
I live alone at sea. Here's how to be happy in isolation - yonibot
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/apr/04/i-live-alone-on-a-boat-at-sea-how-to-be-happy-in-isolation
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mythrwy
I live alone in the desert. It's like the sea except you can't drown as
easily. And I live with my SO so not exactly alone, but pretty close. No
neighbors and it's a very very long way from any major city and no one comes
here because it's uninteresting wasteland with few opportunities.

In the past sometimes I have been jealous of city dwellers. They have IKEA and
good restaurants and meetups and clever people to talk to and interesting high
paying jobs. I've thought about leaving. I didn't always live here, I've lived
in major metros.

But not now. I'm so grateful to be here and feel so lucky. It's beautiful this
spring with a lot of rain and flowers and nothing about my life has changed. I
take long walks and think about life and really hope everything works out and
feel very bad for those who felt the need to chase the shiny and now it's
turned into a prison. Even in the little town 15 miles away, it's ugly the
past few times I've been. But I have what I need for months and won't go back
until summer most likely.

I still might leave at some point. Isolation for awhile is healthy but long
term I think maybe it isn't. Sometime I feel like I've been lazy and dropped
out a bit and could have contributed more to the world if I weren't trying to
flee the annoyance and the noise and the politics and the bullshit. Also
without the internet I couldn't work and this whole scheme would be untenable.

Everyone should try solitude for a bit. But not forever. We need other people
to keep us on keel and help us reach our potential I think.

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jamil7
Would love to know more details about how you manage this. It's something I've
thought about a lot over the years but have never felt like I'd be able to get
the money together to buy something.

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mythrwy
It was not very expensive but I got lucky and got the place during depth of
last financial crisis (part of reason I came here, I thought maybe it could
get worse). It had a small 1200 foot house which I added to and fixed up
pretty nicely.

To be fair I don't make the money here I made before. But I don't really need
much except my PCs and food and a few basics. I don't eat out, don't buy
expensive things, don't buy things I don't need, don't go on expensive trips
and it works more or less fine. I live on here per month around my rent in the
city before I think so actually have more left over when all is said and done.
I do miss a lot of the amenities of the city sometimes. Good company and food
for instance. I do not miss the noise and car fumes and office bullshit.

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yonibot
I kind of feel like people romanticize isolation these days. Human
relationships can be challenging but can also provide immense benefits for
human development and wellbeing.

