Nadaism is not dead

Do you want to know if a person who passes all the time doing nothing would be able to live a normal and happy life?

... I will not work, I will not engage any activity in the long or even in the medium term - but I'll need help! Please check out the nadaist contract at the bottom of the page

... and there's other pointless investigations ongoing, just take a look to the bar on the right hand side

Friday, December 14, 2007

the new hippies' series: (4) working the least

Not that I'm going to criticise anybody who does not like working, of course not. Old and new hippies and myself.

Some of them find their way through, they work a few months in overpriced Europe while they are living humbly (even in a squat), and during the rest of the year they go abroad anywhere cheap and make good value of their money. Others are just stingy and think twice before spending every cent.

My flatmate last summer, for example, she was a bit like that. We were not really organized when we had to buy something for the house (e.g. soap, toilet paper); one of us just got it whenever either she or I found it was missing. Gradually I realised she would not find anything missing, she just waited. I wanted to be sure and I devised a stupid experiment.

In India I learnt toilet paper is not really necessary -there's billions of people in Asia who do not use it. (There was this Israeli guy I met who asked the key question: if you found you had some shit on you forehead, how would you clean it?) Which method is best I'm not sure, regardless I got used to the other one in India, and in particular I didn't mind at all if I was sitting (as I always do) before my shower. However in Europe there's toilet paper and I use it (besides it's usually the jar which is missing). Some people find this whole subject is just digusting; that's not the point though. My experiment was: I would stop using paper if as usual I was in need just before my shower. Just to see what would happened.

What happened? The paper got finished and everything seemed fine for a few days. She was unemployed at that period (I was working like hell by the way), and I checked she went to the shop at least once to buy food. I don't know exactly how she was managing (I guessed she was using tissues). Finally, on Saturday mid morning, I realised I was having loose bellows and I went to the shop and I got the effing paper.

I would have talked to her if all the mess was about anything, not about a couple of euros. If I was not about to leave. And anyway my objective was to understand if she was as stingy as I had imagined. It seems she was.


This girl was taking short-term contracts very happily (the ones that others would take only because they cannot get a better one), so that at the end she could live from unemployment benefits for a while afterwards. She only looked for a new job when the time would come the state stopped paying. Which is not so bad, in my opinion, unless you make it a way of life. Unless you make it as if you are holding a day more waiting for your flatmate to get the paper (instead of you getting it).

There's hippies and hippies, there's the ones with the nice arrangements, and there's the stingy ones.

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