“Come, play in the moonlight, there’s plenty of food. Worry about winter when winter comes.”
The ant didn’t listen to the grasshopper, just as the grasshopper didn’t listen to the ant. They spoke different languages.
The way this story usually ends in the uptight capitalist paradigm of the industrialized world is the winter comes and the ant watches smugly from his warm house stocked with food as the grasshopper freezes and starves to death. I never liked the ant.
That’s because I’m a grasshopper.
The ants control the world. They have been trying for a long time to turn all of us grasshoppers into more worker ants. They want us to produce, produce, produce and then consume, consume, consume. They want us to give up our pleasure in life and join them in drudgery so that they can feel they are making the right decision and perhaps enjoy the fruit of our labor. They want us to validate them by joining them, or they want to smugly look on as we freeze and starve to death. I say, nix to them.
I’ve rewritten the ending of the old fable. Here it is.
“You better get to work or you’re going to freeze to death this winter,” the ant told the grasshopper, ever so smugly.
“My life is my work,” the grasshopper said. “You better take a second to enjoy your life or you’re going to keel over prematurely of a coronary. You’ll wake up one morning a very old ant and wonder why you never saw your kids grow into big red ants. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. You better worry about you though.”
The ant continued working and the grasshopper continued playing his fiddle and dancing in the moonlight. In fact, the grasshopper had so much time to practice his fiddling and dancing, that he became a virtuoso!
When the winter came the ant waited to see the grasshopper freeze or come begging for warmth or food. It didn’t happen. The grasshopper had used his free time to learn where to get food and how to stay warm without the ant’s help. He spent the winter entertaining friends with his fiddle playing and staying warm using creativity. When spring came around, he was just fine.
So this isn’t a book for beggars. It’s a book for those hardy souls who choose not to be ants. It’s a collection of a few of the things I’ve learned to get through the winter. It’s a book for grasshoppers and ants that want to live like grasshoppers. I hope you enjoy it.
PROVOCATION
I like that word. Provocation. A pro is an expert. A vocation is the way we make ends meet in the world. The word vocation is the same as the word vacation except for one letter… Seriously, you have to ask yourself what it is that you want in the world.
Are you seeking redemptive social change?A new plasma screen television? More time to be with your family? More time to be by yourself? What PROVOKES you to even consider rough living?
Is it that you want a revolution?Are you into shattering the social structure?
Unleash your desire. Grab hold of empowerment and listen to a suggestion from yourself. Be honest…what you seek is self determination and freedom.
Now, let’s take a look at what you have to work with. It’s what we all have to work with. It’s the same for everyone but completely different. Or as they so charmingly say in Asia when languages are not in common… ‘same same but different’.
I want you to grab a sheet of paper. Divide it into three columns and label each one with following three A’s.
To get what you want from life you have the three ‘A’s’. Abilities, Accumulations, and Access.
Abilities. Your abilities are what you can do. Can you build a house, unclog a drain, put up fences, dig ditches, paint, write, draw, garden, accessorize, fix things? What are your abilities. Never mind if you think you can make money with them or if you think they are useful. Your abilities are what you can do.
Accumulations. This is your stuff. Some people have lots of stuff, some people have no stuff. George Carlin has a funny bit about how a house is just a place to keep your stuff. Stuff can be helpful and it can be a hindrance. More on this later.
Access. Access is probably the most important thing you can have in our global-society. Did you ever notice that when you watch the credits of movies there are lots of the same names? Maybe you thought, “Wow, that’s coincidental” or “What a talented family!” Don’t kid yourself. That is what access can get you. Access is who you know and where you can go. A library card gives you access to books and computers. A father who is President of the U.S. gives you access to business ventures and politics. Honestly, is there a remote chance in hell George W. Bush would have become president if his father hadn’t provided him with plenty of access? That is what access can get you.
Write as much as you can under each of the the ‘A’s. Take your time with this. You’re not some ant, are you? You won’t learn to play your fiddle good enough to buy your supper unless you know what you can do with it. That takes time. When you think you are done, hold on to that paper. You’ll find that you can add a lot more to it as time goes on.
You get the point, right? So let’s get crazy and say I want to have a steak dinner with corn and a big glass of milk. Easy, right? I go to the grocery store, go to the reduced price meat section (more on this later), pick up a steak, an ear of corn, and a pint of milk. Total cost $4.86. Then I go to the park, fire up the barbecue using hardwood sticks to get coals ( you don’t have to use charcoal from the store!) and I make my meal.
I can almost hear you though. “What if you don’t have the $4.86 to get the groceries?”It’s still easy. You may not get the immediate gratification of a steak dinner, but you can do it. Look at your list and see what you have to work with. Two quick examples should suffice….
Example 1: I go to the library and post on craigslist.com that I am offering rides from one part of town to another for $5 round trip. (I make sure that it doesn’t cost me too much in gas of course) and wait for my phone to ring.
Example 2: I make a sign that says “Historic Walking Tours of such and such area”, I go to the library, do a little research into some history of wherever I am living, learn a few facts, and I go to a place where tourists gather (rest area, beach, park, etc) and share a part of my local scene with a visitor. I can either set a fee or wait for tips. If I choose to wait for tips, it’s always a good idea to mention that I am working for free and that I live on my tips.
In all three cases, it is me, using my abilities, accumulations, and access to get a steak dinner with corn on the cob and a big glass of milk. I’m tempted to go on, but the fact of the matter is, my list is different than your list. Give it a try with your list. How do you get that steak dinner three different ways?
You want to make sure that you weigh the value of what you seek by the cost of what you desire. For example, it wouldn’t be worth it for me to use $8 in gas to get a $5 meal.
Aim for the easiest, most convenient, and most fun way to get where you want to go. Instead of saying “I apply for a job, go through a lengthy interview process, get hired, work for two weeks, get my first check, cash it, and then go out for my dinner at Sizzler”, I went with something more convenient , more fun, and more easy.