Week 30: Mo-ho Mo Problems

So I thought that buying and living in a motorhome (moho) would work better than paying rent somewhere, providing me more time and energy for rewilding. I will now go through the list of why I thought having a motorhome would work, and what I have found so far…

Along this journey I realized that I needed storage spaces. Indigenous peoples had spacial control of their territories. Theft probably did not happen that regularly since everyone knew each other within communities, not to mention that in a culture of trackers, most people can identify you through your tracks. Of course, culture to culture raids happen occasionally, but I don’t think people lived in constant fear of thievery; no one locked anything up. Of course, this also had to do with the fact that they could re-make most of the tools they used from their environment.

Along the road here I have realized I need to store foods and tools. I cannot simply replace most of the tools I use with naturally available objects. For example, I can’t make a computer with sticks and stones. I also live in a disconnected society full of theft. Because of the sheer mass of people in an urban environment, thievery becomes very easy and common. Therefore, locks and keys become necessary to protect your food and tools.

Originally I stored much of my things in various friends houses around the city. This broke the rule of “conservation of energy,” and I found that I spent a lot of time traveling to get things I needed to do other things. To converse more energy for rewilding, I need to have all of my things in one place. A motorhome provides enough storage space for all my things, and also security of them.

I also wanted mobility. I’d like to have the ability to move all of my things to a piece of land and not have to worry about building a more permanent shelter. To move somewhere and have to build a shelter would make things fairly difficult. A motorhome provides a shelter that you can transplant practically anywhere with a road. At some point, I could meet some cool people with land and drive my moho out there and have a dry place to store things and sleep.

I also thought it would work as a way of reducing rent. Since storage and living space in civilization costs money, I thought a motorhome, especially a parked motorhome for which you don’t put gas into, nor pay insurance on works as a “free” place to store things and have them at the ready to move should you need to.

What I found so far;

I purchased my motorhome for $2500. I have put probably another $1000 into it for various repairs. If you can get one that does not leak or have rot, and you go crazy with the sealing paint and silicon, you’ve got a great home. Unfortunately for me, I bought a lemon. I would have to live in it for a year without moving it anywhere to equal the “rent” money I could have paid for a sedentary storage/living space. My own ignorance there… or perhaps my gut told me to buy this one for reasons that have more to do with my own journey than ignorance.

The good news? Because it looks like a piece of shit, I can do whatever I want with it. I’ve already learned how to install a drive shaft, a power steering pump and how to repair roof leaks and seal windows. I don’t feel worried about “damaging” it at all, since it already has a lot of damage, and therefore it works as a great model for me to learn repairs on; what more could I do to damage it? Okay, my foot almost when through the rotten roof, but hopefully I got that covered… at least for the winter. I hate calling it a “fixer-upper” since I don’t ever really see myself “fixing” everything. I think the term FUBAR works very well to describe this motorhome. Though I still feel okay about buying a lemon as it forces me to learn more, and because I bought a house-on-wheels I will learn about electrical systems, plumbing systems, home repair and remodeling as well as auto-mechanics. Throw in the sewing lessons my moms has given me, along with all my rewilding skills and I feel like quite the renaissance man right now.

The other night I slept in it I had very vivid nightmares and awoke in the middle of the night to have visual and auditory hallucinations which led to paranoid delusions that lasted until morning. When I told Willem this, he suggested what I had already wondered; perhaps my motorhome carries some psychedelic molds? …Great. The next Hollywood horror film; “Urban Scout will win 1 million dollars if he can survive one night in his new motorhome… but no one told him about the hungry ghosts who haunt it!”

Seriously though, I have felt come nearly to tears over this stupid fucking motorhome. I bought it because I thought it would increase my efficiency, not add to my inefficiency. My step dad keeps reminding me that auto mechanics and the other skills I have learned and continue to learn will come in handy during collapse. I find his words comforting because I agree with him, but also just because it feels good to have my family on the same page as me. Though they don’t necessarily have my perception of collapse, they get me and what I do and that just makes me feel better all around. I feel like I have so much to do and read and write about and so little time to do it… especially since I’ve started looking for a slave-job again. At least I have a wonderful family and community and girlfriend who support my rewilding more and more. Thank you so much everyone!

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