Democratic Happiness
“The only way to have true choices on a daily basis over your life is to reduce your dependence on the dollar,” said Bob Wells, a real-life nomad who plays himself in the Oscar-nominated film Nomadland.
“And until then, you won’t. You’ll do whatever the dollar tells you you have to do,” he told The Current’s Matt Galloway.
Wells said that from a young age, people in the Western world are taught that living a “quality life” means getting a job, raising a family, buying successively bigger houses, and working most of your life to enjoy retirement in your final decades.
“You’re going to give away the 60 best prime years of your life for the 20 poorest years of your health,” he said.
“That’s a quality life, that’s what we’re told. And that’s just one great, big, enormous lie.”
But he said the audience for the advice he gives is predominantly older, and in financial trouble.
“A lot of us that age can’t find a job. Why would an employer hire us instead of a 20-, 30-, 40-year-old? They just won’t,” he said.
Many people he speaks with are surviving on social security benefits, which isn’t enough to cover basic expenses in many places, he said.
“So I offer a way out. I say, ‘Here’s a way you can live on even your $800 or your $1000 a month.’”
