MINIMALIST EXTRAORDINAIRE
We had the privilege over the last 3 days to host perhaps the world's best minimalist, Rob Greenfield. Detractors call him a professional mooch because he depends heavily on hosts and road kill, but I find his lifestyle fascinating. I always appreciate people who push the edges of the envelope; that's where challenges to our own thinking develop.
Addressing our stewards after supper, he explained that he has no driver's license, no phone, no bank account, and no credit card. Let that sink in for a moment. How would you live? Everything he owns can be stuffed in a hiking back pack; no car, no house. He does own a laptop and is extremely savvy with electronic communication and messaging. Obviously he depends on other people's plug-ins to recharge his computer.
He's bicycled across America 3 times and seldom wears shoes. When he went to CNN headquarters in Atlanta the security personnel took him for a vagrant. I've been in these media towers and the idea of walking in there barefoot is hilarious. Once they received clearance from higher ups that things were on the level, they let him in, but I can only imagine the back-room conversations over donuts regarding that strange guy.
He vaulted to fame a few years ago when he lived like the average American for a month and made a wearable costume from the accumulated trash. He didn't keep food scraps, but substituted their weight for equal weight of dry rice. That helped the odor situation. He walked around New York City and became a sensation, landing on the front page of the New York Times.
What I did not know until this visit was that coming into adulthood, his dream was to be a millionaire by the age of 30. By his mid-20s he was well on his way to that objective. A series of documentaries and some research about modern orthodoxy converted him into a minimalist. He earns income with speaking gigs but takes only cash and has the host outfit donate the rest to a charity.
That keeps him from ever having to file or pay income taxes. Last fall he completed a year of eating only what he could grow or acquire (fishing, hunting) personally--no store shopping. He lived in a 10 ft. X 10 ft. tiny house in Florida. Without enough land to grow a garden, he put out a plea on Craig's list for yards to put in gardens and had such a huge response he could only do a fraction of them.
That shows me that many people want gardens but are either too indolent, ignorant, or intimidated to put them in. Regardless of why someone does not have a garden right now, I found this story hopeful It means that urban gardening could expand exponentially if someone wanted to do it; there is no inherent aversion to urban gardens. That's wonderful.
His next stunt will be a year in upstate New York repeating the year-long personal acquisition food experiment. He'll eat white potatoes rather than sweet potatoes. And he'll have road kill deer instead of road kill alligator. His only identification right now is a passport, and he's contemplating giving it up.
He knows how to slip away from the U.S. on the ocean, sail to Europe and swim ashore. And yesterday he taught one of our staff members how to dumpster dive. I love people like this because they challenge the norms, the orthodoxy, and me. That's a good thing.
What would happen if 10 percent of Americans became minimalists instead of Wall Street and Kardashian maximalists?