Freeconomy Blog
Thu
25 Dec
Happy Christmas Freeconomists!
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Two days ago I started off on a moneyless hitchhike from the south west of the UK to the north west of Ireland, a journey of about 1,000km. I was really hoping that I would make it home for Christmas with my parents, and my main worry was that if I wasn’t home by about 10pm on Christmas Eve, I would have had to spend Christmas Day walking up the barren roads of Ireland with very little food at my disposal.
It was a very interesting experiment for me as I knew it could go either of two ways – the first being that the Christmas spirit would prevail and I’d get home no problem, the second potential outcome being that people would be too busy to want to lift a complete stranger on the last day of the Christmas shopping period. Or because the media has convinced people over the last decade that we are all murders, rapists or paedophiles.
It turns out, thankfully, that the Christmas spirit is not dead yet! I got fourteen hitches in total, and I think the longest I had to wait was about fifteen minutes. I met a really diverse bunch of people on the way, a lot of whom I would normally not have had a chance to talk with and whose lifestyles, I would say, were quite destructive. But it really affirmed my belief that inside everyone there is the desire to help people. Take this guy for example – he just got out of prison after a year inside for some fight he got into – its got to be quite gruesome to get a year over a fight. He’s talking the whole way up about how you should just spend cash as you get it and not worry about anything else. So pretty safe to say he’s not the kind of guy I would normally get the chance to hang out with these days.
He brought me about an hour and a half up the road, though not in the direction I first planned. About thirty minutes after I got out though I realised I’d left my aluminum water bottle in his car, which was empty anyway as there was no drinking water on the ferry for those of us (well, just me!) who couldn’t buy some; the tap water on boats is full of chemicals. But about 20 minutes after my realisation, this car pulls up, and it’s him again; he’s just spent the last hour trying to track me down in order to give me back the bottle.
It was so touching. Yeah OK, I wish he hadn’t used all the diesel he did just to give me that, but nevertheless it was such an act of kindness from someone who, from his one words, was always in trouble with the police and who was deemed by society to be a ‘bad’ person. There are no ‘bad’ people. Yes certain actions are negative, but that doesn’t mean the actress or actor is bad. We need to be clear about this distinction. Inside every single person is a huge potential for generosity, for giving, for kindness, if only we would let people show it more often.
It took me two days to get home, which in modern terms is huge; you can go from Bristol to Sydney quicker than that. But for me it’s not about speed. Travel does not start when you ‘get there’; it starts the moment you leave mentally. We’ve lost our sense of adventure these days, comfort and speed taking precedence over adventure. Over the last few days I didn’t know whether or not I’d even make it to Ireland, and if I did whether I would get stranded or end up somewhere really random. And it was so much fun! I also managed to travel the whole way without spending a penny or by using any extra energy.
If you are going to watch a movie over Christmas, then I’d really recommend two films - ‘Money as Debt’ and ‘Zeitgeist Addendum’. And whilst I definitely don’t share the same philosophy as either of these movies (especially not the technology section of Zeitgeist) as I think they have a limited understanding, they do explain what money actually is, how it comes into existence and how it affects our lives in a very simplistic way. That’s because beneath the jargon of economists who like to use convoluted words in the expectation that they’ll be perceived as being more intelligent, the monetary system is actually very simple. ‘Convoluted words’, by the way, is a convoluted way of saying ‘big words’.
I don’t think it is possible to understand the world we live in today without understanding what both these films talk about, especially the first twenty minutes of both. They’re not exactly ’Mary Poppins’ or ‘Herbie Goes Bananas at Walmart and Kills a Worker’, but watching at least one of them I would say is essential viewing for anyone who doesn’t understand what money actually is and how it comes into existence.
I’ll leave you with a quote from, by Peyton Conway March, that we all would do well to remember this Christmas. “There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else”. To give is to live.
Buying is an addiction. Give up all unnecessary expenditure for the New Year. Please. Make 2009 the year we really start caring for our natural environment and every human and non-human species that has the privilege of spending some time on it.
I hope you have had a really happy solstice, I hope you are having a very giving Christmas and I hope in the New year you resolve to be whatever it is you choose to be. You can BE anything, and you really can do anything. No false limits. BE strong.
THE FREECONOMY BLOG is written by Mark Boyle, founder of The Freeconomy Community. If you want to respond, debate or ask questions, please just comment below; you will have to sign in first.
Comment on this Post:
Sue Varner comments ...
Merry Christmas to you too, Mark. :) It sounds like your trip home was a good one, and I hope the time spent with your family will be as much so.
Nice to see the Khalil Gibran quotes here. 'The Prophet' has been a favourite book of mine for over 20 years now ~ I still have my original, which, funnily enough, was a Christmas present from my husband at the time. ;)
Anton in Hastings comments ...
Hey Mark, seasons greetings to you. I was wondering what you might get up to over the festive season. I'm very pleased to hear you made it to Ireland. My God it's cold enough here I can't imagine how cold it is over there, I was in that area last Christmas, it is very beautiful. I may have to pay you a visit some time in 2009 as I am planning to go to relatives fairly nearby so might get round to your area too. I have it in the back of my mind to do a long trip overland at the end of next year, I would be interested to know if you are planning any trips abroad. Kind regards from a cold but bright sussex coast, Anton.
Jo comments ...
Hi Mark,
I recently came back from a hitching trip to Spain where I was on retreat in the wild Catalunyan mountains over xmas and new year. Really beautiful, opening and enriching. Just to let you know for future reference, it is possible to hitch boats by getting a lift on with a truck. Stand with your thumb out or ask at petrol stations and you will find somebody to take you. I've done it a few times now.
Speak soon I hope - been too long,
Jo xxx
Marcia33Bender comments ...
Some time before, I did need to buy a good car for my corporation but I did not have enough money and couldn't buy anything. Thank God my sister proposed to try to take the www.lowest-rate-loans.com at trustworthy bank. Thus, I did that and used to be happy with my collateral loan.
