Escape ratrace ? Hippie Communes, Monasteries, Peace Corps?

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How do I drop out of the rat race and survive? Hippie Communes, Monasteries, Peace Corps? Teaching english to foreigners? Immigrating?

I've seen people get by teaching English to Chinese and Japanese people in their home countries. I once had a teacher who had spent time in buddhist monasteries of one sort and another, but you can't stay there forever. Well, perhaps you can but in general even people who've devoted their lives to patient service can find themselves moved to action.

In the abstract, though, if your lifestyle were sustainable and, for preference, contributes in some small way to the greater good of the community you'd be doing all you need to do. Given global warming financial crises and terror none of us can get away with that and the challenge becomes how to be part of the solution to a greater extent than being part of the problem.

Being a victim, or potential victim is as much part of the problem as being a predator, or potential predator. Have you noticed that aspies have a hard time sticking to externally imposed topics?

i lived off the grid for a while. it was good overall (except the community was chaotic, blah, blah, blah.) $500.00 a year to live in the mountains; it was beautiful. rough--no running water or electricity, but it felt good to chop and cut and haul--so self-reliant.

i wrote a lot. i didn't work too many jobs. i didn't have enough electric to sustain a tv and all that. it was nice. if i had to do it over again, i'd learn to build adobe and do it myself--no crazy community with separatist ideas (lesbian community, pretty hard-core about "patriarchy," etc.---while busily repeating the worst of what they'd supposedly left behind.)

but you never know. there's some people out there doing this kind of thing with no big agenda, i suppose--as far as community goes, i mean. and apparently, it's not hard to learn to do some simple earth-building. i just don't have the knack.

After University I want to go places. I want to spend time in the mountains and in foreign countries doing who knows what. Maybe I could even have some adventures during the summers while I'm still in school.

I want to live in an RV and go from place to place.

That's pretty easy to do. There are campgrounds and state parks all over the US. If you are handy, you might even be able to wangle a free/cheap stay at one for months at a time if you're willing to do some workamping. Some Wal-Marts allow free overnight parking for stays of one day.

If you want, you can even choose to stay in one place for awhile (whether in a campground or renting a parking space where someone will charge you a little for electricity) and temporarily get a normal job. No one has to know you're living fulltime in an RV...unless you choose to tell them and invite them over.

To make fulltime RVing work, you'll need to be willing to ditch your landline and switch to a cellphone, and buy a postal box (ie. there are UPS Stores all over the US who will forward your mail to other UPS stores for a reasonable fee). You'll also probably want a laptop with wifi. USPS boxes will work too...but you won't have a proper street address like you will if you rent one from the UPS Store, PostNet, etc. so you can keep your I.D.s updated legally, etc.

Your local library probably has a variety of books about the RV life to help you decide if it's for you. Here's some good websites:

http://www.rv.net/forum/
http://www.fulltimerver.com/blog/
http://www.woodalls.com/

...At least materially , being homeless is it ?????????

I plan to buy land in the forest in Oregon and live sustainably. Grow my own food, live in a small homebuilt cabin, solar panels for energy, etc. I think that it's actually a good thing for an aspie to live alone in the woods, as long as you plan. I know a place in Oregon where you can buy an acre of woodland for $5k. I decided not to RV, mainly because of the cost of fuel. RVs suck up tons of gas, and if you're nomadic the cost adds up.