I've been thinking about this for awhile.

Most of us basically live our lives for one thing, to pay the bills. Pay our rent, car payment, ect. We spend most our lives at our job and when were home we just want to relax. We basically live inside a box. A sheltered box which offers us little more than a warm place to sleep and a television to watch.

When you really think about it, it's pretty messed up. We live our lives to basically have...a box.

I wish everything could go back to the old days where we could live in the woods, catch our own food, make our own shelter. I understand this wouldn't be easy but I think it would be alot more exciting and fulfilling than working 8 hours a days just to have money to live in a box and buy food.

When I asked people if they were ever given a choice, would they choose to live in the wilderness rather than having a job for a home and luxuries, most of them said no. Personally if I didn't have a child I would probably be living in the woods, peacefully.

What would you rather?

Im not saying choosing to live in a house is stupid, Im just saying when you really think about it, the way things are now is just so complicating that we cant even stop to enjoy life.

I am in total agreement with you.. I WISH we could go back a few steps in technology and live a MUCH simpler life. We would have a different sense of pride in our accomplishments, and be alot more grateful for what we had because of the labour we would have to put into it...
I've thought of the "box" thing too... it's strange that we're out here, on this earth.. with people we don't really know, walking maybe 20 feet away from us, with a couple of walls between us.. It's a strange thing to me..

reply to post by Weeeden


Yes exactly! We walk into the grocery store and buy a dinner, we dont think twice about it.

But if we had to spend half our day catching our dinner, we would feel alot more pride about it.

Although when you think about it, you labor at a job to buy that dinner also, so its a weird thought. But I still would love to have to catch my own food. It would just be nice to be able to experience it.

Yes I like having a house it offers me comfort, but that's all it offers, comfort. Ive grown tired of being comfortable. I would love to be able to have complete freedom from money. Having these things makes us basically a slave to money.

If we were in the wilderness, we would have no need for it.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


Children have always survived in the wilderness...well some of them. I completely get what you are saying but don't underestimate how horrible the cold or rain or heat dependending on where you live can really be. That box is the culmination of countless lifetimes of experience. It just seems that when you have one paid for, you shouldn't have to pay taxes based on the full amount of its value on an annual basis. You can never really own it because of this.

reply to post by budaruskie


Oh no I agree. Children in the old ages have had to live off the land and were fine. Now a days if you tried taking your child into the woods to live, it would be called child abuse. Now I can understand a little bit why, the child would be exposed to the elements, might get sick more often, etc. But just because we have newer technology doesn't give anyone a right to tell us we have to use it. Because that's what they basically would say if we tried to raise our children in the wilderness.

Regarding the 'catching your own food' thing.. There IS great pride in it.. My husband was raised in a really small community here in BC, and was raised to hunt, and has continued on (although with not much great luck the last 15 or so years lol).. Well, with the economy, and how few jobs there are he was without work for a few months this winter, and if not for the deer he FINALLY got last fall, we'd have been relying on food banks and handouts.. I've been so proud of him for providing for our family with what he's learned.. know what i mean?

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


I know what your saying, but eventually you would build your own little box in the wilderness and end up in the same situation.damed if you do,damed if you don't.

reply to post by Weeeden


Of course! You can live off one deer for awhile, they have alot of meat. And I love the taste personally. I wish you and your husband the best of luck. Jobs are very hard to find right now, its a struggle for everyone.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


I think we all have lived in a cellular bubble,and that bubble is fast becoming burst,the realities we are all faced with are stretching our conscioucness to medieval times even though we have technology our personal material satisfaction is ,well harder to achieve because of the global situations.Sad but true ,we were apemen,but I `d rather be a walrus...
Really we have to wake up and realise ,swinging from the trees is in the genes,just nobody can do it when the trees are frozen solid

reply to post by the2people


I was just thinking about that. But it would be different, because you could move around, be in the nature, experience more things. And you wouldn't be paying 800 a month for your box. You would be free to go wherever you wanted without thinking twice about it.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


Thank you !! He's been working the past couple of months out of town as a labourer, mon-fri.. Home for saturday and sunday, and then in March he starts a different job, but in town, so we'll get to see him!! Looking forward to that.. We'll make it, we always do

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


I always think the same, im 18 and i have never had the chance to ever learn how to hunt or to survive in the wild but i will learn and i always hope that things will go back to the riding a horse for travel and having a bow and arrow and sword to hunt and living in the wild but i live in england where things are too... modern and there is no where you can do that.. my generation will be screwed one day thanks to the basic survival skills they never taught us at school :S

This may be ridiculously obvious, because its common knowledge 'round here, but deer love corn and water. Put the two together, assuming no hog issues, and deer will be vacationing around your feeder. I don't mean mix them together, but have them both in the same general area. Shot a bunch of animals in the last couple of years to feed the family.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


no doubt it would be a healthier, more natural way of living. i would prefer the stress of finding food for myself/family rather than paying bills.

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


This is why I've been asking - to no reply - for ages, how can an Aussie just up and go off the grid. I don't want the box. I can do without broadband, I have done in the past, I can do in the future. TV is an addictive uselessness. I've sat here with the power out due to power problems for hours and hours and in the dark, with a candle, felt more aware than ever.

I want to just go somewhere I can be left alone to exist - but there is no where. Everywhere is taken, owned, ruled over... At least where I live.

I look at you folk in the US and am amazed at the open wilderness you have. If only here.. It's all crown. Trespassing, let alone squatting is not possible.

I am trapped in this ugly world I mostly hate, forced to be a cog in the machine, but I just want to be bloody free......

It's so god damned frustrating...

the bloody homeless cant even have a kip, because as soon as they are seen the cops rumble them. "Move on" yeah where? All they mean is "Dont' sleep there" so stay awake is the law....

gahh... you're not an illegal person if you're walking around, but lie down, you are... F*****G idiotic laws...

oh but rich people can buy a bazillion solar cells, a plot of land, an old silo and make it into a self sustained friggin home in the stix, and ppl gush in awe at the 'off the grid guy'..

hurr, sorry for rant, I hate this planets people...

reply to post by badw0lf


That also ticks me off. The homeless can walk around but if they're caught sleeping somewhere, they get in trouble. Almost every piece of land is owned by someone. Nobody should be able to own land unless there living on it or farming it, or building a business. Take any old piece of wilderness, if you were caught living in it, you would probably get in trouble and have someone walk up to you "You cant stay here, so and so owns this." Its ridiculous.

reply to post by badw0lf


i thought it would be easier in australia?.. in england we have too many buildings and national parks and towns and stuff, i hate the realisation of freedom isnt what im living, i see my friends just going along as slaves to the times when all i want is to live my life in the freedom survivng and just being free from that box im trapped in. But what happened to the tribes in austrlia and the plains and stuff like that? you see in movies that australia has alot of free land? has that all gone and been built on like our country?

Oh and the money thing too, that is true if we lived on survival rather than wealth more people would be able to survive.. Dont get me wrong its nice to have a way of trading but the money thing has become corrupt, i have all the money i need right now because i dont spend a penny of it because i just dont need anything but the basics and once yeah i admit i did spend alot but i woke up and realised with money you dont get anything in life worth living for.. if we were all back to the days when we lived in huts and hunted then yes we would be better off rather than how we are now.

Im an 18 year old boy that knows its freedom i really want, i was considering getting a horse and traveling the country but its all towns and cities now a days. :S

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


It is... Bugger, you somehow calmed me down from my mood too there.. lol

*deep breaths*

I'd go for a walk in the wilderness, but the best I can do is sit on the concrete out the back, in view of everyone.. I might need headphones...

Either way, I'm going outside to look at the sky... !!

*When people were asked on their death-bed what they wished they could of done...

No one ever said "I wish I could have made more money"






* from one of the speakers on the "1 Giant Leap" DVD

reply to post by badw0lf


Glad I could do that for you =] Enjoy the sky watch =]