This dude grew or foraged 100% of his own food for a whole year!

This is amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX4kq4QfYRA

I've seen a couple of his videos. In one of them, he was living in someone's backyard in a tiny house and in exchange for rent he grew edibles in the person's front yard. Very interesting guy.

Yes, he is an interesting guy. Very much "walks the walk". He also stood in Times Square wearing his garbage.

From my quick look up his activism goes beyond his foraging. I respect what he does but have to wonder if a lifestyle so different and difficult would inspire change or just turn them off as a goof ball.

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Originally Posted by Rogar

From my quick look up his activism goes beyond his foraging. I respect what he does but have to wonder if a lifestyle so different and difficult would inspire change or just turn them off as a goof ball.

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There are always going to be people who dismiss this kind of stunt activism as wacky or pointless. I like to remind them that probably the original stunt journalist was Henry David Thoreau, whose cabin in the woods was a mile from Concord and who frequently walked into town to have dinner with friends and have his mother do his laundry. But that doesn't make what he accomplished any less profound.

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Originally Posted by Rogar

From my quick look up his activism goes beyond his foraging. I respect what he does but have to wonder if a lifestyle so different and difficult would inspire change or just turn them off as a goof ball.

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Wouldn't that in part, be if your trying to inspire change, or if your just trying to prove to yourself it can be done?

I see this more as the latter, with the documentation of such, in case anyone decides to try in the future (pass on info).
There will always be those of us who would view this type as a goof ball. That is called different values.

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Originally Posted by catherine

Yes, he is an interesting guy. Very much "walks the walk". He also stood in Times Square wearing his garbage.

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I did watch the video of his garbage wearing and, while some may consider it just a stunt, it got me to thinking what I would do if I had to keep and deal with my own garbage instead of it being removed for me. For me, he has definitely inspired change.

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Originally Posted by oldhat

There are always going to be people who dismiss this kind of stunt activism as wacky or pointless. I like to remind them that probably the original stunt journalist was Henry David Thoreau, whose cabin in the woods was a mile from Concord and who frequently walked into town to have dinner with friends and have his mother do his laundry. But that doesn't make what he accomplished any less profound.

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I did watch the video of his garbage wearing and, while some may consider it just a stunt, it got me to thinking what I would do if I had to keep and deal with my own garbage instead of it being removed for me. For me, he has definitely inspired change

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Yes, when people do radical things in their lives to make a point, I think it's so counter-productive to dismiss them without using their life lessons to examine if/how those lessons apply to you. I follow Suelo, who lived without money for years until he left his cave in Moab to take care of his dying father. I see hateful comments directed toward him, but I think he is a wonderful teacher in turning the concept of money upside down and inside out. He has definitely made me think, as have Thoreau and Rob Greenfield and other goofballs.

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Originally Posted by catherine

Yes, when people do radical things in their lives to make a point, I think it's so counter-productive to dismiss them without using their life lessons to examine if/how those lessons apply to you.

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I think they often get dismissed because 1) they are impossible to apply to one 2) extremely inconvenient. The later one can reckon with and think over, the former is just well it doesn't go anywhere. I'm not growing my food living in an apartment with a few feet of dirt outside for which I shall put in most recently, a couple of native plants. And the gardeners may kill them as they are inclined to do with their illegal leafblowers ha, but that's the dice one rolls anyway. Extremely inconvenient would be say someone who takes public transit to work for 3 hours a day to reduce their carbon impact. It would be like: "Wow, that's admirable! I could do that. They are hard-core, I should do that but ... I like to sleep late ... I probably won't get up an hour earlier to do it, it's a never ending struggle to try to get to work on time as is due to my extreme morning adverseness ..." :laff: But it will nag at me, because it's something one can do. But growing food, yea I've gone with a renter life.

I don't have a problem with the guy though. But I'm only so obsessed with doing what I actually can't do, unless someone starts actively lecturing me: "renting an apartment is no excuse for not growing all your own food!!!" or something. Than it's like: "oh shut up". :~) Actually I find I have to accept limits on even what I aspire to do, because I am at root perfectionist, but crash hard into my own real limits of time and energy. I like Thoreau, and he's a darn good writer as well, he wouldn't be as well known if he wasn't, but I'm not obsessed with literally imitating some guy from some 150 years ago, anyway I take much of it as social critique anyway, critiquing obsession with "progress" etc.. Who actually speaks to me now with moral clarity: Greta Thurnburg :)