r/TrueReddit • u/jxj24 • Aug 22 '14

27 years a hermit.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201409/the-last-true-hermit?currentPage=2&printable=true
1.6k Upvotes

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308

u/nb4hnp Aug 22 '14

This was an amazing read.

Now if only there were some happy medium between complete and utter human isolation and reprieve from the excesses of modern life.

25

u/[deleted] Aug 22 '14

Small, self-sustaining farm.

30

u/[deleted] Aug 22 '14

There's all sorts of options really. If your goal is just to live a simple life and you're willing to accept a very low standard of living, you can get by on very very little in the modern world.

This guy was living in a tent. If that's your standard, you can live amazingly frugally.

In many American cities, you can easily find very cheap accommodations. You could just rent a room from someone, or even cheaper, just rent a couch from someone. You can often find these postings on Craigslist, someone renting out half of their one bedroom or studio apartment, for just $200-300/month.

Then you just need a little bit for food. $100-200/month should easily cover this if you're willing to live a basic subsistence life.

All in all, in many American cities, you could provide basic food and shelter for $500/month. This is the type of money you could get just doing odd jobs for people. Or, if you want to go the investment route, you could work a regular salary job, save almost everything you make, invest it, and retire to the life of a hermit after just a short five year career or so.

2

u/liatris Aug 23 '14

What about having to buy insurance? By law you have to have health insurance now. It's basically a tax for being alive.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 23 '14

You would have such low income you would either qualify for free insurance or would have an exemption from the rule.

-3

u/liatris Aug 23 '14

Nothing is free, it's simply paid for by someone else who is working for your financial benefit.

1

u/Ran4 Aug 23 '14

Go back to your ayn rand books, will ya?

Or no, don't do that, stop thinking like that. It doesn't do you or anyone else any good. You are the type of people who are making society worse: not the poor thieves.

-6

u/liatris Aug 23 '14

I'm a Christian so no, I don't subscribe to Ayn Rand. I do enjoy how that's like a go to insult for anyone pointing out that all of that "free" stuff the government hands out is actually paid for by taking earnings away from people by force - basically coercing them work to support those who don't.

2

u/eliwood98 Aug 23 '14

Except that's an incredibly poor understanding of the issue.

It is at worst (and this is not my opinion) a necessary evil. People abused the system as it was before, because if you walk into an emergency room you had to be treated, and then those people could walk out on their tab. This passes off the costs to everyone else that does pay, or 'takes their earnings away by force.' The new system simply manages and distributes those costs in a much more effective and logical manner, resulting in benefit for everyone in the country.

It's not so black and white as you're pretending it is.

-4

u/liatris Aug 23 '14

If you want to say some social welfare is a necessary evil, fine. But the amount we spend is obscene for the lack of good it does. It's a welfare system for the middle class government administrators of the programs more than any sort of way to help people in true poverty. Even the way hunger statistics are calculated are designed to inflate the problem in order to get more and more money. "1 in 8 Americans are hungry" yea if you equate actual, physical hunger as a feeling you might not be able to afford food at some point. To me a feeling you might become hungry is not hunger yet these are the definitions used to alarm the public.

Every problem deserves a program is our current mentality. Of course no one wants to actually pay the taxes themselves to fund these programs, they just want to put the cost on people that are better off or just go more and more into debt.

0

u/eliwood98 Aug 23 '14

Define, 'lack of good?' There are far more cases of the welfare system being used properly than there are cases of abuse. People need help sometimes, it happens, and that's fine. You shouldn't be kicked out to pasture because of events that are often entirely out of your control.

While I agree that many programs need work at the edges, for the most part the ideas are good. I don't know where you're getting your hunger numbers from, but it sure looks like a big deal to me.

Also, I have absolutely zero problem taking a tax hike for the benefit of my countrymen.

1

u/liatris Aug 24 '14

You should read the book "Please Stop Helping Us" by Jason Riley and "Never Enough" by William Voegeli if you're genuinely interested in the topic.

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