How to Drop Out by Ran Prieur

Emanuel · Post by **Emanuel** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:44 pm

"I didn't even start dropping out until my mid-20's. Unlike many outsiders and "radicals," I never had to go through a stage where I realized that our whole society is insane -- I've known that as long as I can remember. But even being already mentally outside the system, I found it extremely challenging to get out physically. In fourth grade I wanted to blow up the school, but I didn't know how, and even if I had done it, it would not have meant an endless summer vacation. In high school, inspired by Bill Kaysing's The Robin Hood Handbook, I wanted to go live off the land in the Idaho wilderness, but actually doing it seemed as remote and difficult as going to the moon. (Kaysing later wrote the book We Never Went to the Moon.) So I continued to bide my time and obey the letter of the law, like the guy in the Kafka parable (link). In college, when Artis the Spoonman performed on campus and told us all to drop out, I thought that was ridiculous -- how would I survive without a college degree?"
http://www.ranprieur.com/essays/dropout.html

HSpencer · Post by **HSpencer** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 5:50 pm

"The opposite of hard work is quality work. Quality work may be done quickly, but it is never pushed. It arranges itself around the goal of doing something as well as it can be done, and it finds its own pace."
I really like that sentence from the above linked piece. Made a lot of sense to me. Shows you many people go about their "work" without knowing what they are really doing. They are doing the "hamster" thing. We should look at everything we do and decide "What do I want to accomplish here"? I like quality in everything. Quality can be as simple as finding an old item at a flea market, made of really good material, realizing it's potential and true value, and restoring it to it's once brilliance. Quality can be in your thoughts. How many times have you seen a very expensive home in relative shambles, and a modest home that is so well cared for and neat that you would easily choose the latter? Quality is, of course, in the eyes of the beholder.
I really liked most of the linked piece.
@Don Emanuel
Your post made me recall my senior year in high school, where I found myself sitting in the principal's office towards the end of the school year, playing "Let's make a deal". I was offering the principal my best effort to graduate from "his" institution. "Sir, just tell me what it will take to graduate and get out of here". None of it was about grades. It was about the stupidity and insanity of the public school system. I knew there was no option but to get the piece of paper from him. No other option! My mother had instilled mental pictures of me begging for food on the side of the road within six months of my dropping out of school. I was telling him I would do anything I had to for the next three months to get that piece of paper. I would even keep my mouth shut about how the school was being subjectively poorly operated! Well, we came to an agreement and I walked up and got the stupid piece of paper.
I did get a lot of enjoyment from your post!!

AlexOliver · Post by **AlexOliver** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 10:10 pm

@H: "None of it was about grades. It was about the stupidity and insanity of the public school system. "
This is me right now. I have good grades, a mid-high SAT score, all my required classes completed...but my graduation hinges on a stupid project.
@Don: Love that article, along with everything else on his site. Also read the frequently asked criticisms (http://ranprieur.com/essays/dropoutcrit.html ).

HSpencer · Post by **HSpencer** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:04 am

@AO
Thanks for the link!! I picked out another fantastic gem:
"The kind of dependence that I'm against, that I would like to wipe off the Earth forever, is where someone has you over a barrel, where you have to do what they say because if you don't, they will withhold something that you need. The essence of "dropping out" is to cut dependencies on a system of power-over, and replace them with dependencies on a system of power-with."
Freakin' BRILLIANT!!

44deagle · Post by **44deagle** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:28 am

"Your expenses are your chains"
excellent quote from site.

chilly · Post by **chilly** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:36 am

I did find the site very interesting as well, although I still find his take on healthcare to be a bit naive or maybe oversimplified. Sure, eating health, being less stressed is a net positive... but things happen, and when you develop Multiple Sclerosis, either you are going to figure out a way to pay for prescriptions, or you are going to die earlier. These are the things that are keeping me working a little longer currently.

dot_com_vet · Post by **dot_com_vet** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:43 pm

I find a lot of things about it naive. Two examples:
A hospital birth likely saved my baby's life last year. (It's hard to predict a normal or difficult birth until it happens.)
A stroller is great, it keeps us all mobile and active. My daughter loves it!

HSpencer · Post by **HSpencer** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 6:16 pm

We don't have it too bad. I watched this movie last night on the Retro channel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Fug ... Chain_Gang
Not planning on joining one of those anytime soon!!!!

djc · Post by **djc** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 4:13 pm

I used to really dig Ran Prieur but a lot of what he wrote leaves me cold now. I believe he just inherited a lot of money from his grandfather and that he was an advocate of "mooching" off of his friends. If I'm wrong I stand corrected.
djc

Emanuel · Post by **Emanuel** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:48 pm

@djc
I never though that way. From my perspective ERE mooches on the economy just as any human mooches on the environment. Long ago I given up the zero ecological footprint idea.
Ran lives the way he wants without coercing anybody, bet he doesn't take much space. I wish I had the guts to drop out like him.

AlexOliver · Post by **AlexOliver** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:52 pm

@djc, Don Emanuel: He was an advocate of "mooching"-- the topic is handled in the criticisms I linked to above. Here's an excerpt:
"[question:] Isn't living with somebody without paying them anything called "mooching"?
[answer:] Yes, it is called that, because we live in a slave culture with a slave language!"
Full explanation is there, check it out.
He did inherit money from his grandfather. He has a donation page (http://www.ranprieur.com/me/donate.html) that says this: "I'm grateful for all the donations I've received over the years, but I really don't need more money right now. On the other hand, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling are orders of magnitude richer than me and they still accept payment for their writing. So if you have plenty of money and it feels good for you to give me some, I'll still happily accept it."
Could you explain why his grandfather leaving him money leaves you cold inside?

djc · Post by **djc** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 3:09 pm

@AlexOliver,
Very fair question which, in truth, I'm not sure I can answer.
I don't know why living off of an inheritance and freely given donations should bother me because how someone lives isn't really up to me to decide. I do appreciate a lot of his writings and I like what he's doing on his land. Probably, the fact that he takes donations that he doen't need to live on just rubs me the wrong way.
djc

AlexOliver · Post by **AlexOliver** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 10:39 pm

Fair enough. I like the disclaimer on his donation page (and definitely won't be donating anytime soon), but I can see why it might turn people off.

B · Post by B » Wed Mar 09, 2011 7:05 pm

My favorite thing about this article is that he discourages "dropping out" and points out all the disadvantages. It can be depressing, it's difficult, it requires sustained effort, it is uncomfortable, and it's socially unacceptable. "Dropping out isn't fun; don't do it!"
Only after hearing all that can I even begin to take him more seriously than the "lifestyle designers" and ebook shucksters.

Surio · Post by **Surio** » Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:27 pm

Haven't checked the site still, but
@HSpencer,

> My mother had instilled mental pictures of me

> begging for food on the side of the road
That was my mother too! And it was because I didn't score above 95 marks out of a total of 100 marks!

Ahh Man! I liked that remark from you. It took me waaaay back!

NYC ERE · Post by **NYC ERE** » Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:15 am

Thanks for posting this, Don. I haven't delved deep enough to come across any objectionable political stuff--I'm guessing if Jeff's offended, so will I be.
Nevertheless, some nuggets:
* "In terms of net worth divided by monthly expenses, I'm probably in the richest one percent." I haven't seen it put quite this way; probably the most meaningful way of measuring monetary wealth, I'd say--lately, everything is about time wealth to me, rather than money wealth (the two being closely related).
* he goes around barefoot as much as possible--I identify with this, and plan to do the same, for health.
* Weston A. Price diet--I also identify with this; basically, paleo with traditionally prepared neolithic (pulverized, soaked, fermented grains; cultured raw dairy, etc.)
* he links to his OKCupid profile in his bio page--his OKCupid profile lays it all out there. This strikes me as an incredibly efficient use of his "Second Self," as whatever woman contacts him will be 100% pre-qualified; he links back to his site, where the contents of his mind are basically all right there. Brilliant.

AlexOliver · Post by **AlexOliver** » Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:18 pm

@Zev: His essays on 9/11:
(2002): http://ranprieur.com/essays/luke911.html

(2006): http://ranprieur.com/essays/911FAQ.html

B · Post by B » Sat Mar 12, 2011 1:02 am

I was just skimming his fiction. Here's something kind of related to today's events:
http://ranprieur.com/apo/0101.html

HSpencer · Post by **HSpencer** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 3:40 am

Yeah, so we wake up to an 8.9 mag earthquake off the coast of Japan. Do we quickly remember the two major faults in the US, CA and MO/AR? Apocalypsopolis?

Or am I just being a "doomer"? Does anyone "not" believe we are seeing an increase in earthquake activity? Oh, coincidence. I should have realized that.

AnneBentham · Post by **AnneBentham** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:53 pm

Thanks for sharing this. I read almost everything on Ran Prieur's site and feel like his world view is the closest I've found to my own.