Introduction - Why IWallk

I've started this blog to document my experiences with giving up the complicated life, all the stuff that goes along with it, in favor of a simpler, less cluttered and less expensive existence.  Mostly it is for talking about my adventures walking everywhere I need to go.  But I plan to also associate this change in lifestyle with plenty of social commentary about how the the lives of millions of people could be up-lifted and made happier by implementing similar techniques for themselves.

I gave up my car in 2009 - OK, well, it died and I had it towed away - and after canceling my insurance and beginning to walk around town, I really began to enjoy myself.  Of course it is always healthier to be walking than to be driving.  And this healthier means of transport also leaves no carbon footprint.  I live in a hilly area of Maine and it took a couple of weeks before I stopped running out of breath each day.  I wasn't even walking a very long distance either.  It is about 1 mile into town, another 1/2 mile to the grocery store or the library, and then the same amount back home again. 

At first I only walked when I needed to; maybe 3 times per week.  I bought enough supplies for  2 or three days.  However, as my body got used to the average trip down town, I found myself going more often.  When I went to the store I would buy less, knowing that I could simply go the next day and re-up.  And sometimes this led to simply eating less as a side effect.  Counter-intuitively, exercising has always made me less hungry.  After a while I really began to feel satisfied about not driving any more.  I didn't need to buy auto insurance; didn't need to buy gas; had no need for registration or the required yearly inspection sticker; was not at risk of getting in an accident; was getting exercise; was buying less and eating less food...Hey: win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win!

Several inconveniences did eventually rear up.  First, my bank was in a neighboring town, precisely 5 miles away.  Second, unless I was prepared and organized enough to do my laundry each week, getting whole loans down to the laundry mat was going to be problematic.  And thirdly, because of the relative remoteness of the town I live in, any family gathering meant that I would have to be picked up by some unfortunate soul and then carted to and back from holidays and dinners.

Yet, I resolved to find ways around these problems.  The issue with my bank being so far away, was solved when I simply did the math...

I estimated that I walked an average 18 minute mile.  Therefore, it would only take 1.5 hours to get to the bank and 1.5 hours to get back again.  The problem wasn't exertion anymore, because I felt quite comfortable just walking indefinitely.  I figured I could leave at 9:00 am and be back in time for lunch at 12:00 pm, with a stop at the supermarket along the way. 

When I was ready I went ahead and did it.  The timing was well-calculated and besides spending a few extra minutes at the store, I was right on schedule.  It was a bit more taxing then I had expected.  Three hours of continuous walking is a LONG time.  But with my iPod and a bunch of podcasts loaded and ready to hear, the trip was quite bearable, even satisfying.  That first bank trip was in the summer.  Fortunately I live in a college town.  And there is a university bus that runs from my town  into the city, to the other campus, where another branch of my bank is located.  During the school year my pilgrimage is greatly shortened by hopping this bus to the city, walking only a 1/2 mile to the city branch of my bank and then heading back to catch the bus back to my town.  All in all, shaving 6 miles off my banking journey.

Laundry was a bigger problem.  For a while I borrowed a relative's car to do the wash and dry.  But circumstances did not allow this any more at a certain point.  Fed up with having dirty clothes piling up in my bedroom, I resolved to go "old school" and bought a container of Tide.  I brought it home and spent about 8 hours each of three days in a row washing, rinsing and hanging up my laundry all by hand.  It was a JOB, to say the least!  By the time I was done with the equivalent of 12 loads of laundry, despite being quite proud of myself for having temporarily solved my laundry issue, my hands were worn down by about three layers of skin.  They were so sore I couldn't even play guitar for about a week after.  I had worn off my calluses.  Admittedly, I also missed the soft feel that a hot dryer can give clothes too.  They were a bit stiff.  But they were clean and I didn't need to take them anywhere.

Visiting family is something I'm still working on.  During the school year it isn't a problem as long as it isn't on a Sunday.  I can just take the bus, even on a Saturday into the city and then take other buses or simply walk to my sister's house (the center of most activity now, since she has the kids).

Complicating all of this is my financial situation.  I finally have gotten a job, but I was without one for 18 months.  My savings ran out quickly and despite my efforts at trying to start a business, and relying on donations from my various blogs, the money just hasn't been there.  When I am financially back on the feet again, I plan to make a 1-3-day car rental part of each month.  It will cost about $50-100 per month.  But still that is considerable less than the $300+ per month I had been spending on my car when I owned one.  I might not even need it each month.  So if I could do 1 rental period every 2 months I'd being spending even less.

Not having a car is not only possible, but satisfying, healthy and good for the environment, but also a great way to save money.  I don't see any reason to ever buy another car.  There are challenges involved with this kind of lifestyle, but I really have found it to be enjoyable and less stressful.

One thing I did not anticipate but am exceedingly thankful for discovering is just how good I feel when I walk now.  I really feel better while I'm walking than at any other time of the day.  And now I walk every single day, getting in about 20-30 miles per week, or just about 7.5 hours.  That is not a lot of time over-all and allows me to do all the things I would have done in a car.  Specifically, I used to have to sit for long periods in traffic, averaging about 1.5 hours per day 5 days per week.  That is 6 hours.  Then tack on another hour or so on the weekends and it comes up about even with my current walking time.  Of course, as I said, the cost was outrageous compared to my travel expenses now, being $0.00.

All of this walking, and the many hours it has allowed me to think (something I've found more precious than any amount of money), has led me to appreciate the fact that we all do expensive and wasteful activities simply because we think they are the only way to live.  And the fact that we are pressured into mindlessly doing these things by a culture that thinks nothing of the waste it involves, until it has already become waste, rather than anticipating it and thus trying to avoid that waste, is a birthmark of a First World civilization.  It is one that is ruining the environment, squandering fossil fuels, feeding an already bloated insurance industry (auto and health--because of accidents), stealing time away from our experiences with friends and family, and making us lazy.  Factor these things into a more global context and 1 US commuter is using about 800-1000 times more of the world's resources than a Third World person does.  They walk.  They ride bikes.  They HAVE to recycle and reuse, because we've taken all the extra out of their hands, mouths and gas tanks.

As we struggle to reform our capitalistic "American Dream" (whatever that is defined as now, so late in the game), we are really feeling the effects of our own wasteful largess.  As a former personal financial educator I knew the greatest secret of all: Spending LESS money is even better than making MORE money.  You don't have to work more hours.  You have more time for leisure, savings and recreation.  You don't need a promotion.  You have less THINGS to worry about maintaining.

Being a teen in the 1980's I watched the adults in my life grab, scratch, wrestle and steal as much as they could simply to APPEAR to have more.  In the 1990's even I was lured into the fantasy of wanting more and more stuff; believing that true happiness was always one more purchase away.  Meanwhile, people became greedy beyond what had been seen in earlier years last Century.  By midway through the first decade of this new Century, people were choking on over-extended credit.  The US economy (and many other countries) became entirely debt based, with the Federal Reserve literally "creating" more money out of thin air, when circumstances required it.  The national debt blew up like a mega-blimp, real estate lending became the foundation for even more excess, and we all saw what the result of that fat-glory ended up being. 

Now with government bail-outs, saving the very richest 1% of us all, no lesson has been learned at the top of the food chain.  Capitalism has been given a false second chance.  It has been given a new opportunity for the richest to use us all over again to even further enrich themselves; again, having learned no lesson.  Meanwhile we who have struggled to find work; who have no health insurance; who have no savings for retirement, are - by necessity - re-working the philosophies of our lives. 

We are doing more with less.  We are cutting off the fat and genuinely appreciating that we never needed it in the first place.  Upon just a little open-minded reflection it has become starkly evident that not everyone in the world is going to be able to have three car garages, jet ski's, two SUV's, health club memberships, prepaid college financing for their children, steak five times a week, 56" plasma televisions in each room, satellite dishes, vacation time-shares, etc... 

This blog will be dedicated to the new and growing paradigm of the trans-class (my term for the segment of the population that is defining itself outside of the peer-pressure world-view of American conventionality; one that assumed there needs to be a lower, middle and upper class).  As things stand now, we are a largely silent segment of the population.  But we are not an inactive one.  When, and especially because, we WILL have the resources to really change things, I believe we will show restraint and move past the "dying with the most toys" mentality of so-called, "success."

I think we who actually CARE about humanity (keeping in mind that 30,000 children die every single day from starvation all across the planet) have an innovative and far-seeing perspective born of the hardship and disappointment of a culture that has become top-heavy with its own hubris, fat and clogged up with it's ideal vision of itself, and unworkable as a model for most of the rest of the world.  And the rest of the world needs to refine its ideals, deflecting them away from the American capitalist model.  We in America are doubly handicapped by a political system that is backwards and contentious, unable to function because of bitter partisan rhetoric and filled with ideologues on all sides; folks who care nothing for progress and live by election year motivation exclusively.  We are certainly being led by the least among us.

My call for action - and hopefully the example of how I plan to live simply but comfortably outside the standard social model - is to simply stop supporting the system.  Stop doing what is expected of you and start doing the things that help you rise above thoughtlessness in your life.  Support the local community.  Support your friends and family.  Think for yourself ALWAYS, without fail.  Do not give weight to any ideology.  Pull the carpet out from beneath the conventionalists by simply not participating in the activities that are hurting the planet and enriching a small elite who would never give you anything back anyway.

Thus starts my on-going rant and the defining even for myself of what is REAL and HEALTHFUL in this world of greedy grabbing and back stabbing.  Yet, I intend it to be an optimistic review and a helpful guide to freedom from a culture weighed down by waste and inconsistency.  We can do it!  We CAN bring a new future to a worn out world.  It can't be top-down though.  We must be the examples.  We must LIVE smartly, so that we stop looting the future from our children and grandchildren and instead leave them the gift of a clean, well-managed and happier world.  Don't they deserve at least that much?