Freeganism they’ve dubbed it… Oprah said so. It’s the hip, hybrid, infectious moniker used to describe a new way of living that’s sweeping the States. In reality it’s a post modern take on a theme dating back to the birth of consumerism, that we’d all be happier if we escaped the commercial rat race and learned to live more simplistically, more organically, more… naturally.
For freegans this boils down to a life free of work, obligation and most importantly expense. A dedicated freegan is also a committed tip-rat. Everything from food to furniture is fleeced from the wasteful companies and corporations a freegan devotee so despises. Sounds liberating doesn’t it?
They really had me at hello these spiritual minimalists… there’s something about the idea of not working and not paying for anything that I find genuinely spiritually fulfilling. I was prepared for the moment to overlook the prospect of eating out of date cevapi found in the garbage outside my nearest delicatessen whilst I fully absorbed the other ramifications of retreating from ‘normal’ life.
Upon initial consideration I realised that I was a lot closer to freeganism than most. I have no mobile or landline phone, I don’t drive, I do not own a blackberry, an ipod or a digital camera and I prefer to think of paid work as something one does intermittently for amusement and travel money. Wow… I concluded, I’m a stolen couch from the back of Freedom furniture away from full membership to the freegan fraternity. Then my internet dropped out without warning. Not to worry, Foxtel was just metres away, a rerun of West Wing was due to start. Martin Sheen’s latin aphorisms and staunchly left wing ideals were sure to tide me over until my worldwide web woes could be resolved. Then it confronted me in gold mocking text… ‘please call 131999 to update your subscription’. My cable had been cut. Evidently in the process of my wonderfully unstructured, romantically emancipating lifestyle I had neglected to pay a couple of bills. My world unraveled in record time. No sooner had I completed the ceremonial self congratulation that came with my freshly acquired freegan freedom than I discovered, ever so starkly that I was a dependent like everyone else… a FoxWeb junkie. Yes, I could live without telecommunication, private transport, music on command, even genuine warmth (my lounge room heater only recently resumed functioning to its full capacity following a prolonged intervention), these were ‘luxuries’. But if I couldn’t watch Living Lohan and then Google the Adam Levine impersonator featured in the aforementioned show to confirm his age, and my overwhelming suspicions he may be engaging is pseudo pedophilic flirtations with the shows 14 year old star Ally, I was lost.
What’s the moral? I don’t know… I don’t do fables or allegories.
I am just saying that it’s more difficult to live life on your terms quietly and without fanfare than it is to point out the folly and foible in the way others go about theirs.
