find out that those people had spiritually helped the missionaries. Life is so much simpler for these people (not to disregard their hardships), but the one thing they have to do in life is rely on their God for survival....so they are much closer to who they believe in, than some of us who have busied ourselves our whole life to even give time to a creator.

This whole down turn of our economy could be a lesson some of us need to learn and experience, or it could be that we are just getting to darn old, and don't like to see the changes in society, and in our young ones...that we just want to escape.

Albert per the above, was probably a sociopath. Probably most of them were. Glib charm on the outside to hide the black heart?

Hi Marilyn,

Well I have different spiritual beliefs then this society--Christian, and I definitely see this world different. I see many of us being related to being serfs but now instead of just owning labor they want to own people's hearts and minds too and have absolute control. I have been an outcast of society long enough to know that there are other ways to see things. I agree about the homeless. I hope some of homeless do look out for one another, but that may be idealistic. I often wonder why more poor people can't come together and share resources, especially those cut off from their families? But then I know people have to fear grifters and those who would use or abuse them. I think spending time with God is important.

If I was young, and healthy, I seriously would find a Christian group or intentional community and go join it. Even the Hutterties right now look attractive to me, as a new way of life, but I am not healthy enough and to be in that life you need to be able to work hard and I can't. I share many of the religious beliefs even if I find some of the rules too strigent. Just having a community that cares and shares, would be very nice.

If you end up homeless maybe you could consider this. They have intentional communities of other types not so many strigent rules, secular ones too. My husband does not want to do this, but I said, what kind of life are we having, where we just see the back end of everyone and we live as outcast fringe dwellers in an apt they will probably keep raising the rent on we can barely afford. He has do freelance night and day when he does get work and well, they can take it away and his work goes up and down. I am thinking about my last years on earth and what I want to do with them. I wish I was in better shape to make the options more expansive. Maybe people in better shape can read this and ponder more possibilities. LOL I hope you would get help. BIg Cities can be bad on homeless, I think probably moderate sized cities would be better, just big enough to have a homeless shelter to start with. And you want a bus or train station too.

I have wondered about life in the Appalachian mountains. Wonder if community would be more open, and I would not be an outcast to be around other people as poor as me. I lived in a very rural small town and while some were better off there was a lot of poor people there, and seriously on the emotions IT WAS A LOT EASIER and SOCIAL.

I wanted to go back but we lost everything and husband can't get no work there-a lot of his freelance here is local based, so here, I kind of bumble around the edges of the "normals". With health, Id go be a Christian missionary, that would be open to me but I am middled aged with severe health problems. I want a life focused on God and community, modern American life isn't doing it for me anymore. My husband has found my avid interests in intentional communities and Hutterites to be disturbing. He doesn't want to live that type of life but we do not share all our religious beliefs though he is respectful of mine--I became a Christian after we were married. So it is complicated. I do not think he is happy either, but he believes in "the system" far more then I do.

I feel sorry for young people. Everything with meaning, family connections, life long careers, social contract, it seems like everything good is being destroyed. I am old enough to remember when life was better but the hard economic times for me began in the 90s when I came of age.

If young people read this, maybe you can consider alternative ways to go then the traditional college career route that is failing for so many.
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People have different people, way of life has a different time, dropped out of nothing, just choose the suitable way.