Some conclusions about the high desert after five months of desert life
sashachapin.substack.com
sashachapin.substack.com
To the contrary, people monetizing their unique lifestyles or skills in remote non urban places is a major thing on YouTube. Some are in the environs of Joshua Tree, no less.
Just dip your toes in the off-grid or permaculture lifestyle worlds and you'll find them.
Sure you can go on YouTube and live vicariously through a young white dude with a cute girlfriend in a flat bill cap and Oakley sunglasses and a 100k RV shilling products at you and starting every video with "what is up guys hit the notification bell down below", and maybe you can imagine your life being more like that. Maybe you'll even learn a thing or two about gardening or cooling an aluminum box in the summer. But actually getting out there, you'll find a ton of people actually living interesting lives without a gopro on a selfie stick.
But isn't that true pretty much everywhere?
This right here is what so many people who never leave big cities miss out on.
I think this is also a highly idealized version of these people. I grew up in the Bay Area but have spent the majority of the last 5 years in Montana. There are plenty of kind and gracious people, but there are also a huge amount of people that do actually care about how you behave and where youre from. Ive been told countless times to leave the state, go back to where Im from, etc.
The culture is definitely different from cities, but anyone who tells you its all rainbows, sunshine, and people saying "god bless" no matter what is lying to you.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with rural places or people, and I know many people can find happiness there (just like they can in cities). Many people are wonderful, just like many people in cities are wonderful. Many people in both places are not.
That the desert is filled with noble savages, uncorrupted by civilisation, is a fantasy though.
All that said, this article reads almost like a parody of something? I’m not entirely sure it’s intended to be sincere, or if it is mocking a certain kind of city person who idealises the countryside.
Cities tend to be easier simply because there are more people that will accept you, although certainly not everyone will. The more rural you get the less people there are and the more you're expected to fit in, you just don't have other options.
At least, in my experience.
I try to fit in the best I can, but there are still obvious differences in how I dress, and probably in how I act, but I definitely wouldnt see myself as hostile towards the people around me.
If someone said a lot of people in a city were rude, there probably wouldnt be second thoughts about it, but it seems that a lot of people, especially in hn-type cultures idealize rural people and how they think they will act.
Somewhat tangentially, Id say that current politics and the whole "California boogeyman" make this trend significantly worse overall
I was never accepted, my mom finally was after about 20 years. Part of it for me was that I think a bit differently and want different things than most other folks. But a bigger part was that this little Bible Belt town really was intolerant of that, far less so than the urban areas I've lived since then. They simply were more authoritarian and insecure in reaction to someone that didn't want they wanted.
Yes, there are good folk in rural areas; in my experience, they're about the same proportion as of good folk in urban areas. And I see no difference in competence; some difference in what people are competent at, sure. (Me, I still spend a lot of time making things, and I'm going to be rebuilding a run-down house this year that I'll probably have to hire someone to help with, but otherwise am doing myself.)
I'm really, truly sick of the urban vs. rural culture war garbage. Romanticize whatever you like, that's the nature of how humans relate to their communities. But here's a hint: if that requires shitting on other ways of life, you're being defensive and insecure.
Although, in a lot of the US, their skin might not be white, and, thus, have a name of Jose or Gurdeep...
In a city, nobody gives a shit about you unless you specifically poke them--and maybe not even then.
It’s like he’s cosplaying as a normal person. Although if the article is written like this on purpose, it’s a work of art.
But I like the writing.
I find the Bay Area, and the valley in particular energizing, and even high stress. There’s something going on on every corner. My wife, an artist, found it dull, a cultural wasteland.
When we went to LA she was excited by the high energy buzz, all the activity wherever you looked, and so much creativity. While to me, it was a sleepy place: the people even walked slowly and had long lunches!
All a matter of perspective.
From what I noticed, the people that like that place and aspire for it, aside from natives:
Live in northern california or central valley and have no other city around. They aspire to escape their circumstance to SF.
Other groups of people that have no other frame of reference of the other major cities, specifically LA/NYC.
A work visa holder with no choice in the matter.
Or people with other frames of reference that love the outdoors and doing things an 1-4 hours away from the area but pretending it is something they do in that area. “What do you like about San Francisco?” <fond memories of hikes in Marin and Lake Tahoe>
Just for the benefit of the doubt I’m going to put you in that last category. I’m really just hoping that you don’t mean running around to tech meetups for pizza and AWS credits and saying its a matter of perspective.
Very few artists/creatives live there because they are priced out by tech workers.
JT has become LA suburbia.
I love this quote, and I've experienced it while backpacking through the desert and through mountains as well, almost complete loss of time and forgetting all the things I used to care about (like checking what is on the front page of HN, for example). Coming back to the city is a weird feeling of "time" returning, almost like a regaining of consciousness after being asleep, it's a strange sensation. But also returning to the city pushes that meditative awareness side of me back into the shadow.
It works itself out long term, but being one? Oof. That was a harsh awakening. I never knew moss could grow on a sidewalk before. Before I left, I knew it was amazing you could even see the sidewalk.
It's about the desert, but could be equally applied to getting away from cities to a slower paced place with a lot of outside going on. I did that (for more than 5 months) and never intend to go back to the cities. Just being able to see the stars in the sky and the lack of traffic make it worth whatever inconveniences come along with slower paced life.
The noise of life is always in the background in the city, there's a base level stress that's just always there. Some people thrive on it. Some people, like me, need the calm.
Reads as vapid, shallow nonsense, and there's certainly no conclusions, let alone arguments anywhere to be seen.
I guess I’ve always assumed that (like myself) many US city dwellers grew up in rural areas and migrated to the city because of the lack of economic opportunity. Many others grew up in generally conservative working class urban areas. So I’m constantly surprised that Substackers feel the need to constantly remind their audience that rural people are ordinary folks and don’t have forked tongues or whatever.
At the same time I feel articles like this one miss a lot of the real tragedy that goes on in US rural areas. For city migrants with fancy remote jobs there’s plenty to enjoy. But your children will have to leave the area when they grow up, at least to maintain a similar quality of life. Having moved to a medium-size city (and left my rural home at 18) I am contemplating the idea that my own children might live close to me after they grow up - or at least they could choose to. That’s exciting and I think trumps any amount of natural beauty I miss living in Baltimore. And over the course of my lifetime politics has become polarized in a very nasty way, largely due (I think) to the economic circumstances. You can ignore this but it’s still there.
Finally: if your friends in the city are pretentious, make some new friends.
Absolutely true. Part of why we want to be in the city is so that our children don't _have_ to leave, like we had to.
While city life certainly comes with more monetary opportunity, I am still not sure it is worth the costs. I earn 200k/yr and struggle with the prospect of being a home owner here, knowing full well I make well above the median. Visiting my home town, I talk with peers who stuck around and bought homes with a bar tender's salary shortly after graduating highschool. They have their own challenges, but they are very different than mine. The grass is always greener, but I feel that the American dream of family, home ownership, and independence and is much more attainable in small towns.
I find 'tech bro' characterization uncalled for here (and uncharitable in general) -- dismissing someone's personal writing based on stereotype. Stereotyping any large number of people (could be psychologists, writers, scientists or tech workers) never leads to a good reflection. It's more in vogue to do so with well off people, but no less uncharitable.
Comical (but bang-on accurate) to start this by quoting Paul Graham.
No, Sasha, most people go to the city to escape poverty.
Reads as vapid, shallow nonsense.
>Former Trump voters are the people who drag your car out of the sand when it gets stuck, or help you fix your bathroom, and they are extremely nice, and don’t turn their noses down at your fussy jute rugs or purple sofa.
Yeah... This is going to be highly dependant on your race and ethnicity.
I'm really sick of this holier than thou attitude, and it's not even true. The implication is that people who vote Democrat won't help you when you break down and give a thought about your interior design choices. It's just not true, grow up.
I spent 20 minutes listening to someone from Mississippi talking about how much better she is than "people around here" because she once helped "a Dominican or Puerto Rican" who broke down in front of her house. ... Except every single person I personally know around here would have done the same, except nobody I know around here would think to brag about it or pat themselves on the back.
This, too, is vanity.
> But I’m really not different at all. It’s salutary to remember that you are just a type of guy, as my friend Adam reminded me. I sing the praises of the non-consumer wilderness, but will still go to great pains to obtain a fancy croissant. To the longtime residents, I am instantly identifiable as a recent Angeleno, even if I’m wearing a dirty t-shirt and cut-off shorts. My hands are too soft, my body language is too awkward. Maybe if I live out here for like a decade it won’t be accurate to accuse me of LARPing anymore.
The interiority of the individual does not change, although the external world may reflect into the interior differently and the individuals' mind may easily filter one way or another. You can be and have the same interior experience if you're in the middle of a city, or if you're on the top of a mountain.
it's just a place to live. one with better air and fewer people.
The author's experience is that "same structure, new shapes" is the quality of the urban life. But that is also the quality of rural life, although the specific details differ; this is simply another shape in the same structure of life. Whether you're in the city, or the suburbs, or the emptiness of the mountain, you are who you are, people are who they are, there's no innate difference in the matter. The environment is strictly the environment.
This, too, is vanity.
To further quote the unnamed author -
> Only this, I have found, is a real good: that one should eat and drink and get pleasure with all the gains he makes under the sun, during the numbered days of life that God has given him; for that is his portion.
To be able to dwell in contentment where one is, is a real blessing.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
I cannot fathom how someone can live a life this way or how they get there and continue to exist without dying of laziness. How can you care so little and still have animals to take care of much less yourself. It is incomprehensible to me.
Trauma, lack of self care, delusions, anxiety, demotivation, abuse, exhaustion, medical issues, serious mental health issues, etc.
Same with hoarding. Same with anger issues/road rage, same with wife beaters, same with con artists, same with murders.
These all interrelate to each other (often reinforcing or contributing to starting new ones too!) and while most functioning people are able to identify the factors causing dysregulation into a non-functioning or pathologically functioning state and address them before they become a real problem, anyone can end up there with the right set of stimuli and circumstances.
For some it requires truly exceptional inputs (to the point it’s nigh impossible - see James Bond Stockdale) for others it comes naturally due to a very unlucky set of genetic factors or how they were raised (or both).
If you decide to choose pity, avoidance, anger, retribution, or something else (understanding and self-regulation in a way that helps you?) is up to you.
Sometimes there is no ‘good’ response, which is why the legal system exists the way it does, right of self defense exists in most places, property rights exist in the way they do in most places to contain/conpartmentalize things, etc.
they’ll come home when they’re hungry, as long as they don’t bother livestock people don’t tend to care much
Now that I'm dealing with "long COVID" in a big, big way… I thought the same as you, and wondered if it wasn't something like that going on.
Priorities have shifted, for sure. Having come >< close to death, the things you used to think were super important just don't seem to matter as much in the grand scheme of things.