Whenever I am looking for interesting things on the web, I will check out what events or workshops the creative group Pixelache are having in Helsinki, Finland. I checked their site yesterday, and saw that there was a speaker/ potluck event called Living in a Gift Economy with Tomi Astikainin, who is a writer and advocate of the creative commons and unrestricted knowledge who has been living without money for over 3 years.
Since 2010, Astikainen has been living a moneyless lifestyle, and has been traveling around talking about the gift economy. The idea of a gift economy is based on the idea of community, sharing, and paying things forward. At the core of this is the idea of helping others without asking for anything in return. Astikainen writes on his site, “On a personal level it’s fairly simple: let others know what you need and contribute what you can, by doing what you love to do. When you help others, don’t ask for anything in return. When offered money ask them to pay it forward, i.e. help someone else!”
On his website, you can read some the answers to questions that he is frequently asked. When asked about why he lives without money he writes, “Money had its place and time in the history of human race but now it’s an obsolete institution that does more harm than good. Because there’s always more debt than money in the monetary system, it creates a profit motive on all levels of society. That profit motive pushes us to dire competition with each other, feeds dishonest behavior, increases fear and decreases trust between people. I didn’t want to have anything to do with a system like that anymore. I wasn’t content just to survive; I wanted to live and enjoy life, to see if I could learn to trust other people again, depend on them and lead a fulfilling life.
When asked about food and how he eats he responds, “ People that you meet on the road are by and large very generous and giving. I eat when people offer me food. Sometimes I ask for leftovers from restaurants or just grab whatever is left on the table. When there is a possibility to use a kitchen I go dumpster-diving. Half of the food produced globally ends up thrown away.
Astikainen has written several books that are all available for free as a download on his site. I downloaded his book called Sunhitcher, which is described as “a story of Remmus Reverof, a guy who embarks on a hitchhiking journey completely without money. It’s about finding love within you, in your relationships and in life in general.”
To download Astikainen’s books, read more of his FAQs, or learn more about living in a gift economy, you can check out his website.
Image Source:
http://www.tomiastikainen.com/
http://moneyless.info/
Links:
http://www.tomiastikainen.com/
http://moneyless.info/