I was chatting to a buddy the other day about ‘blogging’ and how the blog community is pretty close in South Africa, but sometimes a little too close especially when it comes to criticism. No one really challenges anything someone else says. Some blogs have average posts, and regular readers continue to leave pat on the back type comments, even though the post was so below average that I was prying my eyes out reading the post and the pathetic comments (Naturally with a link back to their own blogs)
Anyway that’s sort of maybe off the topic, but this Cape Town guy Adin Van Ryneveld, with all due respect, must be mad. I really don’t want to come across as the person who shatters dreams, but something about what he’s doing is delusional. While I applaud him, because what he is doing is quite something, there are flaws. He is trying to live without money for 5 years, giving all the money he earns away to others. I am sure he will succeed as he seems to have an iron will and is actually surviving without money. I have no doubt that he will make a success of living without money for 5 years, and in 5 years time he will in all likeliness be a familiar name, with probably TV time, a book deal and much more.
But he says he wants to give away five hundred and fifty five million, five hundred and fifty five thousand, five hundred and fifty five rand and 55 cents by the 5th of May 2014.
That is a bus load of cash! And while I’m all for reaching for the stars and dreaming huge, this is just ridiculous! Has no one else thought “Well that’s just being mental”?
Has no one else read this and gone “Well maybe we should say something?” I’m just saying…
Everyone is applauding him for what he is doing, and that is great, but five hundred and fifty five million is pushing it a bit I’d say.
Adin was featured in The Weekend Argus (October 10, 2009) and said:
“I’d like to get the message across that you don’t need money to live your dream and create awesome stuff in this world. You don’t have to say ‘I would do that if only I had the money”
It’s great in theory, but in the real world everything does revolve around money. While Adin is living in the real world, he is living in a removed reality in my belief. He is relying on people to help him out, people who are offering him things that their money has bought. For shelter, he offers his services as a house sitter, while for food he says people are pretty keen to feed him or invite him to dinner.
In reality, if he says we can live like this, then we’d all be house sitting each others houses and all being fed by each other. Great, so who is paying the rent and buying the food if no one has money?
Don’t get me wrong, I do see some sort of a point in what he is doing, but it is a bit delusional to think that you can live like this and that removing money from your life is a way to be free. Adin is creating a lifestyle that will be sustainable for 5 years, but only due to publicity. In the modern world, it is not sustainable to live without money, because we don’t exactly grow our own food these days, do we? In any other instance, he’d basically be a beggar…but as his popularity grows and people come to hear of his story, big brands will want to help him out and donate things to him in exchange for him mentioning their names.
So he will be back to the real world, where major brands will cash in on his reputation to boost their coverage. He will essentially, in the end, be a slave to advertising. Yes, he is going to donate money to charities, but the fact is he will receiving money from advertising. And as we know, advertising is what makes the world go round. It makes us want stuff we don’t need.
“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need” — Tyler Durden — Fight Club
Some will say advertising creates a world of greed and power imbalances. But advertising is a major part of modern society and it’s never going to go away, and we do need it.
So Adin’s plan of living without money, will still be about money to a lot of people in the end.
Howzit Aidan, all good this side
Thanks for your in depth reply.
Yeah look, as it stands, it’s just an opinion of mine I was keen to throw out there, actually also inspired by a winner of Survivor or something who traveled around the world for free (Which clearly isn’t possible in normal circumstances)
Points noted on some of my assumptions ( “I never said we can or should all live like this”), I think the whole thing about your story is very intriguing, and as you say you haven’t got it all figured out yet.
I’m going to drop you an e-mail in the week about the interview, let’s make it happen 
It’s quite late now, so I won’t attempt an e-mail at this time (2:30am — weird that I’m still up)
Thanks for the reply again, chat in the week.
Sean
Looks interesting… Would love to see this happen, when does he plan to start doing this? I think you should keep us updated here Sean… Very brave of Adin to do this, cant say i’d have the balls…
Oh and respect to him for donating that money to help build the future of South Africa!
@Sean,
Ja, I’ve been checking out that guy who travelled around the world for free…good idea and good for him. And you’re right, without social media he wouldn’t have been able to do that. But then, what’s wrong with social media…it exists, people (including you ) are using it for all types of things…I am just taking it to a different level I guess.
About the web forgery thing…man I’m quite pissed off. I’ve reported it to my hosting guy and he said it could take time to be re-indexed. It works fine on Internet Explorer!
Looking forward to having that interview dude…
adin@nu-buntu.co.za
Adin van Ryneveld @AdinvanRyneveld Website