Back in a previous post I mentioned that I wanted to try something, to see how it might go,  just for the hell of it.  To just opt out somewhat from the expectations of society.  I called it a society fast, to not buy into the things that society says that you have to do.

Well that week back in March of last year went okay and my world didn’t end. I still did what needed to be done when things needed to be done and I was able to do whatever I wanted to do as I felt inspired.  So I kept doing it, the society fast.  Doing what I wanted to do as I wanted to do it.

Hanging with Friends in Buenos Aires

And guess what?  I haven’t stopped.  I haven’t found the need or desire to buy back into what society says that I’m supposed to do.  What am I talking about I hear you say?

I’m taking about how our Western Society says that we have to do certain things, like relationships, work,  income, career, worry and stress about tomorrow and how it’s going to be when I’m old and I don’t have enough money in my retirement fund, how at my time of life I should be in this certain type of lifestyle, all of that sort of thing.

That’s why I started the society fast to have a break for just one week away from that and see what would happen and I haven’t stopped.  That was 16 months ago and it has been some of the best times of my life because I’m living in the moment and just doing what is right for now and it keeps working.

Now before you think I have it easy, that’s not my point.  In the last 16 months I have worked for income in an employed situation for only 6 weeks and earned $12,000.  I’ve additionally done a little audio and video recording and editing work and earned another couple of thousand dollars but that is all.  I have been leaning on my credit card and I’m slowly going backwards at about $1000/mth but I’m fine with that.  I live a very lean life and I have everything I need and desire little more.

For a long time I was looking for something to put my attention to, some strong focus and direction that society says that you have to have to be a member of this society.  That was causing me grief and one of the reason for starting this society fast, to have some chill time away from that stress.

The thing(and this is important) is that I couldn’t find that career focus even once I started the society fast.  So my focus was just on living in the moment and doing what was appropriate each day.  I continued to look for something, learn and live, moment by moment and my life still didn’t break.  In actual fact it kept getting better.  I still went to Buenos Aires in July for four weeks and the work I did do on the film last year was better and more rewarding than I expected and reinforced that this was still the correct path.  I continued to produce Your Story and I continued to look for a way to generate some income from something that impassioned me.  And while nothing appeared instead of becoming frustrated and running all over the place with angst in my heart, like I used to, I just chilled and did what seemed appropriate in the moment… and all was good.

I can do anything I want at any time I want because I’m free to choose my daily activities and follow my passions.  Sure more money would give me additional options like travel which I desire but for the moment my priorities are finding direction and I need time for that and employment would rob that most valuable commodity from me.

Relaxed and chilled, doing what I liked for months, living lean, dancing tango and learning from those around me and always aware that when the time is right the inspiration will appear, I just wasn’t mature enough in something yet for me to see it.  And then it appeared…

“When the student is ready the teacher will appear”

I discovered it(yes discovered), I didn’t dream it up, it was waiting out there all along for me to mature in something and become ready to see what was always there.  I discovered Create Your Life Story as a way of taking what I care about(other peoples stories), blending it with what I’ve learned producing Your Story, adding a pinch of my learning’s of internet business courtesy of Internet Business Mastery and ProBlogger, then wrapping it all up into what I desire to have as a lifestyle that resonates with me.  Sixteen months later, I’m still here living the dream of fasting from the expectations of society and it’s still working.

Sure I realise that I have no money and it is too easy if I allow it, to start to worry about how I’ll pay for even the necessities in a months time. So I don’t think about it until I can do something about it and I always think of something when the time is right, in the mean time I do what is right for now.  Now it felt right to write this post and get these thoughts down, a little later this afternoon I’ll probably do some more study and learning or maybe write a post on Create your Life Story or edit some video or maybe send that invoice that I should send off, I don’t know but it’s(this lifestyle) working.

How do I know that it’s working?

I’m happy!  That’s all.

Is there any other measure of how well a life is working?  I don’t expect happiness from external effects, happiness resides in me and I know that by living this lifestyle it suits me.  I have the time and energy to explore the ideas that I think are important for my life(not yours dear reader), I can only say that for me.  I would love Create Your Life Story and Your Story to become successful, earn a good income for a few dreams that I would like to create and travel a lot.  I’m moving to create that reality but one thing I do know is,  I can’t create it if I buy into societal expectations.  It sucks the very life essence out of me and I would not be happy over there again as a wage slave, I would not ever be successful either.  I may or not be successful here but I know that I will be happy and if I’m only happy, “I Win”

Book Stands for the Movie

this crazy life of mine and how it flies in the face of the Western method of work, whether it’s valid or irresponsible of me, if I’m burning my bridges for my future or if maybe I may actually have something here.

When I finished I knew I had to do the whole readjust again back into the mental head-space of just hanging out doing my thing again. It’s very easy to plug into work, as once I’m on a Job there is a first morning where I get up and head off to another first day and from then on it’s routine. The longer I work in that one place the more ingrained the routine becomes and the more comfortable it all is. That is until the routine becomes boredom. Then another type of stress starts where I question my existence and waste of life in that environment and yet again I have to leave to find myself.

That is very much the way it is for most of the permanent work that I’ve done and the great advantage of working contract is that normally I can stick it out long enough until the project is complete which hopefully isn’t too long and then I get the change that I need. So film work often suits me well in this regard.

Finishing and readjusting to no work is not as easy as compared to starting as I don’t have the distractions that work gives me from what I call the “Void” or “Nothing”. However there are two ways to approach this.

1. Get another Job is what everyone asks and expects. In a lot of ways that is the easiest option. But for me after all these years of doing the variations on this lifestyle I know that it will go the way that I’ve outlined above. Normally six months and I’m a spent force, bored and ready to move on. It even tends to manifest in physical disturbances in my body brought on by the low but permanent levels of stress.
2. Embrace the Void. Now it’s not exactly Nothing. It’s not as though I wake up sit down and do nothing until I go back to sleep that night as I have my personal projects and day to day order to keep functioning so there is a whole range of activities and a constant supply of new and interesting opportunities turning up daily to keep me active. However compared to the 40 hour week, 48 week year work model it appears to be a void that requires filling.

The challenges with embracing the Void is that there is no order projected onto the future, no planning and no surety. It’s very much living in the moment and taking the opportunities as they arrive on a moment by moment time frame. That flies in the face of the Western model of how to get things done. I’m supposed to have lists, goals, plans for what I want to achieve and a step by step approach to achieving them. I’ve read the books on goal setting and that’s the way they say to achieve what your after. Sure that’s the model and if you have a specific goal that is what you do to achieve it, I get that.

But what if you haven’t the goal at the moment?

For the last couple of years my podcast Your Story has been a goal, a huge goal, to get the knowledge and have a production model in place but I never knew what I was going to do with it beyond getting it up and running and hoping that some opportunities may come of it. So I’ve been working at learning everything I needed to get it going but now that’s been achieved it’s bubbling along and I don’t have the next step.

Welcome to the Void, Ian.

The easy fix as mentioned above and the one recommended by all is to go get a job and for two reasons.

Money and activity.

The number of people who say it must be good to have this free lifestyle or it must be good to have money, as they say they would like to not have to work but they need to, as they need the income, they need the money to maintain the lifestyle.

• Let’s look at the obvious side of this first – Money.

Are we addicted to the money and income from our work?

I think most people would agree that the answers is yes. Most don’t realise that the addiction is based on having an income to support a lifestyle that is far in excess of what is necessary. They scream that they want the “stuff”. You know the “stuff”… It’s all that consumer stuff that we surround ourselves with, from the house and car to the holidays and widgets. It includes everything beyond our base needs. Everything that the advertisers throw at us but more insidiously it’s the subtle daily reminders that to be a person of respect in our society (and just look at the business and social pages in the paper to understand this) you need to have a style and attitude the requires all the “stuff”. These are the things that identify you to the rest of society and you need to surround yourself with them at any cost and the cost is debt and/or work very hard to generate the income.

This is not to say live in a cave with only the basics to have a good life but do you really need all of that “stuff”? Do you constantly have to upgrade as soon as the next version of it comes out? If the answers is yes then you need to fund the never ending need for those consumables and there is always more “stuff” coming on the market to necessitate the increase in your income – consume, consume, consume. It never ends.

I know that many would say that they are only just getting by on the minimum of what they can afford with no luxuries and that is valid. They are trapped by this system of the things that they must have or are expected to have. The biggest of these for the average family but far from not the only, is the cost of housing. Once a mortgage is activated you are indentured to the system to work as a wage slave for the duration of this debt with rent being no different. However by todays standards we need far more than in the minimum. Our grand parents were happy with far less.

A few years ago I went against the grain and didn’t get myself into huge debt to purchase another property as I realised that I would have to flog myself just to maintain the mortgage by being in this exact situation. Instead I still live in my humble two bedroom unit and I have a small investment unit in the same block. When I say humble I mean very humble, these units are 49 square metres but in the wonderful suburb of West End in Brisbane. I have an old car that is cheap to maintain and run but with most things local I use it minimally. I have a simple frugal life with little that I need additional to my current situation. I have a small income from the investment unit that pays for itself and a little left over towards my other bills so in effect I need just a few hundred dollars a week to live my life. With a cash injection as I’ve just had from the film work I can often survive for several weeks before I start to run lean on funds.

The stuff that I have in my life above the basics of life are by the standards of our society few. I don’t need a large income to maintain it. This enables me to have this life where I’m not always chasing the almighty dollar and can spend time on more important things instead of work, like Life.

• This brings me to the second of the two reasons for having work – Activity.

Everyone complains about work and how good it would be to not have to do it but

Go for a Walk

the reality is that once you do unplug from the workforce there is a desire, almost a need to stay active. Sure sitting on a beach for a few weeks may sound fine but once you’ve done that it starts getting boring. If you have been spending half of you waking life working, with the rest doing the functional support things, once work is removed there is a huge void that requires filling. In not too many weeks most people find the desire to return to work in order to have activity. Work here I include as self employment, study as well as working for others but also hobbies and recreations that keep a person active. Also our society demands that we are working to play our part to support the system, if we’re not we’re said to be sponging off the system.

What Do You Do?

The number one question asked when people meet and start a conversation is “What do you do?”

This is where work is your identifier. It could be a way of pegging you in someones memory when they meet you but then the question could just as easily be “Where did you go for your last holiday?”

The reason the work question is so good is it places you in the pecking order of society, where your value as a member of it. Work defines you by what you do and how you do it not to mention how much money/stuff you have and if you wish to be a valued member of that society you’ll feel the need to play the game according to the rules as laid out above. Notoriety, affluence and stuff. We use the work standard for as a quick measure of that and we feel the pressure to strive towards meeting those requirements.

Nothing.

What about if you have nothing to do for a period of time. You have enough basics to keep going for a time, there are no goals to achieve and there are no desires for stuff. What then?

What about the idea of doing nothing unless something, i.e. desires or needs, comes along? Just wait until then.

Our society says that we can’t do that, we can’t do nothing, we have to do something… anything!

After all we have all these things to worry about in the future that we have to prepare for/against. So even if you don’t want to, go and do anything, it’s necessary to stash away more “stuff” for the future. Actually, while your at it get a bigger, better, faster “thing”and before long you trapped into the cycle where you have to work to keep the cycle going.

What about winding the cycle in the opposite direction. As you acquire the things you need to support the basics of life wind back the effort that you need to get anything that isn’t necessary. Sure get the house, but one that is adequate, no more than is required and once you have it, there is less of a need to work as much creating space in you life. Have a modest vehicle. Go on good value holidays but the whole time only as much as you need. Eventually there is a point reached where there is no  need to be working as much with more time available and there is nothing to do. You have it all, no need to buy more and it’s time to stop.

A lot of the activity that we do is like the things we buy, it’s “stuff”. It’s just the noise that we generate so that we have something to do. Could there be an alternative? How about doing Nothing… Yes actually doing Nothing as an activity. What I mean here is if there is nothing to do, not creating noise by creating an activity of stuff but just being quiet and doing Nothing! Sit, stand or lie and wait in the void doing No Thing.

Nothing

Doing nothing to such an extent that there is not even a desire to do anything just to create some noise, to not do Any-Thing but to do No-Thing. Just simply being in the moment allowing the constant stream of time to wash over.

Then at some stage there is an urge to do something, not out of a reason to create a distraction from the void but additional to the void, so do it. It could be anything as simple as changing physical position to starting a project that lasts a life time.

The difference to the Western model of work is that it is not out of a need to generate the income to get the stuff and it’s not in order to create a busy mind through activity. It’s the thing that needs to be done now, because it feels like the correct thing to do. So it’s done now.

You know, things like, by this time in my life I should have X amount of property and Y sort of career with specific goals and pathways towards the future… All that sort of stuff. Well as I said I’ve been doing what I can to just stay present and make my daily life as much of a meditation as I can. I admit, I don’t feel that I’m very good at keeping the noise quiet but as Eckart Tolle infers “just doing any of it and every moment that is present is more and better than doing the usual mind chatter”.

So, I feel good. Life hasn’t changed in any huge ways but I’m more settled than I was last week and despite the fact that financially things haven’t changed I’m not stressed about it. In this moment all is pretty damn okay.

So I’m just going to continue doing what I’m doing. Not buying into what is expected and staying as calm an meditative as I can. Practice, practice, practice.

During the week I was talking to a good friend, Brett, who reminded me about our  favourite book and the opening passage from it which I’m going to retype here as an exercise in reminding myself of the importance of these words and consider that ultimately this is the only valid way that I can live my life. With thanks to Richard Bach from Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah.

1. There was a Master come unto the earth, born in the holy land of Indiana, rased in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne.
2. The Master learned of this world in the public schools of Indiana, and as he grew, in his trade as a mechanic of automobiles.
3. But the Master had learnings from other lands and other schools, from other lives that he had lived. He Remembered these, and remembering became wise and strong, so that others saw his strength and came to him for counsel.
4. The Master believed that he had a power to help himself and all mankind, and as he believed so it was for him, so that others saw his power and came to him to be healed of their troubles and their many diseases.
5. The Master believed that it is well for any man to think upon himself as a son of God, and as he believed so it was, and the shops and garages where he worked became crowded and jammed with those who sought his learning and his touch, and the streets outside with those who longed only that the shadow of his passing might fall upon them, and change their lives.
6. It came to pass, because of the crowds, that the several foremen and shop managers  bid the master leave his tools and go his way, for so tightly was he thronged that neither he nor other mechanics had room to work upon the automobiles.
7. So it was that he went into the countryside, and people following began to call him Messiah, and worker of miracles; and as they believed it was so.
8. If a storm passed as he spoke, not a raindrop touched his head; that last of the multitude heard his words as clearly and the first, no matter lightning nor thunder in the sky about. And always he spoke to them in parables.
9. And as he said unto them,”within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and to sickness, to riches and to poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another”
10. A mill-man spoke and said, “Easy words for you, Master, for you are guided as we are not, and need not toil as we toil. A man has to work for his living in this world”.
11. The Master answered and said “Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.
12. “The current of the river swept silently over them all-young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing its own crystal self.
13. “Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and the rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.
14. “But one creature said at last, ‘I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.
15. “The other creatures laughed and said ‘Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks , and you will die quicker than boredom.
16. “But the one headed them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
17. “Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
18. “And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger cried, ‘See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!’
19. “And the one carried in the current said,’I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure’
20. “But they cried the more, ‘Saviour!’ all the while clinging to he rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour.”
21. And it came to pass when he saw that the multitude thronged him the more day on day, tighter and close and fiercer than ever they had, when he saw that they pressed him to heal them without rest and feed them always with his miracles, to learn for them and  to live their lives, he went alone that day unto a hilltop apart, and there he prayed.
22. And he said in his heart Infinite Radiant Is, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me, let me lay aside this impossible task. I cannot live the life of one other soul, yet ten thousand cry to me for life. I’m sorry I allowed it all to happen. If it be thy will, let me go back to my engines and my tools and let me live as other men.
23. And a voice spoke to him on the hilltop, a voice neither male nor female, loud nor soft, a voice infinitely kind. And the voice said unto him, “Not my will, but thine be done. for what is thy will is mine for thee. Go thy way as other men, and be tho happy on the earth.”
24. And hearing, the Master was glad, and gave thanks and came down from the hilltop humming a little mechanic’s song. And when the throng pressed him with its woes, beseeching him to heal for it and learn for it and feed it nonstop from his understanding and to entertain it with his wonders, he smiled upon the multitude and said pleasantly unto them, “I quit.”
25. For a moment the multitude was stricken dumb with astonishment.
26. And he said unto them,”If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he is told?”
27. “Of course Master!” cried the many. ” It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it!”
28. “No matter what those tortures, nor how difficult the task?”
29. “Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree and burned, if so be that God has asked,” said they.
30. “And what would you do,” the Master said said unto the multitude, ” if God spoke directly to your face and said, ‘I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.’ What would you do then?”
31. And the multitude was silent, not a voice, not a sound was heard upon the hillsides, across the vallys where they stood.
32. And the Master said unto the silence, “In the path of our happiness shall we find the leaning for which we have chosen this lifetime. So it is that I have learned this day, and choose to leave you now to walk your own path, as you please.”
33. And he went his way through the crowds and left them, and he returned to the everyday world of men and machines.