I guess the best example I can think of is Chris McCandless

Then there’s the North Pond Hermit of Maine but I suppose people would not classify him as free of mental illness.

Just wondering how many people are out there living in caves, walking around, hiking trails, hopping trains, or living in National Forests full time who really aren’t mentally ill and just choose that lifestyle. What do you think?

  • spacemanspiffy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    9 months ago

    There used to be (still is?) a guy who lived in Albany NY known as the Mayor of Lark St. I think he said he had a degree, but he was willingly homeless. Made money running errands for local businesses. Everyone in the Lark St neighborhood knew this guy.

    He seemed plenty sane to me.

  • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    9 months ago

    I imagine most of those just go off grid. Being a homeless wanderer is very hard. Much easier to shun society from inside a cabin.

  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    9 months ago

    Yeah, I met a retired guy who just went around the country using his pensioner’s bus pass and slept where he could.

  • General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    9 months ago

    I once met a man who was just trekking across the country. Took a rest next to me at the bus stop in my city with his a big ol’ frame backpack; one of those ones you would take on a long multi-day backcountry hike with a sleeping bag. He said he had just come down out of the mountains. Until then, I had not met a single person who even tried to make that journey in either direction on foot, but this person apparently would walk huge portions of an entire state on a frequent basis. You could tell he wasn’t like other homeless people. He actually seemed happy.

  • Ook the Librarian@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    9 months ago

    Not quite homeless, Paul Erdős was a nomadic mathematician. He use to travel to universities, couch-surf with a mathematician, and solve a problem with them.

    He would say, “another roof, another proof.” As a result, he has a huge number of collaborators. The stat Erdős number is like the six degrees from Kevin Bacon game.

    People seemed glad to have this oddball stranger as a house guest.

  • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    9 months ago

    The first time my best friend and I did mushrooms, he told me the next day that he decided his calling was to give up all his worldly possessions and just travel the earth spreading the word of the Lord.

    I told him that was cool, but to wait six months before starting his quest—besides, he had his whole life to walk the earth, and the blunt I just rolled was 20 minutes away from burn down. It’s been over 15 years, and he still hasn’t left for that pilgrimage…never would have guessed, lol. 🙄

  • Dr. Coomer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    9 months ago

    Yes, actually. Very rare, but yes. Diogenes is probably the best example I could think of for that kind of behavior.

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    It is generally not recommended to diagnosis like you just did. Being weird is not in of itself mental illness. Also to be fair I think the plot was he was looking for his biological father.

    But yeah I think there are mentally stable people who just decide that wandering the earth is what they want to do. I don’t really get it but they probably don’t get me so it works out.

  • vermyndax@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    9 months ago

    There was a man here in north Alabama like this. He even sometimes pretended to be mentally ill, but he wasn’t - and he was actually very wealthy.

  • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    I literally did just that for a summer a few years back. An extremely exhilarating adventure, but I got bored of that crap after a while.

    And no, I have never consumed any hard drugs nor would I ever given a fifth of a third of a quarter of the shit I saw on the road.

        • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          9 months ago

          As a recovering addict myself, I can confirm that the worst thing about hard drugs is that they actually are as good as advertised. If it weren’t for that, they’d be so easy to quit.

          • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            9 months ago

            Well, I’m glad you’re breaking out of the cycle. I have seen with my own eyes how that shit turns humans into literal, and I mean LITERAL zombies.

            • WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              9 months ago

              I know too well. William S. Burroughs calls it being the “de-anxietied man”. I call it being bulletproof.

              Unfortunately, along with removing anxiety, fear, and regret, heroin also removes empathy, responsibility, and integrity. If it weren’t for that one little thing, it would be so perfect. /s

  • BMatthew@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    9 months ago

    There are multiple monastic traditions of shunning all material things, some of which include housing.

      • BMatthew@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        9 months ago

        Different religion but from the same area, Jain ascetics are the ones I am most familiar with that would fit more what you might have been wondering about.