Living Without Money – The Enigma, Daniel Suelo

From ffffound.com

I was reading an article after dinner tonight from men.style.com called Could You Survive Without Money?  Meet the Guy who Does.  You may have seen the article today as it was featured on Yahoo for much of the day. 

There’s this guy in Utah named Daniel Suelo who has been living without money since the year 2000.  He lives in a cave and basically forages for food in the wilderness, on friends’ farms, or amongst discarded trash from us, your friendly neighborhood hyper-consumers. 

I was expecting to see mention of a sophisticated bartering system or evidence of significant help from friends or family but, no, this guy lives in a cave and is fairly self-sufficient.

I’m quite fond of indoor plumbing, love my laptop and have a tech-crush on my IPOD Touch.   I can’t imagine foraging for my food, or frying up grasshoppers (seriously) when the fruits and veggies are tough to find.   I fully admit that I am a byproduct of American consumerism. 

I don’t want to walk in this guy’s shoes…even if he may have snagged them from my trash, but honestly, there is something quite remarkable and awe-inspiring about his quest.  He has deep faith and even deeper convictions.   He’s walking the walk where as I am comparably talking the talk when it comes to rallying against the big black mark of consumerism. 

Without the distractions of television, radio, and largely Internet (he does manage a blog while visiting the library in town) he has the benefit of being present in the moment.   The common distractions are removed and I can imagine that the most mundane of tasks, i.e. foraging for food, can be quite spiritual for him.  He owns one book, the Bible, which he meditates on before bed each night.  I’m no Bible-thumper but if you only own one book, it may as well be the Tome for whatever religion you profess your faith to. 

I can imagine how much writing I could get done each day, were I not tempted by so many modern distractions.  Yes, his quest to take care of his basic needs, food, clothing and shelter, takes a fair bit more time than it does for me each day.   But the amount of time he saves by not having to work for money and not having to answer to anyone’s expectations has to be incredibly freeing. 

Daniel Suelo gets high props from me.