I’ve Lived In a Cave for 14 Years | a Different Drummer | Only Human

[Music] my name is daniel suelow and i haven't earned or spent a single cent in 14 years and i live totally without money i've actually been sleeping in caves longer than i've lived without money probably since the mid 90s this here is one of my sleeping places use cardboard for a pad works great when i had a job a respectable job in town i decided i didn't want to pay rent anymore and live outdoors so i i've lived in caves all up and down these canyons and this over here is a place where i sit and i yeah i have an extra blanket here i use if it's really cold but i sit here and relax let me bring books up for magazines that i find and read them [Music] i'm collecting some onions these are wild onions just eat the tops for like chives or get the whole bulb you want to do some good cooking with it i really do feel that wild edibles are a lot more nutritious than domestic i think in domestication we we domesticate or breed for more for flavor or for a sweetness rather than nutrition delicious this here is the kitchen i've eaten lizards around here and grasshoppers and ants one time i found a raccoon down at the road freshly killed and brought him up and cooked it okay now i'm gonna saute the onions and potatoes in this pan with some oil there's like fat squirrels everywhere and deer but i actually don't feel comfortable killing anything when there's so much getting thrown away there's like fresh meat thrown away all the time in the dumpsters i find it's really rare that i get sick when i'm living outdoors [Music] the only times i've gotten sick from dumpsters is if i've eaten too much sweets but i've never gotten like dysentery from a dumpster i've never like vomited or whatever from a dumpster [Music] it was really hard for me to to deal with when i first gave up money was being on the receiving end of charity because often it's condescending the giver is the superior one the taker is the inferior one the library is kind of like my office and my living room yeah i come here to work on my blog and do emails and there are some valid points about using the library when it's paid for by taxes and it's the one exception to my rule that i don't take government assistance i've forgotten everything else i don't take food stamps i don't go to the food bank this is the closest way i know to publish ideas for free it's an amazing time we're living and i can write blogs and publish them to the whole world and a website that no one has to pay for [Music] i like moab and i i really love the people there's a certain mentality that's attracted to moab it's a mentality that doesn't like the system and is open to alternatives my town camp for when i don't have time to go up the canyon i have stuff going on in town i stay here and it's pretty primitive i prefer staying up the canyon this is kind of like my classic hobo camp [Music] christianity the bible is very important to me and i do feel like it influenced my life deeply my father he became a minister of a church my mother she got us reading the bible a lot growing up i taught them god's word i just believed that this is what i was supposed to do he was a good thinker even as a child and but what got hunting got started on the life he's in now i don't know it just seemed to work into it my roommates my friends were constantly challenging my conservative religious beliefs and i was hearing the usual from the family college is corrupting daniel that's actually where i felt like i rejected my faith when i was in the peace corps in a lot of ways i thought of myself as some kind of like i'm here to set christianity straight because it's off it's off the path why is it that we're not following the teachings of jesus like why is it that we just worship this icon but don't actually practice these things yeah i feel like we should stop worrying and live like birds that's basically a paraphrase of the sermon on the mount the birds don't worry and they don't carry around possessions and they don't worry about money and they get everything they need i'm employed by the universe since everywhere i go as the universe i'm always secure life has flourished for billions of years like this i never knew such security before i gave up money wealth is what we're dependent upon for security and my wealth never leaves me i looked around and i just felt like people seem unhappier here than in ecuador here everything's just so manicured and fake and i'd go into grocery stores and freak out there's too many choices everything's consumed consume consumed it was all just too much for me it was like i can't handle this and my depression just kept felt like it kept getting worse i didn't see how it could get any worse but it just kept i kept sinking more and more and um thinking more and more about suicide a lot and i thought something's wrong i can't handle being alive anymore it's just impossible so that weekend i drove up to mount evans in colorado to check out cliffs so i went up the roadways and did a ue and then gunned the gas the last thing i remembered the edge of the cliff hitting the floorboard of the car then it was just blackness after that i opened my eyes i didn't feel anything it was just numbness but i looked up and it everything was red the blood was in my eyeballs and i remember thinking oh [ __ ] i'm still alive and then i just remember blacking out again [Music] and then the next thing i remembered i woke up and i was at the side of the road i was like wow how did i get up here if i heard this car coming down from the summit and i kept going back and forth between wanting to live and wanting to die and as he got closer i was thinking i don't want to see him want him to see me here i just want to die and i hope he passes me by sure enough he passed me by and went on and as he went by i remember thinking that [ __ ] what's the matter with people [Music] and then i started praying that somebody would come and find me and sure enough another car is coming down and was like praying that it would stop and then he stops and i just blanked out again i didn't understand at first why in the world he wanted to commit suicide one reason was is he he he was gay he is gay he's a gay person and he and he knew that i've always been pretty strict about morals and all this sort of thing you know and i think it's he was afraid that the family might disown him he'd always told us all of his kids that he had unconditional love for us but he said you know honestly the sin i con always considered worse than murder was homosexuality we're born in sin and we're all sinned all of sin didn't come short of the glory of god there's none righteous no not one well that's another sin now it's one we think is pretty serious but he don't think it is then he said you know um this is going to take me some time to adjust to and you have to understand the generation i came from and the culture i came from we used to talk about killing gay people and he said god threw a curveball at me here and this is a big test he said well i'm that way i can't help it and i said i know what and i agree with that i don't not michigan for that but to me it has to should be a virgin about it but they never got to the point of full acceptance which i never really expected so i went back to moab and resumed my job at the women's shelter as the homeless coordinator it was there that i decided i didn't want to live in a house that i wanted to live in a cave plus i was trying to save money and i moved into a cave and continued to go to work and they called me the homeless homeless coordinator and it's like i got this vision of my head just being this weed garden full of nonsense thoughts most of them negative just thoughts cluttering my head that were inhibiting my whole life and i thought this is the root of my depression and i thought it i don't care if it takes till i'm 80 years old every thought i encounter i'm just going to pull it up like a weed and let it go i was like wow this is so simple and i somehow felt like i have a choice here it's like i'm not a victim of the universe anymore as weeks went by i just felt myself feeling lighter and happier until finally i just felt like my depression was gone and at the same time i felt like letting go of possessions useless possessions like useless thoughts and useless possessions go hand in hand it was like this total cleaning of my life so it took me basically the 90s to do that until i finally got up the courage to give up my last money and i took the money out of my pocket and i went to a phone booth similar to this pennsylvania and i put it on top and i figured somebody will take it and and when i did that it was it felt really mystical to me it was i walked out and it just felt like freedom like warm water was pouring over my head and and i just felt like wow i feel completely comfortable and completely free i feel like i'm at home and it doesn't matter where i am i feel like i'm at home and liberation [Music] so tell me [Music] washed [Music] there's nothing down there's nothing that the road you

Channel: Only Human

Views: 1,757,513

Keywords: cave dweller, embracing individuality, embracing the unconventional, financial freedom, financial liberation, life without rent, living simply, living with no money, minimalist lifestyle, minimalist lifestyle choices, minimalist living documentary, minimalist living habits, minimalist living tips, minimalistic lifestyle, simple living, simple living journey, sustainable documentary, sustainable lifestyle, unconventional housing, unique living situation

Id: HpfHYhyqC-Q

Length: 15min 24sec (924 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020