Nickled and Dimed and Privileged
Since I am technically traveling indefinitely as an unemployed person (even though I currently have a job), one of my focuses for this trip has been to see how far I can stretch my money, how cheaply I can live. The interesting trick it, I have been determined to do this while still not terribly constricting my life. I allow myself to buy various unessential items for entertainment or for social purposes whenever it seems appropriate to do so. So far, I have been successful far beyond my initial assumptions, especially since I'm in Boston right now. I allocate for myself an average of $10 a day for all expenses, and I've come in significantly under budget. Not only that, but most of the money that I have spent has gone toward two large expenses: buying a bike and buying a new pair of shoes. Part of being able to live on so little has to do with the standards of living I am willing to accept, but a lot has to do with various privileges that I have, so I want to dig through some of that for a little bit.
The first major way that I am saving money is by not paying rent or utilities. As many of you know. I am couch surfing from place to place. This has not been easy. twice a week, I pack up all my stuff and ride my bike across town with my 80 lbs. backpack on my back. For some of the moves I have been lucky and only had to go one or two miles, but for a few it has been as many as 5 plus. This is especially unpleasant in the rain. Changing houses all the time is also difficult because I end up feeling very unsettled. Although I feel increasingly connected to the Boston area, I think most of us like having a particular place where we can lay out our things and feel at home and know that we can come back to. I generally only have that for three to four days at a time. Also, finding housing with this system is not easy. I am lucky that I have many friends in the area that can host me. But I am also using the couch surfing website, and that requires a lot of time looking through profiles on the internet and sending requests. I would estimate that I have spent an average of at least two hours per couch surfing host sending requests if not more. The most difficult thing about moving from place to place has been the way it influences time. I consider being hosted by someone a tremendous gift for them to offer me. On the other hand, I often don't have much to offer them except for my presence and my stories. As a result, I feel a strong propulsion to make time to spend with my hosts while I am staying with them. This isn't only a matter of gratitude, it also has to do with the fact that one of the best and most interesting things about jumping around is the opportunity to meet and interact with so many people, so I want to make time to speak with my hosts for myself as well. However, I have recently become extremely busy, and I have a lot of friends here whom I want to spend time with, so making enough time for hosts has been difficult. Even harder has been coordinating schedules for the sake of getting into the house. Most hosts don't give me keys, which means I can only get into the house when they are not sleeping and not at work. Sometimes even if they give me a key because of one thing or another the hours when I can come back are restricted. And I almost always feel a need to check in. This second part has been particularly difficult because there are many occasions, such as a birthday party, working at the occupation, or even just hanging out with friends, when I want to stay out later but it is also important for me to be respectful to my generous hosts.
The list of whiny complaints hardly matches up to all of the advantages of living like this. The biggest one for me is the money saved, simply because I would run out of money in half a year if I were paying rent in Boston, and getting a full time job to pay for it would no longer allow me to do what I am doing, so living cheaply is essential. But it has also been a lot of fun to see different people's houses, get a taste for different lifestyles, and through couch surfing, meet new people. My first hose here was a theater student from Taiwan who I have kind of kept in touch with enough that last night he invited me to a dumpling making party. I got to stay in the MIT dorms. And this is a good way for me to make sure I spend time with people I already know here.Another great aspect is that I get to know many different parts of town. There are a few places I go to all the time anyway, but by living out of different areas of town for a few days at a time, I really get a sense of different neighborhoods. It's also really heart warming to experience everyone's generosity. All of my hosts have been exceedingly generous an have displayed it in different ways.
I think it is important for me to recognize that while this system has worked relatively well for me so far, it wouldn't necessarily work for everyone, in part because of privileges that I have. The most obvious is that I am starting this journey with a computer, a cellphone with a plan that I am not paying for, a strong understanding of how to navigate the internet, and knowledge and some experience with couch surfing. None of those things should be taken for granted, and this would not work if they were not all present. I also have a strong network of friends here which reflects a diversity of places I have been and ties that my family has maintained, also something not everyone has to start out with. Being able bodied and healthy so that I can bike around with all of my belongings has been crucial. Being able to travel alone has greatly aided my ability to find housing. That last one references a few things. It references the fact that I have no dependents, be they kids, family members with debilitating conditions, or anyone else that I have to be directly responsible for. It is also a reflection of male privilege. While many women do travel and couch surf on their own, and at least according to reported responses on the couch surfing website, those experiences are by and large extremely safe, we still live in a society that makes it much more dangerous for women to live such a life style, be it being hosted by their own in strangers houses or biking alone at night. So there are many ways in which I am fortunate to be able to lead the type of nomadic life I lead now.
Another place where I have saved a lot of money, and actually been much more successful than I had originally anticipated, is food. In the last month and a half I've spent only about twenty dollars on food. Realistically, after my first day in Boston, I never bought food for myself because I needed food. I found Food not Bombs, which I discussed in the last post. That provided me with 2 healthy meals a week, and I would always pack some out so actually 4 to 6 meals a week. Between meals I would eat bread and peanut butter from FNB as well, and to get a little diversity in, I would eat free food at MIT events, take veggies from FNB and cook them myself, eat food that my hosts would give me, or find free food in a number of other places (I planned which day to donate blood based on which day I wasn't going to get free food so that I could supplement with whatever food I receive after donating). Although this worked for the most part, it involved eating a lot of food that was starting to go bad, and meant that my diet consisted primarily of bread and peanut butter. If things had continued in that way, I would probably be supplementing my diet more, but probably only to the tune of a few dollars a week. What happened instead is that Occupy Boston started. I'll talk more about occupy Boston below, but it's relevant to food because it means that there is a 24 hour food tent in downtown Boston where I can get a healthy meals or at least healthy food whenever I want.
There are a number of important privileges that play into my ability to eat food this way. The most prominent is that I have no allergies or dietary restrictions of any sort, which provides maximum flexibility. Not having dependents is also pretty important, because while I am willing to subject myself to the crazy diets I have undergone here, I would not be willing to subject anyone under my care to them. Computer, internet skills, and prior knowledge of networks had played a major factor. Time has also played a large role. I've spent a lot of time volunteering with FNB to feel ok eating a lo of FNB food, and I have done the same at the occupation. When I was more reliant on free food at MIT, I had to spend time seeking it out and had to make sure I was available when the food was available. Finally, being abel to look like a student has been very helpful in blending in to get food at MIT.
So that was very long, but it give an idea of how I have pushed living cheaply and what privilege I have to help me along the path. I am sure there are many other elements of privilege that have helped me along which I have not recognized yet, privilege by its nature tends to be invisible to those who have it, but I have found it important to reflect on it while traveling around. I think by far the greatest privilege is having no responsibilities. The fact that I have no debt, no monthly payments or bills of any sort, and no individual that depends on my financial or material support, frees me to focus only on what is happening to me in the present, and to fantasize about the future. I wish that everyone were able to do so if they chose, because it is one of the most liberating experiences I can imagine.
Getting Tired
In the last week or so I have been extremely tired, and I have tried to figure out why that might be. I think one major factor is that I am doing more physical exercise than I ever have on a regular basis. I think I may have mentioned last time that I was biking an average of 5-10 miles a day. At this point I am biking an average of 15-20 miles a day, with many days topping 20 and a few reaching 30. Basically I go to the FNB house in Alston almost everyday, and I go to the occupation at south station almost everyday. Those are about five miles apart, so with a couple of trips and a few other stops, it doesn't take long for me to top fifteen miles. I'm sure this is really good for me, but I am not in shape enough for it, and it leaves my legs achy and my body tired.
Another component is that I am very busy. I now have a part time job. I am research fellow at the Sustainable Endowments Institute. I got the job because my friend Rob told me they were looking for someone and put in a good word for me, I wasn't actually looking for work at the time. SEI did the green report card, for those of you who know about that, and now is working on a project called the billion dollar green challenge, which aims to encourage colleges, universities, and other institutions to create or expand green revolving funds. My job mainly consists of staring at a computer screen or making phone calls. It's not bad though, my coworkers are a lot of fun and I think the project itself is really important. I work 20 hours a week, Tuesday-Thursday, so I get four day weekends. But I am sure that adds to my tiredness load.
I also do a lot of volunteer work. I talked a little bit about my volunteering last time, but it has only increased since then. I've been loosely keeping track of the hours I do with different groups. FNB is by far my biggest time suck, and I've volunteered on average 22 hours a week with them. Much of that has been in the past two weeks though, ever since the occupation started. If I count all of my volunteer hours together, it averages out to 32 hours a week. That's getting close to a full time job, especially by European standards. Granted, this is tough to calculate because most of this volunteerism is not at an organization that clocks me in and out. This means that some of the hours I'm counting amount to sitting around and hanging out with friends. But to compensate, there are certain efforts that I decided not to count. Long story short, it's a lot of time. If you throw in trying to be social, and all of the time spent on housing and food hunting that I discussed above, the pieces of being exhausted start to come together. But as you all know, I love it, that's what I live for.
One thing that I dropped form my schedule is my BU class. I was sitting in on a politics of education class at BU in order to still get some college going. The class turned out to be pretty terrible, and the professor regularly said things that don't make much sense. Not only did she go on long tangents that were nto related to class material or particularity interesting, although occasionally humorous, but she also made comments that bothered me. I'll give a few examples that I can still remember. While discussing theories of education, we discussed conflict theory, which splits into the neo-Marxist and neo-Weberian forms, and which argue that we create rank-orders that stratify students (these theories tend to be focused on class distinctions) and create unequal educational opportunities and outcomes. The neo-Marxist theory asserts that communism would resolve this issue by eliminating class distinctions. I think there are many good critiques of this theory, but hers was that we have experienced communist countries and they still had inequality in their educational systems, so clearly the theory is wrong. First off, I doubt any Marxist scholar would concede that we have seen a successful communist country. The first successful communist revolution was in Russia, led by Lenin's vanguard, which was heavily criticized by all of the prevalent Marxist scholars at the time. Lenin pressured other countries to adopt his model in transitioning to communism, meaning most countries were Leninist and not Marxist. The one notable exception is China which deviated even farther from original Marx under Maoist philosophy. Several other east Asian countries that adopted communism took a Maoist route, but no country has undergone a communist transformation that follows the path that Marx set out, so the historical reference is extremely inaccurate. What's worse, someone asked if education systems under communist regimes decreased inequality. The professor said they did, but that they also restricted freedom, so they were unpalatable to us. This is of course a non-sequitur because the question is whether the theory about educational quality and inequality accurately described the situation and provided meaningful solutions, the way those solutions manifest themselves in the rest of society is a secondary conversation. no to mention that she knew freedom was restricted in communist countries because she has seen a few movie about them and they were frightening. People just got snatched off the street and killed. After she mentioned it I recalled seeing that in the communist manifesto. Somewhere between the historical development of exploitation and the call to proletariat of the world, Marx insisted on a governemnt that arbitrarily killed people. It just saddens me that a professor who has taught political science at BU for almost 40 years would have such a ridiculous mentality toward communism. She also made some great comments about "climate change" with finger quotation marks. Apparently what they are actually talking about is global warming. And global warming has been happening since the last ice age. That day we left class after she posed the question to us, "do you want to go back to the ice age?" Anyway, I decided this was not a fruitful use of my time and stopped attending.
Revolution
Most of my time and energy in the last two weeks have been devoted to Occupy Boston. I hope all of you have heard at least something about the occupy movement, which started with occupy wall st. and has spread around the world. There are many many things that I could say about the occupation, so I will try to pick and choose.
One of the random things I have really enjoyed has been terminology. First, the terminology of occupation has been really interesting. Occupation usually has a negative connotation in these circles. This has led to some entertaining signs and chants. Those who realize the word overlap have done things like create signs that read "Occupy Boston, not Palestine". On the other hand, during an anti-war rally, we would sometimes go back to back on with chants like "all day all, week occupy wall st." and then "money for jobs and education not for wars and occupation". Another fun part has been all the people who have been referring to this as the revolution, or "the rev" for short. It's pretty much all in jest, but I enjoying talking about how I did this or that right around when the rev started.
One interesting thing has been talking to people about messaging. A lot of people feel that the movement doesn't have a clear message or doesn't know what it wants, and that this is legitimizing. I have several responses to that. First, I think there is a clear message. The clear message is a demand for equality. If you want it slightly more fleshed out, here is a cool one page description of what many occupiers would agree on: http://mediamattersaction.org/
If you read through it, you will see that there are still no clear demands. I see that as a good thing. I think it's time to move past clear demands. I think it should not be our responsibility to come up with the clear demands. I think Jon Stewart did a great job of demonstrating how insane it is to expect us to present the outline for the future (6:30-8:30, although I recommend watching the whole sketch). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Some people worry that the protests won't lead to anything if they don't have clear demands. I disagree. I think they raise awareness. I think they make clear that we will only stand for so much. I think they demonstrate that there is a real contingent ready to fight for these causes, politically and otherwise. To see others who are more versed and eloquent describe it, check out these two articles: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/
This is also not about giving a suggestion for a bill that may or may not pass through congress and will somehow magically fix all of our problems. Part of what we are doing is creatively imagining the world we want to live in, the society we want to create, and communities we wish to nurture, by actually living. This demonstration is not only a lashing out against unjust systems that have failed us, but an attempt to build new ones that serve us better. At a march the other day, I saw a sign that said "demand nothing, occupy everything". We are tired of asking and not interested in demanding. We are creating. and two that end I give you a video of Van Jones and transcription of a speech made by Naomi Klein who seem to think in a similar vein: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.thenation.com/
And that leads to the part that has been most interesting for me. Those of you who know me well know that for the most part I tend to be rational to a fault and attempt to do politics within the realm of realistic achievements. While I see that work as very important, I have grown tired of it. It is time for me to take a turn with radial idealism. And when I say radical, I mean at the root. I mean looking at the system and saying it is fundamentally broken and needs to be replaced even if I don't know how to do so or what to replace it with. I mean advocating for an oppression free society even if I have time imagining one in a world where oppression is so entrenched. On a march the other day, one of the chants was a call and response chant: "What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!" Someone I was marching next to was mockingly chanting different words: "What do we want? Gradual change. When do we want it? Whenever we get it." That has been much of my mentality for the past few years of activism. And in that time, most of the things I have worked on have digressed, with the one possible exception of drug policy reform. But my current problem with working on activism rationally and realistic is not its effectiveness. Radical idealism is not often described as effective. It has more to do with honesty. Dealing with political realities involves a lot of lying to myself and to everyone I talk to about what truly matters. It means advocating for changes that I don't like, changes that may even violate some of my deeper values, simply because they are better than the status quo. That work is important, and I have the utmost respect for those willing to engage in it. But I want a break. I want to take the time to advocate only for what I truly believe in. To harshly criticize the better of two evils for still being evil. To reject an improvement to the status quo that doesn't reach far enough because it further entrenches the idea that how far it goes is acceptable. I don't expect any of my ideas to be enacted on a societal level. I don't expect to see any of the transformation I am hoping for. But this way I am at least truly advocating on my behalf. And maybe because the message has greater appeal, because the basis for it is not corrupted by political realities, more people will be drawn to it, and will begin advocating for real change as well. Maybe then what will be agreed on, somewhere in the middle, will be that much better. But that's not the point. the point is that for at least a little while, I refuse to sell out.
In solidarity,
