Wasting my life one day at a time...

Proving once again that I'm ahead of my time, I've stumbled upon the next big thing before it officially becomes the next big thing. So what's this undiscovered trend that promises to fulfill your life and make you cool for a short period of time? One word, folks. Freeganism.

Better get started now, before it becomes too trendy and the inevitable backlash begins. Proclaim yourself a freegan and reap the benefits of being cool. You can thank me posthumously for your few months of popularity when the fad eventually wears off and you're a loser again.

But what is freeganism? It's basically a philosophy that combines the ethics of veganism with the poverty of a monk. The term freegan is derived from "free" and "vegan," with an emphasis on the "free." According to http://www.freegan.info/, freeganism is dedicated to "living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources." Basically, you try to survive without spending money, thereby saving humans the burden of working and also preserving the planet's natural resources. Everyone's a winner!

Behaviors embraced by hardcore freegans include the following:

• Dumpster diving (called "urban foraging" by real freegans). Everything, from food and clothing to expired medicine and carpet samples, is a treasure for freegans.
• Waste minimization. Instead of putting garbage where it belongs (in trash cans, garbage disposals, toilets, or on a city sidewalks), freegans are happy to feed and clothe themselves with society's waste.
• Hitchhiking or bushopping. True freegans own few possessions, and a car is rarely among them. When walking or biking isn't an option, there's no shame in hitchhiking or sneaking onto a bus or train.
• Squatting. While this also refers to the way freegans are often forced to defecate, it primarily refers to living rent free in abandoned buildings or communal dwellings.
• Gardening (also called "wild foraging"). Growing or harvesting wild plants for food or medicinal/narcotic use.
• Voluntary joblessness. By actually contributing to society, you become part of the problem. Hence, true freegans don't work.

I recently spent a few days with a friend who's a practicing freegan. His ultimate goal is to never pay for another meal again, a task that's easily accomplished, for now, since he still lives at home. My friend is also a proud urban forager, and goes Dumpster (it's a brand name so it's capitalized) diving several nights a week. He often scores hundreds of bags of stale potato chips that a local manufacturer throws away when they're a day past expiration but still perfectly edible. He's been living the freegan lifestyle for a several years now and claims that because of generous freegan donations at school-sponsored activities, every student in his high school ate at least one food item that was once in a garbage can or Dumpster. Impressive. Sharing the poverty is what freeganism is all about.

So how does freeganism differ from the much-maligned hippy lifestyle that abounded in the late 60's and early 70's? Well, freegans don't seem to have the political consciousness that hippies pretended to have. And the last time I checked, the hippies didn't have a nifty Website like the one listed above.