I am living in paradise.
Contrary to what most people might think, the abundance this place has to offer, is of value. Not of money and stuff.
My daily routine is quite different from what I knew until recently. I am currently living in a tent – quite comfortably – and plan to build my house from Timber that I will mill myself from logs.
I have solar power, a satlink, a nice refrigerator, access to beer, fresh fish out of sea or the lake, fresh beef and pork every now and then – slaughtered under a tree and the portions hacked off with a panga. You buy it at R 20 a piece. Still hot from the carcass. I buy live chicken for dinner. One is big enough to feed 8 men.
Most importantly, I have freedom, space and the wonderful people here who teach me again how to enjoy life without all the earthly stuff that we became attached to and see as a requirement for pleasure. Cell phones, branded clothing, all the buttons in your car, excess food and drinks, movies and takeaways.
The challenges I have for a day, is to keep the cows out of my vegetable garden, to time my makeshift solar shower so that I don’t burn my skin off, or take a cold one on rain days, and to learn with what I can do without. Those types of things.
I work physically hard during the day, lost a considerable amount of weight as well as my blood pressure pills and most of the medication I “needed”. I am burned honey brown from the sun as I walk most days with only shorts and barefoot. It is quite cool to again culture a natural 6-pack approaching the age 50...
In the mean time, I still does consulting work over my satlink and design custom electronics that I can ship directly from the factory to the customer. I don’t even need a warehouse.
When there is load shedding, I am not affected. And when the riots will break out in the cities when ESKOM has the first blackout, we probably will only notice that our cell phone tower does not come on again.
Being alive alone just is not worth it.
Perhaps, would you reconsider what you are busy with?
