Quote Originally Posted by oldhat View Post

One thing I do recall about Suelo is that when he first entered the public eye--through a newspaper or magazine article I think--I was amazed by the number of negative comments that followed the article. Some of them were downright violent in condemning his lifestyle: he's a parasite, he's just lazy, etc. Some people seemed deeply threatened by his choices. This may have something to do with the fact that, unlike India, this country has no tradition of wandering mendicants who have dropped out of society for spiritual reasons. Or possibly resentment of someone who really has the courage of his convictions.
That's something I find fascinating. Glenn, http://www.tosimplify.net/ had an article written about him on yahoo a while back and ran into the same thing, even though living in a small motorhome is not nearly as extreme as shunning money and living in a cave. Many of the commenters seemed to view him as being just a lazy homeless person living in a van.

I guess some people are so heavily invested in the American way of life of spend spend spend, buy buy buy, that when they read an article about someone who has chosen a different path they feel threatened or rejected or something.