Introducing the Fabulous Neutrinos...

Build rafts from scrap and travel the world, support your family by playing music on the street, and make the best of magical dog bites!

I was vaguely familiar with the band name "Flying Neutrinos" but thanks to the Metafilter links, I've been introduced to this amazing family. I plan on reading Poppa Neutrino's bio The Happiest Man in the World as soon as I can get my boot to Powells.


MORE THAN RAFTS, MORE THAN MUSIC (from the MostFacinating.com article)

The Neutrinos see their various raft projects as a model of what can be done with creativity, resourcefulness and effort; not necessarily money. They hope to make people aware of not just the potential for living on water, but also the potential for living outside of the commonly accepted norms. Their voluminous website offers many elaborations on these ideas. One section discusses "the four jailers," and how to escape them. The jailers are described as the four major forces that entrap people: landlords, bosses, mates, and the self. Betsy mentions that long ago, she and Poppa vowed to never take a job working for someone else. "We consider time freedom essential to the spiritual path."

Another section describes methods for reprogramming one's "inner software," and how to make positive contributions to the world. According to Betsy, the rafts, the band and other adventures have been "merely foils for our inner work," with the higher goal of creating more meaningful and fulfilling lives.

One doesn't have to directly participate in Poppa and Betsy's projects to live the Neutrino life. Their website says that anyone who stays true to their deepest desires and who lives by their own script is indeed a Neutrino. Poppa collectively refers to all people who live in this way as Neutrinoland. He says that Neutrinoland is "an idea whose time has not quite yet come," but he believes there is a growing need in the world for freer living. "Something terrible is happening in this country...the fascistic, cruel, demeaning nature...and it's because we don't have time. It's because we're all battling for space. We've become adversaries to each other, and once we get out of the space problem, then we can take the time to recuperate, rest and think."

Floating Neutrinos on Most Facinating
Poppa Neutrino in the New Yorker
Floating Neutrinos Site

I like MetaFilter, but I'm not so sure I'd ask over there for advice on dropping out and living in a van. However, Yahoo Van Dwellers group is where it's at.

I am still fighting the urgency to get out NOW. I'm working on a plan that will get me out eventually, but it is frustrating to consiously participate in a system that is killing me...and you...and everyone we know.

crash: slow or fast?

Word on internet street is that something crashy might be happening on Sept. 18 or 19th.

Feeling my way through - and feeling frustrated

I've been exploring a bunch of different options and I keep running into dead zones and tests.

So far I've checked out a permaculture-based intentional community, a freegan house-share, a spiritual community owned apartment complex, random super-cheap roommate situations on craigslist, and a caretaker position...and nothing seems to feel right or even produce a ripple of response.

That's not exactly true, I did field an offer to work and live onsite for a small new age company located in the country. I almost accepted before I realized that working there would actually be a huge step backwards to everything I hated about the wage slavery I've done in the past. Except my employers would also now be my landlords. And that living only 100 yards away from "the master" would be suffocating, even if it is set in the most beautiful and open natural setting.

So I'm feeling a bit frustrated but I know I need to keep at it. Keeping my awareness on feeling things out while watching for signs of "the road rising to meet my feet." And visualizing how a rat raised in a maze could eventually figure out how to escape rather than just finding different ways to run the maze, or to just lay down for good out of frustration and learned helplessness.

whoa there, girl.

Lisa: I hate going to the zoo, I feel so sorry for all the animals.

Homer: But captivity opens up a whole new world for them! In the wilds they would never experience boredom, obesity, loss of purpose.... You know, the American Dream!

---

So how's my plan going to drop everything and run away to the woods?

Well, after making some very do-able (but not exactly stable) plans, I decided to revisit the urgency I was feeling to get away from civilization. I kept on getting an intuitive hit to google "how to drop out" when I came upon a link to Ran Prieur's blog. Lo and behold, he has an amazing essay called "How to Drop Out."

A quote from the introduction:
The goal is not to get out of the prison, but to get out in a way that enables you to stay out. Be patient. Think ahead. Getting free is not like walking through a magic doorway -- it's like growing a fruit tree.

Well, amen to that. And so I am now focusing on reducing my spending and consumption as a first step to dropping out. And I can still run off to the woods whenever I want - it just won't be full-time, not yet.

Where's my bug-out bag?

LIBRA
If you don't want to peter out with a whimper in September, you should exit with a bang as soon as possible. In another couple of weeks, you'll have to answer to fate, whereas right now fate still has to answer to you. So pull out your calendar and schedule splashy goodbyes, last laughs, and colorful climaxes that leave no room for misinterpretation. Give going-away gifts to part-time nemeses so that they can't possibly go away mad. And make sure that the Day of Reckoning happens on your home turf.

Horoscope for week of August 16, 2007 from http://www.freewillastrology.com/


Today was the first time I divulged my super-secrect escape plans to a friend. The idea is that I'm saying no to wage slavery and yes to rewilding, and voting with my feet. I'm about to throw myself headfirst into a crash course on anti-civ surviving and "primitive" skills building.

I'm running off to the forest with my car and my cat.

It should happen sometime over the next month or so depending on my current finances. In short, CASH IS KING and I will stay only long enough to ensure cookie and gas money until the next short term gig manifests.

I look around my apartment and the few possessions I have seem like extravagant luxuries to my new eyes. I want everything gone. Now. I know this sounds like craziness but it is the strongest I've felt about doing anything in a very, very long time. My whole life has been a waste of trying to fit in to what we are taught is desireable, exciting, and noble...and all of that is based on a sham economy that ultimately exterminates the soul.

I say no.