I guess the best example I can think of is Chris McCandless
Then there’s the North Pond Hermit of Maine but I suppose people would not classify him as free of mental illness.
Just wondering how many people are out there living in caves, walking around, hiking trails, hopping trains, or living in National Forests full time who really aren’t mentally ill and just choose that lifestyle. What do you think?
There used to be (still is?) a guy who lived in Albany NY known as the Mayor of Lark St. I think he said he had a degree, but he was willingly homeless. Made money running errands for local businesses. Everyone in the Lark St neighborhood knew this guy.
He seemed plenty sane to me.
I imagine most of those just go off grid. Being a homeless wanderer is very hard. Much easier to shun society from inside a cabin.
Most of them live in their car.
train hoppers come to mind.
Thanks for that link! The looks interesting…watching it now. That reminds me of the book Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. They hop and ride a train up to San Francisco in the beginning of the book.
Yeah, I met a retired guy who just went around the country using his pensioner’s bus pass and slept where he could.
You met Reacher?
Not quite homeless, Paul Erdős was a nomadic mathematician. He use to travel to universities, couch-surf with a mathematician, and solve a problem with them.
He would say, “another roof, another proof.” As a result, he has a huge number of collaborators. The stat Erdős number is like the six degrees from Kevin Bacon game.
People seemed glad to have this oddball stranger as a house guest.
Yes, actually. Very rare, but yes. Diogenes is probably the best example I could think of for that kind of behavior.
The same Diogenes that grabbed a chicken, plucked it, then threw it at a lecture? Dude was crazy.
Grabbed a chicken,
plucked itturned it into a man, then threw it at a lectureOk, maybe diogenes wasn’t the best example, but still.
I wonder how he would react to people talking about him 25 or so centuries later. I am betting he would be annoyed.
That or happy because people actually listened to him.
There are multiple monastic traditions of shunning all material things, some of which include housing.
Yeah, that sounds like the story of the The Buddha. I think he chained himself to a tree at one point and refused to eat.
Different religion but from the same area, Jain ascetics are the ones I am most familiar with that would fit more what you might have been wondering about.
I’ve met two. Used to work with them on a ranch when I was a kid. Cool guys, wouldn’t live in the same place for more than three months.
One of the dudes carried around a tiny TV with a built in VHS and a handful of movies. The other guy was just heading South, I think maybe going to Mexico.
When they decided to move on they just left, no goodbyes or heads up… just gone one day.
Were you able to ask them why they lived that way? Was there anything odd about them? Like could they function socially and hold down a regular long-term job?
Never asked them directly, figured they tell me if they wanted to but it never came up.
Nothing notably odd outside of their lifestyle. Neither one did drugs or drank. The VHS guy crashed in the ranch manager’s garage, which was my neighbor, so I’d chill with him and watch movie sometimes. They both had a great sense of humor.
They showed up to work on time everyday, worked hard, and just did normal stuff off-hours. No reason they couldn’t stay in one place as far as I could tell. I was 17 at the time, so I could have missed some cues, but nothing made them stand out.
We all made $5.25 under the table and got free lunch. It was a pretty good gig for a teenager and someone that didn’t care about taxes. I guess once they got enough money under their belt to move on, they did.
There was a sub for this on the other site. I think it was called vagrant?
I don’t know about that last part, but like I was hit by a driver riding a bicycle to work and unless something drastic changes, in the next 10 years I will be one of those homeless people.
There is no social safety net in the USA. I was hit by a foreign political refugee with the competency of a 3rd grader, and that is being generous. I’m still able to walk and mostly function so long as I spend most of the day laying down. I can’t hold posture, am in constant pain about on par with a bee sting or worse, enough that it never escapes my conscious thought, and never sleep more than 4-6 hours, I’m a zombie of my former self. My problems are difficult to diagnose and our litigious society means neurosurgeons are not willing to look very deeply into complicated cases as risking decades of schooling is not on their priority list. If your radiologist’s report from an MRI fails to show an easy diagnosis to treat, no reputable neurosurgeon will chase problems any deeper. It is easy to fall through the cracks. Like my damage is thoracic. That region is rarely damaged and is like 5% of all cases a neurosurgeon treats. I’m the kind of person you see homeless out there or a Fentanyl statistic eventually.
I’m above average smart by most people’s admission, but simply turning my head left can send me on a 2-3 week spiral of extraordinary pain and little to no sleep.
Do they have any persistent pain clinics where you’re from?
I went to pain management for a few years. I was miserable. For me, pain drugs just dull my mind until I don’t care any more. I can’t do or care about anything interesting when I take those. Anything for sleep causes major problems too. I must toss and turn constantly, even when sleeping or I lock up in terrible ways. There was one time I couldn’t even walk or sit upright at all for 3 days. I have to lay down most of the time and spend 1.5-2 hours doing a physical therapy routine most days to be able to have the most overall consistency day to day.
That sucks man. Unfortunately pain is a complex beast with no easy fixes. I hope you can find a solution that gives you a better quality of life.
Search for “Dag Aabye”. There a short documentary about him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcJoW9Lwzs0
No doubt it depends what you mean by “mentally ill”, and also how nomadic they need to be to qualify.
That’s the vagabond lifestyle, and yes there’s a modest number of them. It’s apparently a hard life, but at least you’re pretty much completely free.
They’re basically hippies, they mostly bum rides. Dumpster diving is popular. People give them stuff too. You meet more in places where winter isn’t really a thing, just cuz winter gets kinda cold, and they can go where they want, so they don’t really stay there.
squattheplanet.com has a long running forum if you want a bit of insight into the culture
Edit although rereading OP I feel 90% of the vagabond / dirty kid / oogle folks I’ve known have all had on and off hard drug and mental health issues at a way higher percentage than the normal population.
Winter is not just kinda cold in many places, it’s downright fatal.
I have been watching a YouTube called “cheap RV Living”that interviews a lot of people that live in their car/suv/van nomad living. (Also watching tons of others too, but this is the main channel).
Soon I will need to move so I’m converting my suv into a mini camper. Going to travel and find land to live on. Love being able to live cheaply and freely. No more motel/hotels.
I’ve met quite a few people like this and anecdotally there seemed to be a trend. Nearly all of them lost someone or had something horrific happen to them and just weren’t interested in any of it anymore. I’ve yet to meet anyone that all of the sudden found some sort of peaceful enlightenment.
Forest Gump did, then he got tired and decided to go home
I think even the McCandless case probably isn’t a good example of someone who is mentally well, considering his sister has spoken out about how their father was very physically abusive. It’s technically possible to walk away from that without any problems but I wouldn’t bet on it.
