Plan B involves spending a year walking around the UK while learning French (I could have sworn that there were more French people in France than here, the last time I visited). Judging from the largely diagonal journey (map at bottom of this link), this should help him along as far as Germany at which point he may have to stop, reconsider, and spend a further year pacing the perimeter of France while mastering German. Will the necessity then to master the languages of The Balkans, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan & Pakistan cause similar circlings of each previous country. Or will the inhabitants of those countries simply avoid pretending that they don't possess sufficient English to understand this simple plan.

Колкото и фантастична да ми изглежда идеята на обществото и пътуването на Марк Бойл, човечеството има нужда от такива безумства.

Speaking of the last site I mentioned - what a great idea! JustForTheLoveOfIt is a freeconomy site which I joined a couple of months ago.  This is their introduction:

"Freeconomy is about sharing the skills you've learnt throughout your life and learning those you haven't. It's about helping others and providing an opportunity for others to help you. Freeconomy allows people to make the transition from a money based communityless society to more of a community based moneyless society, and to share the land they don't need or can't use to facilitate a local food community."

And today I recieved an email from a lady called Tasha asking for help to move a shed from one allotment to another, offering a beer and possibly a cooked meal for our time! How great!! I haven't the strength to move a shed so I don't think I'll be responding to that one. But I just can't stop thinking what a great idea freeconomy is and what our local communities would be like If we all took part in this.

 Go visit and join!

This gentleman, Mark Boyle, is setting out on a two and a half year march across Europe and the Middle east to te heart of India. The catch? The 28 year old former businessman will not touch any form of money--cash, credit cards, traveler's checks--nada--during his entire journey. According to the BBC, he's only carrying "t-shirts, sandals, sunscreen, a knife and a bandage."

So why is he doing this? To promote the philosophy of a freeconomy--a moneyless society. A facinating concept, which would be brilliant if if weren't for the small fact of human greed. Still, there are small moneyless societies that exist all over the world. They're called families. In most cultures, you don't make your spouse or kids pay you for the food you serve them, nor do you pay your spouse for sex or your kids to do the chores, or your son-in-law to fix the broken computer. Nor do you charge grandma for tomatoes from your garden. There you have it. A small moneyless society.

Want to track Mark's journey (and learn more about this money less concept?) Check out this site. Everyone that meets Mark is given a password so they can log onto the site and blog about their experience with him. We'll definitely be following this badass as he redefines badass-ness. Although his cause is quaintly quixotic, I'm rooting for him.

Read more and see photo sources at BBC

RESULTS:

FAIL.  Apparently the operation was ill thought out and ill planned, and although idealistic, Boyle was not prepared for the reality (and the enormity) of the task.  Good luck to him in future endeavors.   See my future article on a far better prepared walker.

Tal como lo comenta la BBC, un hombre inició un viaje caminando que le tomará 2 años y medio para ir desde Bristol, su lugar de residencia, en Inglaterra a la India. El detalle es que irá sin un mísero peso encima. Su objetivo es mostrar su fe en la humanidad. Equipado sólo con un poco de ropa (remeras, sandalias, anteojos de sol y un cortaplumas) el ex-hombre de negocios de una puntocom Mark Boyle, de 28 años, se ha preparado para cruzar toda Europa y el medio oriente hasta llegar al lugar de nacimiento de Gandhi.

Para realizar el viaje y poder alimentarse, ofrecerá sus habilidades a la gente. La iniciativa forma parte del movimiento Freeeconomy, un grupo que comenzó a trabajar en los Estados Unidos y tiene por obvetivo promover una sociedad libre del vil metal. Según Boyle, cuanto más se acumula, más se enferma la comunidad y por eso es necesario volver a un modo de vida más comunitario.

El movimiento Freeconomy posee unos 3600 miembros de 74 países y tiene por objetivo promover el intercambio de habilidades y trabajo sin dinero como una forma de promover las comunicaciones cara a cara, la acción de compartir y la solidaridad.

El objetivo de Bolye es caminar entre 15 y 45 millas diarias con la meta de llegar a Porbandar en la costa occidental de la India y sin tocar un sólo billete o moneda, ni utilizar tarjetas de crédito o cheques (ver mapa). Al preguntarsele cómo es que lo logrará, él replica diciendo que posee amplia confianza en la humanidad. Según cuenta, si emplea 2 años y medio para mostrarle a una sola persona la convicción de lo que él está realizando, considerará que su misión ha sido cumplida. Para documentar la hazaña, Boyle le dará un password a todo aquel con quien se encuentre, para que entre en un sitio web y describa detalles de su viaje.

Tal vez se trate de una experiencia un tanto extrema. Sin embargo, no hay que desmerecer el impacto ejemplificador de la iniciativa y su objetivo.

No es casualidad de que el señor Mark Boyle provenga del sector tecnológico que ha dado lugar a esta sociedad de la información. Como expreso en mi libro, La Red y el futuro de las organizaciones. Más conectados...¿Más Integrados?, estoy convencido de que en la misma base de esta nueva cultura subyace el ideal de la preocupación por los demás como un fin en sí mismo. Recibir la información producida por otra persona, al tiempo que se oculta la producida por uno mismo a lo menos comporta un dilema ético. A partir de allí, esta idea puede ser llevada a todos los ámbitos de la actividad humana. La solidaridad y la cooperación no tienen un ámbito que los limite .

No es casualidad que muchos de los mentores de la revolución de las tecnologías de información y comunicación, hayan destinado grandes cantidades de recursos, conseguidos gracias a la actividad capitalista que emprenden, para apoyar numerosas causas filantrópicas y que muchos de ellos tengan una profunda disposición humanística o espiritual. Los ejemplos abundan: las fundaciones de Bill y Melinda Gates, de David y Lucile Packard, de la familia Hewett, Steve Case, Paul Allen, Ted Turner y otros tantos, pueden ser considerados como los mayores filántropos de toda la historia de la humanidad. Michael Kapor, el creador del programa Lotus y uno de los fundadores de la Electronic Frontier Foundation, Sandy Lerner y Leo Bosack, fundadores de Cisco, Steve Kirsch, creador de Infoseek, entre muchos otros nos muestran que el talento tecnológico es progenitor del altruismo con base espiritual. En América Latina se puede citar el notable caso del argentino Martín Varsavsky . . .

¿Serán los “trabajadores del conocimiento”, como los denomina Peter Drucker, parte de quienes encarnan la sabiduría que el mundo de hoy necesita? Yo no tengo la respuesta, pero la intuyo desde mi deseo.

Fuente: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7217788.stm

I am making soup - please come along to meet other freeconomists. Starts 7.30pm

The Freeconomy Community is about making the transition from a
money-based communityless society to a community-based moneyless society.
It's about helping others and providing an opportunity for others to
help you.
It's about sharing the skills you have learnt through your life and
learning those you haven't.
It's about sharing your tools so you all can have access to all the
tools under the sun without it costing the earth.
It's about using any free space you have to either benefit positive,
ethical and local projects, or to enable volunteers to keep doing
their amazing work for free.
It's about sharing the land you don't need in order to facilitate a
local food community.
It's about freeconnecting neighbours.
It's about keeping the taxman out of it.
It's about learning to help each other again.
It's about getting ready for a post peak oil world.
It's about making dinner for a friend who was yesterday a stranger.
It's about keeping money out of the equation.
It's about communicating face-to-face and phasing out technological
communication.
It's about putting the soul back into society.
It's about helping each other not for profit, but just for the love-ofit.

http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/