The urge to suddenly drop everything, quit your job, sell your possessions, and take off into the great unknown - c/d?

http://www.moviebadgirls.com/capimage/Repo_Man_04.JPG

I'm sorry, but you really have to explain this further. Allergic to flat land? Livestock? My imagination fails me.

i guess it was kind of like this when i made the HUGE move from milton keynes to london, 50 miles away. i quit my job and left all my friends and moved down to a huge city without a job, but i already knew a bunch of people down here, which made it easier (and my family were already living on the other side of the world).

i still romanticise about moving to a different country altogether one day, but the choices are limited with regards to work permits, VISA and all that. if you have the means (money, job prospect) to do it, it certainly sounds like fun.

Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious, purifying,
Elemental move.

And they are right, I think.
We all hate home
And having to be there:
I detest my room,
Its specially-chosen junk,
The good books, the good bed,
And my life, in perfect order:
So to hear it said

He walked out on the whole crowd
Leaves me flushed and stirred,
Like Then she undid her dress
Or Take that you bastard;
Surely I can, if he did?
And that helps me stay
Sober and industrious.
But I'd go today,

Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,
Crouch in the fo'c'sle
Stubbly with goodness, if
It weren't so artificial,
Such a deliberate step backwards
To create an object:
Books; china; a life
Reprehensibly perfect.

Philip Larkin

So you'd like to wander around in circles, malnourished and on the bink of death?

If you haven't already, you should read Krakauer's other books, Nicholas.

Mrs. Adam wants to join the Peace Corps.

I dunno, I think you can sell your possessions and otherwise make big changes in your life without actually GOING anywhere. So you don't necessarily need money. I still might depart from everything (except husband) in a couple of years though, just to see.

Funnily enough, it was only the last 2 lines I remember by heart. Had to go and look the rest up.

Kinda takes away the terror of dying, doesn't it?

This is much harder to do once you have children and stuff.

xp

I still keep this page bookmarked

Tossing your possessions much faster than selling them.

i don't think it's a good way to escape yourself (duh?) or even to find yourself, but it's prolly just as good as sitting on your ass all day. maybe better. dunno.

also ally otm, i'm planning on just leaving everything. [i'd like to hear details from ally + anyone else]

The loneliness and addiction is kind of a drag, though. Best bet: save up, find God (if going solo) or a significant other (sexual or not) and travel semi-together: few weeks on, few weeks off.

Jesus. Just reading this thread is making me want to abandon my job search.

I agree with Ned that you need a laptop (I work as a freelance editor/writer and can work anywhere as long as I have an Internet connection to email in work and can get paid via PayPal/electronic bank transfer). You need to be relatively unattached and not have kids. You need a chunk of cash upfront -- I sold my car before I left. I didn't toss my possessions; I gave/lent to/stored them with friends and family who might give 'em back if I ever go home (I haven't yet and don't think I ever will, but still...). You need to stay very, very calm and trust that things will work out, because they will.

I wonder if I am doing this in a week? I guess it doesn't really count.

I ws gonna try and defend that Larkin to 'Chel but I realised that all the bits which thrill me (that weighting on "And they are right, I think. / We all hate home", or "Surely I can, if he did?") do so mostly 'cos they remind me of other bits of Larkin. Does that count as a good enough reason for really liking it?

Anyway, the first time I did this I basically boxed my CDs and clothing and took off to a new city. Everything else was just left in my house, and was later mostly thrown out. When I left there, I left pretty much all of that shit where it was, again, because I didn't have any money to pay for shipping costs, so I took what fit in suitcases. I seem to be a fairly lucky person, securing jobs etc pretty quickly and things fell into place. I have never done this dropping everything and going all around the world type of thing though, it's more of dropping everything and running off to a new place to semi-permenently take up residence.

I guess when I moved this last time I kind of did the same thing, in regard to possessions, but I've started selling my CDs and books now instead of tossing them cos listing them on Amazon is really easy, easier than toting them to a garbage bin. Clothing, art, tapes, appliances, furniture I didn't want were all either left in place or they found their way to the trash. It's too time consuming to coordinate actually selling things, it impedes your progress towards your next destination.

Secretly, just any time I move I'd trash everything I own except now I live with someone else and I don't think he'd like it if I tossed all this furniture he just bought.

* Yeah, I'm sorry.

Back to the mossy, green (and blue) west side!

I signed up for freecycling today too - looks like a great way to get rid of stuff.

I thought this thread revival would be about Scott McCloud. He and his family started a yearlong 50-state tour this week. Apparently they've sold and given away everything, and will decide where to live next after it's over.

I hope someday Mr. Jaq and I will have the cojones to sell off all our stuff (i.e. books and records mostly) and live out our days in Italy drinking liters of wine.

Thanks for that McCloud link!

Another reminder that possessions aren't everything . . .

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http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_hoffman_on_losing_everything.html

i used to want to drop everything, quit my job, sell my possessions, and take off into the great unknown when i was younger.

now that i'm older, i want to save up aggressively and buy a small farm with solar power in the middle of nowhere (but close enough to a small town or city with, like, emergency services and stuff). i would grow my own food, have a bunch of animals, drink well water, etc. still not sure how i would go about paying the bills though. most likely by the time i'm old enough to be able to afford something like that, i won't be physically capable of maintaining that lifestyle.

I walked out of my job a few years ago after twenty some years in the workforce. The bullshit was that bad. I am chronically broke but I don't regret it, my own sanity and health were at stake. It wasn't worth it to lend my energy to a situation so fraudulent.

I'm frequently tempted by this scenario. However, I always remind myself that if I took off tonight for Berlin, Germany or Berlin, Maryland, all too soon I'd realize the problems were all in my head and came along for the ride. "Wherever you go, there you are."

i am in the process of doing this. i quit last week, i will travel half way around the world week after next. packing up, cleaning, getting rid of stuff, it all feels good.

my own sanity and health were at stake

this. and that's why i realized i had to quit. it wasn't a choice.

I think about this a lot. It's such a romantic, juvenile idea, but it doesn't go away. I love my gf, so I don't consider it a real option at all. Oh yeah, plus the CRIPPLING DEBT of graduate school. But there's always a nagging voice saying "the modern era is maybe the only time where it has been possible for a large amount of people to completely transform their lives relatively easily by relocating virtually anywhere in the world for not that much money."

At the same time, I'm sure the outcome would be absolutely disastrous. But yeah, I think about it.

I advocate more of an incrementalist approach, mainly because the "clean and complete break" almost never works out to your advantage; it places too many stresses on you. That "clean break" just breaks everything at once, and then they all need to be fixed at the same time, which is impossible. Thinking that ridding yourself of everything familiar will inspire you to new heights of creation is usually a heap of romantic tosh.

I do strongly recommend recognizing whatever seems not to be working for you, then changing whatever needs changing, one or two items at a time, beginning with the most important. Keep bashing away and don't give up. This plan works better for most people.