Dispersed Living

There will always be someone else’s footprints. (Photo by the author)

“Dispersed camping is the term used for camping anywhere in the National Forest outside of a designated campground.” [Source: https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2202804]

To coin a term, “dispersed living,” means living outside generally accepted or “designated” social guidelines. Since those guidelines are sometimes vague and since some are tied to laws nobody wants to break, it’s nearly impossible to live a fully dispersed life.

However, dispersed living could at least be considered a monkish life.

From Ecclesiastical Greek monakhos “monk,” noun use of a classical Greek adjective meaning “solitary,” from monos “alone” (from PIE root *men- (4) “small, isolated”). [Source: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=monk]

Dispersed living is rarely fully alone. There will always be someone else’s footprints: those of another monk.