That circular is just trash I tell myself 🗞️

So I got this flyer from some kind of mortgage company in the mail, didn’t even look at much before tossing it in the basket with the rest of the paper trash. For some reason, I pulled it out of the trash before tossing it in the fire, I don’t actually know why. Actually I do, there was a picture on the cover of a post-and-beam structure on the cover and inside very typical suburbanite houses. It was advertising the low amount of money down – not just because you don’t have money for a large down payment but as a way to avoid capital gains taxes and keep your money in the market. I had to think, catchy advertising.

Soon enough though that ad will just be another blackened sheet of paper, some smoke and ash. Truth is I do need to find a home but I still can’t bring myself to buy something in New York with the burn ban and the gun laws. Having enough land and buffer from the neighbors helps, but it’s so risky. And the high utility costs, the lock-in of having to pay for fossil fuel electricity and heat each month for enormous non-shared structure seems like a waste. Likewise, it seems like a waste to burn a shit ton of gasoline and be forced to drive back and forth to work every day. The question in my mind – what for? Building equity the advertisement proudly acclaims!

It’s trash I tell myself. I don’t want a home, a place I’m tied to that I spend all my time driving back and forth to, fixing broken shit. I mean I do want to some day have land and livestock, a place where I can burn shit and shoot guns, but I also am not ready to give up my life at this point – traveling and exploring – just so I can shovel feed and manure and weed a garden. And to buy a house in New York is to make a commitment to the state beyond what I have at my work. It means giving up on the goal of having that off-grid homestead in a place where I can left alone from government harassment and stupid laws written for the urbanite. I honestly don’t want something that can bought with a mortgage or insured by an insurer. I’d much rather have something if it burns, I can push the debris into a hollow, throw some dirt over it, and start over again without much significant loss. Something not made entirely of plastic and particle board, asphalt and pine lumber.