I didn’t just set out living in a small, self-made cabin on wheels with no running water or electricity entirely on a whim. The cabin where I spent a lot of time as a kid and where I’m now staying forms much of the ideas for and practice for my current house.

 

The cabin is on a peninsula by a fjord, so there’s no fresh water, no electricity or other so-called modern facilities. There is, or was, peace and quiet, living creatures and weird things in the woods.

The cabin is not by any sane standards ‘primitive’, it’s quite full of comfortable solutions, like a cooling cabinet dug close to the rock that will keep drinks chilled and most not-terribly perishable foods, like eggs and cheese, preserved.  Most of these ideas I’ve grown up with and could in various ways adapt to my wagon.

I really believe spending so much time here made me better prepared for a life on the road, for finding solutions to a lifestyle on the edge of society. There are so many small things that needs to be learned, or better, internalized as a way of being, of moving. As an adult, I probably would have had a harder time getting used to little tings like not throwing out the water you boiled your morning eggs in purely on reflex, or collecting rain water for washing.

There is a lot (well, not a lot, not as much as it should be, but more than a while ago) of talk about adapting to climate change and system collapse. A growing number of people are starting to doubt that their current lives are going to continue along the same lines. And very often, we are presented with a bunch of ‘smart’ solutions. That we can buy. For a price. But the key to adapting is really quite simple. You look, and you listen.

You look at where you actually, physically are, and what else is there. And you listen to your surroundings. Water is not always above ground, animal paths lead ways through the forest. Because as much as I have picked up clever ways of cooling by drinks and storing water, the main thing I learnt by being largely self reliant, is that things really exist. It sounds obvious, but it’s something largely gone from our modern minds. We live on the planet as if it’s already dead and we’re the only real creatures left on in. Some delve into fantasies about living in simulations or illusions.

But things are real, even the things you can’t see. You can live outside society, but it takes a lot more room and a lot more practice than just casting the yoke and running off. And while money doesn’t grow on trees, food actually does. Unless some mad bastard has chopped them down to make money.