The Non-Ownership Experiment: Frequently Asked Questions and Critiques
The Non-Ownership Experiment: Frequently Asked Questions and Critiques
This is an in-depth exploration of the Experiment of Non-Ownership including my reasons for the practice and responses to the most frequently asked questions and critiques.
Filmed April 16th, 2025 in Griffith Park, Los Angeles on Day 80 of the Non-Ownership Experiment.
Transcript:
Hello Dear Friends,
Today is day 80 of the experiment of non-ownership, and I’m here to share with you an exploration of what this experiment is about, including answers to a lot of the most frequently asked questions and responses to a lot of the critiques and concerns, but from a very genuine place, genuinely wanting to answer your questions.
So first, what do I mean when I say the experiment of non-ownership? I arrived here in Griffith Park 80 days ago, having walked from the border of Canada with every possession that I owned on my walking cart, and when I arrived here on January 26th, I gave away everything; every single possession that I had and every last dollar, which I think was around $220.
Now, when I arrived here, I had already downsized and simplified my life substantially. I had no car, no keys, no cell phone. I had already even gotten my life down to having no form of identification: no driver’s license, passport, birth certificate, social security card. So, I only had about a hundred possessions all with me, and I gave away all of it. I have no house, either; the last house that I had was just that little 10 by 10 house that I had built in Orlando, but that was five years ago.
So when I say that I own nothing, I literally mean that I gave away every physical item. As far as money, that means no bank account, no life savings, no retirement fund, no credit cards, debit cards, no online accounts, nothing. So in this experiment of non-ownership, I own no physical possessions, and I have no money. That’s what I mean.
Now, some of you are definitely thinking, “Okay, well, if you don’t own anything, how are you wearing any clothes, and how do you have this notebook?” Well, the few items that I’m using during this experiment of non-ownership are borrowed. Although I don’t own anything physically, today we have the existence of the online realm. Decades ago, if I owned nothing physically, it meant I owned nothing at all. But, now there’s the online realm. So I simplified my life down to having very little online. What I do have are social media accounts, and I logged off everything. So I gave away my computer when I gave away my clothes and everything else, and I logged off everything.
I have this notebook here just to have, well, I made notes to make this as concise and try to keep it as short as I can while diving into the realm of these things.
I have a website. Now, the website is owned by the nonprofit that I’m a director of, but for this experiment, I had no access to it to start, and I actually had someone change all the passwords so that I couldn’t even get in. Everything online was made publicly accessible, so I got rid of everything that I had on my computer—everything that the photos, the videos, the writing—all either deleted to non-existence or published. Now, I go into that in depth at robingreenfield.org/nonownership, and then you can go into the realm of the online and the digital realm aspect.
Now, there are some people that are really questioning, “How can you own nothing?” And great, that’s what we’re here for. This is an experiment. This is an experiment with an end date. So it’s a three-month experiment, which is actually turning into four months because I’m going to continue for another month on the road after finishing up here in Griffith Park, and I want to say that this is not about perfection. I’m not trying to do any of this perfectly. What I’m doing is I’m questioning what so many of us have never questioned, and one of those things being the concept of ownership. So what I do—I think it’s important to give you a little bit of a background for you to be able to understand this experiment. What I do is I use my life as a message. I immerse deeply in oftentimes what I would call them experiments. Sometimes you could even call them stunts. But, these are explorations of life that are designed to teach me about topics and really immerse in them while bringing you along with me, while helping you to explore realms that maybe you’ve never even really thought about before, and bring concepts into the mainstream.
So, I go to the extreme in a way that’s designed to reach the mainstream media, reach media, and get us to be having deeply critical thought and conversations around a new way forward. Now, at the same time as I’m doing these experiments, and you could almost say stunts, it’s all about truth, transparency, and integrity. That’s what we’re going to be talking about a little bit today. This is real! Although there’s this element of a show to it, it’s real, and we’re going to dive into that, and that’s why I’m diving into so much of the details, because the reality is in the details.
So with this experiment, what am I actually exploring? That’s what I want to share with you today. Of all of my immersive explorations over the last decade, I will say that this is probably the hardest one for me to be able to explain in a way where I think the average person, anybody out there, is going to be able to understand it, wrap their head around it, get it. I’ve had my real concerns about, honestly, I’ve had real concerns about whether this is an experiment that I even share. I’ve known with absolute certainty that this is the right experiment for me in developing into who I want to be, in developing into the leader that I strive to be. No question whatsoever that this is the right experiment for me.
However, I have questioned whether, 1. I can share it in a way that’s going to be understood, and 2. whether it’s even the right thing to put out there that it’s going to move the conversation in the right way. But, I’ve gone for it, and what I have decided on this long walk to get me to Los Angeles is I’ve really been just letting go. And so with this, for me as an activist, as a social reformer, as a change maker, I’ve relied on my public perception, my credibility in the public to share my—to to get my message out there. For this, and the chapter that I’m on right now, I pretty much have just been willing to risk losing it all.
Willing to risk losing it all to just go deeper, to go to the depth, and to break these illusions of separateness, to just focus on living in the deepest state of truth and integrity that I can in a society that is so lost from truth and integrity. Basically, I’ve said to myself, I’m willing to just go there even if that means losing it all, and so I understand that a lot of people really don’t get this, but for those of you that are here with me, I’m glad you are because this is the opportunity to get it.
Through this experiment I am questioning a lot of what’s just not questioned, and one of those things is the concept of ownership. A way that I like to frame this is: so the land, imagine that somebody sells land to another person and they sign a contract. Well, does the land agree to this contract when someone decides that it’s now owned? Do the plants and animals that live on this land agree to this contract? Do other human beings who have been using this land agree to the contract? Have Indigenous people over hundreds of years agreed to all of a sudden the settlers, the colonizers owning the land?
The answer is so often no and no and no. It’s just a concept. Most ownership is an illusion. That’s what I want to get to at the depth of this experiment, even go to the reality to say there’s many societies out there that don’t even really buy into the concept of ownership at all. There are actually cultures out there that don’t even have the concept of ownership, and for a long, long period of humanity, it just hasn’t even existed. Am I saying that ownership is bad? No, I’m not saying that. Am I saying that you shouldn’t own anything? No, I’m not saying that. And am I judging you for owning? No, I’m not judging you for owning things. That would be a waste of my time and my happiness.
I mentioned I don’t own anything, but I’m just borrowing things. So I want to share a little bit about that. Now, my dream would be to not even need to borrow anything, but I’m making things work in the society that I live in. Right now, I’m borrowing about 15 or so items. I’ve got the few clothing items that I have, a sleeping bag and a blanket. I’ve got the bag of the sleeping bag, a notebook, pencil, a couple of books, and my bowl that I drink out of. To start, I only had six items for the first 10 days. At Vipassana, I only arrived there borrowing two items of clothing, and the person who dropped me off, I gave them their items of clothing back and borrowed items from their spare clothing closet.
So, I arrived there and for three and a half weeks existed with nothing from the outside world, which was a very poignant experience in this experience. Then, when I walked from here to Mexico during this time, which was a two-week walk, I had just three items to start: pants, a sweater, and a sleeping bag; so it’s varied over the last 80 days. Generally, I’ve kept the items for just 10 days, with the idea being that that’s a way for me to dissolve the sense of the identity. Having nothing for more than 10 to 14 days, it’s like there’s kind of this revitalization, this fresh start over and over, and the lack of attachment and the lack of being able to really attach onto preferences.
Some would say that I’m just dependent on others who own things, and the answer to that is absolutely! Yes; that’s the whole idea. I’m dissolving the illusion of separateness and embracing my interdependence and my interconnectedness. I live in a society that’s very much ownership-based and I’m here existing in that society, and I embrace my interdependence and my interconnectedness on that. Some see this as a hypocrisy, but this is totally the design of the experiment.
For me, this is very humbling. Borrowing other people’s clothes and not having my ability for preferences is very humbling. As many of you know, before this, I had got my life down to all homemade natural fiber naturally dyed clothing. Wearing these synthetic clothes of someone else? Oh boy, do I not like doing this. It’s very much a dissolution of my identity and my sense of self, which is absolutely part of the practice. I have to say, I really like my independence. I’ve been a very independent person for many years, and this is a huge practice in humbling myself and, yeah, in humility and in letting go, in surrendering and in just being here, just letting go.
On top of that, my belief is that true community comes when we embrace that we need each other, so I am here in Los Angeles saying, “Hey, I need you. I need you to meet my basic needs,” and that’s because I don’t think we’ll ever have true community—sustainable community—without really actually needing one another. So again, what some people see as a hypocrisy is just a very intentional practice diving into a realm that’s quite hard to fit into any box.
Now, at the same time as I am exploring this interdependence and embracing that I am dependent on others, this is also an exploration of just how little I need. By being here in Griffith Park and borrowing just these few items, this is a really deep practice for me in voluntary simplicity. I’m sleeping outside, just on the ground in my sleeping bag. That’s a breakthrough for me in seeing that I don’t even need a bed; I can just be on the ground.
My hygiene. It’s 80 days in. I have no toothbrush, toothpaste, or dental floss, and I’ve just been brushing my teeth with the California bay tree twig with pine needles for my floss and with different medicinal herbs as mouthwashes. For food, I’m not carrying any food with me. I’m just eating either what I find in the dumpster or the garbage that day, or what people share with me. So again, another practice and just exploring how little that I need. With water, I’m not even carrying a water bottle, and at the beginning I didn’t even have a bowl. Now I have this bowl. This for me is the development of freedom, stripping back to the absolute bare necessities, breaking free from so many of the societal norms, and just stepping away from so many of the distractions of life.
That is what I’ve been doing here. Gandhi is one of my deepest teachers. I’ve been learning from him for over 10 years, and one of the things that he says is “Live simply so that others may simply live.” Now some people would think, “What does that really actually mean?” Well, I’d like to break that down for a minute.
Today we live in such utterly complex times where our lives are so intertwined into this web of consumerism, where nearly everything we do is part of systems of destruction, exploitation, oppression, injustice, and inequity. The food that we eat, the cars we drive, the gas we pump into the cars, the stuff we buy, the trash we create, the money we spend, even our money in the bank accounts and our investments, it’s all part of destruction. The United States has just 5% of the world’s population, but we consume 25% of the world’s resources.
So if what I’m doing looks extreme, well, actually, the way that we live—the norm that we supposedly live in—is actually by definition extreme. Now, I’d like to address some of the areas where I’ve really struggled, as well as some of the most common questions and critiques.
Now some people say, “Robin, there’s no need to justify yourself. What people think is none of your business.” And actually, first of all, when I’m responding to people, I’m not justifying myself. My life is my message. My whole life, by design, is to wrap people up into my life, to get people to go somewhere with me, to get people thinking and asking questions. So if people ask questions, it’s my duty to answer them. That’s my job—my life is my message. These are opportunities. These are teaching lessons. Whenever people have these questions, these criticisms, these critiques, these confusions, these are my opportunities to go there with them and to bring people along.
So, let’s get into some of the questions, the critiques, the concerns, even though we’ve been doing that already. But, here’s a big one. Am I homeless? I’m sleeping outside here in the city. I’m eating from the dumpster. I don’t have money. I’m bathing in the LA River. A lot of these things are things that some of you out there might associate with people who are experiencing homelessness. I have never said that I’m homeless. I’m not trying to simulate homelessness. I am just being me. I’m a very unique person.
And some people have even, recently called me an anomaly, and so if you try to fit me into any box, you’re just going to experience confusion. So, for complete clarity I am not trying to be anything except myself, and I’ve been living this way for quite some time. This experiment of non-ownership is deeper and unique, but it’s a very much a thread on many of the threads that I have been living.
To some people, they would say, “I’m homeless, and there’s no way I could convince them otherwise.” Others, they would say, “I’m not homeless, I’m so privileged, and I’m here by choice, and there’s no way I could convince them otherwise.” And then others see me as a monk of sorts, a wandering sadhu of sorts, with my—you could call this begging bowl, and that’s a whole different view that comes from a more eastern way of looking at things. So I am what I am, and that’s all that I am, and I’m here to break a lot of the societal norms and really shake things up.
Now, I have a lot of space in my heart for people who are experiencing homelessness. My dad is actually homeless. He sleeps outside of the zoo in Honolulu and has been there for over a year and has lived in a van or a vehicle for much of my life. And recently, my brother was homeless in Texas and lived in a homeless shelter for a period of time. So, I have people that are very close to me that actually have experienced homelessness, and it is very near and dear to my heart.
This short experiment of non-ownership is just a tidbit of my life, as far as my learning about the situation that people are in here in the United States and having empathy for and practicing compassion with and experiencing love and interconnectedness with people in these situations.
A lot of people ask, “How am I so clean?” They see me and they say, “Well, if you’re living outside, you’d have to be dirty,” and I’d like to flip that a little bit. What that means is that if you believe that, you have a stigma of what it is to be homeless. You have a stereotype that all people who are living outside are dirty and are not able to have quality hygiene. But, I’ll give you an example. One of the guys that I recently met, he’s at the library on the computer every day. I would never have an idea he’s homeless. He’s been here; he’s been homeless for 13 years in Los Angeles, though. He carries his bags around, but besides that, you would never know.
He’s clean. We talked about hygiene. This idea that I should be dirty if I’m sleeping outside is based on a lot of people’s view of homelessness—that’s based on the people who are struggling the most with mental illness and with drug addictions. But, that’s just a fraction of the people who are experiencing homelessness, and a lot of people, you would absolutely never know.
How do I stay clean? Well, first of all, I bathe in the Los Angeles River. I have my towel that I wipe down with, with water. I’m able to practice a very simple, natural personal hygiene. And yeah, actually, I have smelled a little bit sometimes, and some people have said my clothes look impeccable on the computer, but if you got closer, you’d see that some of them were kind of dirty a little while. But, on the other part is I wash them in the LA River, or right now I’m only borrowing clothes for 10 days at a time.
Now some people have asked, “Well, what about the beard? How have I been trimming my beard?” Well, it’s real simple. I borrow a beard trimmer every couple of weeks, or I’ve gone to the house of a guy named Garrett and a guy named Coleman, who I’ve met through the local SA group. I’m wearing Coleman’s and Garrett’s clothes right now, and so I’ve just trimmed my beard. It’s as simple as that. People who are experiencing homelessness, they also have beard trimmers. They have cell phones. They have money—most of them. So, again, it’s a false idea to think that you can’t trim your beard if you don’t own a beard trimmer and if you live outside.
Am I actually sleeping outside? There’s a lot of people on the internet that are so certain that I live in a mansion, that I have this retirement fund. I’ve already addressed that I don’t, but am I sleeping outside? The answer is yes. I’ve been here for 80 days. I haven’t been in Griffith Park for all of that. I was in Vipassana, and for those three and a half weeks, I was inside. I wanted to sleep outside, but you could only sleep inside, and that was just a simple room. Then on my walk from here to Mexico, I slept inside about half the time. Now here in Los Angeles, I’ve slept inside, I think, twice over the five or so weeks in Griffith Park on the rainy nights. So on the rainy nights, I’ve been taken home, and someone from the community has brought me in for the night.
That’s the whole practice of surrendering and interconnectedness. I’m so happy to have been sleeping outside. It’s been a truly deep connection to the Earth being here in Griffith Park.
I also—a lot of people get kind of angry with me on the internet because they say you have to acknowledge your privilege. And boy do I wish they would just go to my website and see how extensively I’ve acknowledged my privilege, and scroll back over the many years of videos and writing that I’ve done and how many times I’ve acknowledged it, and I talk about it. It’s very, very important to me to talk about my privilege.
The reason why? It’s nothing to do with virtue signaling. It’s nothing to do with political correctness. It’s because it’s non-delusionalism that I’m practicing, and my privilege plays an extensive role in being able to do as I’m doing. Yes, others can’t. There’s some others, there’s definitely others that can’t do as I do, and people with families, children are in a very different situation.
So I deeply acknowledge my privilege, and I deeply embrace who I am, and I really want you to know that that’s really meaningful and important. Do I want everybody to do what I do? Absolutely not. That’s not the point at all. In fact, when people say that, that’s generally a distraction in my opinion because that’s not what I am saying at all, and I think that’s a distraction from doing something a lot of the time. So, as far as the privilege aspect, if you want to dive into that with me, I encourage you to go to robingreenfield.org/privilege and to read that article where I speak about that in depth.
I’m a little bit cold. There have been some cold days here during this project.
Now I want to talk a little bit about social media and online. I have this very interesting existence of being very offline, and, a lot of people see me as having broken free from a lot of it and exited the matrix, as some people would say. And then at the same time, I’m very online in some ways as well. I want to share a little bit of that, because it’s something that I see a lot of comments asking about.
A big part of this experiment for me was to break free, and I’ve substantially done that. It’s been hugely beneficial in living in the present moment. So, I logged out of everything, and I was logged out of everything for about nine weeks, a little over two months.
The big question was: could I be offline? Could I log out and break free while still using the platforms that I’ve built, while still being a messenger, while still reaching many people? Part of me really wanted to just check out of all of it completely and just be offline for this whole three months, and I absolutely would have loved to do that. It would have filled my heart so much, and potentially, I would have personally gotten the most out of that. But, I’m not living my life for just me. My life is to be of service. One of the ways that I do that is by sharing messages, so I’m doing this sort of hybrid between being offline and sharing messages.
How do I do video? A lot of people are like, “Well, you obviously must own something because you have videos. You’re doing videos.” And it’s like, “Okay, let’s think for a second. Do I need to own a camera in order to have something filmed? Do you think that actors in movies own the cameras?” I’m being myself, but I don’t need to own any equipment. There’s people out there who have cameras. Most of what I’m doing is just on a smartphone. I’ll get to how it’s funded, but I do want to talk a little bit about just this beauty that I’ve gotten to experience being offline for nine weeks of living in the present moment. It’s the most present I’ve ever experienced in my life.
I have sort of two lives, and I’m sure even those of you out there who don’t like necessarily have a large following on social media or aren’t like a public figure still, you can relate to this concept of having two lives. There’s your online life and then your in-person life, and it’s been so nice to just have my one life and to be checked out of it.
Now that I’m back online, some—I still haven’t logged into social media, but I’ve been in the email and some things—I will say my quality of life has decreased. Having the two lives again and reading the comments, the reason I ended up coming back online is I saw that we—the team—wasn’t quite keeping up with everything that I was hoping that we would be able to do, and some things were slipping through the cracks as far as the integrity of the sharing of the experiment, and that’s why I ended up coming online.
Next thing is, so how is it funded? I mentioned that some people are being paid, and so I genuinely don’t have any money right now. As I said, I have not a penny to my name. How it’s funded is: there’s a man named David in the Bay Area, and he reached out to me on my walk from Canada to Los Angeles, and he decided that he likes my message—our message is important: this message of reconnecting to the Earth and living more simply, and he wants this message out there. So, he’s actually hired independent contractors, people to do this work, and he pays them. I’m fully decentralized from it. I’m able to exist, and he is able to pay people to be able to help spread the message and do the work online. So, it’s a very unique and for me, a beautiful way of still being able to funnel money—not funnel, but flow money—have money be a flow that allows to do service with.
In my ideal world, I would be able to do all of this without money. Like, I’m not making money from this. I’m doing this from a place of just passion for sharing this message, and I’d love to be able to work solely without money, but I’ve tried and I’ve really struggled, and so I’m happy to have money play a role.
Now I’d like to talk a little bit about how social media works. There’s lots of questions around this, and one of the big ones is: is it staged? Is it fake? And I doubt most of the people who have been following me for a long time have a question about that too much, but I think some of you might even have a little question with that.
The simple answer is, it’s not staged. It’s not fake. As so many of you know, I have committed to the deepest level of truth and integrity that I can, that I can fathom to the best of my ability, and I actually did this truth series where I shared every single thing I’d been guarding or hiding and where I’m living in such an open book of truth and transparency, and if any of my stuff was staged, it wouldn’t be that I’ve committed to four years of not telling a lie and to telling only the truth as part of my vows.
So with that said, I chuckle because it’s so ironic to see the people on social media who are so certain it’s all staged and it’s all a lie when they’re actually looking at one of the most transparent people they will ever find on the internet who has a large reach of people, and it is a little sad. It’s a little sad because I know that the people who are doing that, they have a desire for truth and integrity. And here it is, right in front of their faces, and yet they’re in this state of distrust… I see a lack of peace and a lack of ease in their lives when they could have that with me. Here I am. I hope that some of you have heard that, and that you believe it, and you trust it and you can be here with me.
One of the big ones is, is food placed in the dumpsters and the trash cans? No. Absolutely not. No food is placed in the dumpsters or trash cans. If you think that’s the case, I encourage you: just start looking in the dumpsters and the trash cans. You’ll see the food is there, especially in wealthy communities, particularly in wealthier communities, it’s there. I have no need to place it. Today I ate exclusively from the dumpster. I was trying to sort of fast, but every can I looked in today, it was just good pickings. So I’m very, very full right now.
Now, something that you might see, though, that could lead to some disbelief is that when I am filming, I will—what I’ll do sometimes is I will look in the garbage can and find something first, and then we will film, and I will find it in filming. So there is that element of it’s staged, that I’m finding it in the moment. The reason for that is that the alternative is that whoever I’m with would just be filming so much extra footage, and so it just makes so much more sense to do that.
I will say that’s a bit of a conflict for me because it’s not fully, fully, fully real. But for all—but absolutely nothing is placed in there. So I’m just sharing full truth and transparency of that. One other thing that I really want to mention that’s connected to that is that in this experiment, I’m mostly walking. However, I have gotten rides, which is totally a part of the experiment. But the area where it’s gray is I’ve gotten rides with teammates sometimes when we’re doing videos, when we wanted to do some videos.
But there wasn’t enough time, and I was dedicating more of my time to videos that took away from what I would have otherwise done. There’s been numerous times where we’ve driven to the LA River, for example, instead of the two-hour walk, a round-trip walk, and so I just want to be transparent about that.
A few more things: why did I end up posting so much? I ended up posting more on this experiment than any other time, and it’s because it was so easy to share information with this system, and we could do so many videos in a very short period of time, and there were so many things I was excited to share about, and so that’s why. Again, one of the critiques on social media is why so much about we, me, when my message is about community and breaking free and on and on and on and why—and so much of it’s about me. Even in this video, I feel self-conscious, like I’ve been talking for so long right now, and I feel self-conscious about that. But as I’ve shared numerous times already, my life is my message.
What I do is I find unique ways of existing that bring us into talking about a myriad of ways in which we are interconnected and a part of this Earth, and that’s just the way that I know how to do that. I use my life to stimulate thought. I use my own mind to get you to go into your mind, and I use my life to get you to go into your life.
Another thing that people asked is if I’m dissolving the ego, why am I on social media with the assumption that the only reason that you can be on social media is if it’s an ego booster? But that’s actually not the case. Even though social media does have a tendency to do that and is designed to feed the ego, I have managed to be dissolving my ego over the last decade while increasing the number of people that follow me on social media.
Now, if I was to get off social media, that would be so helpful for me in dissolving more of my ego, and I would love to do that, and I’m very much contemplating it. I’ve contemplated it quite a bit. But for now, I’m continuing to be on social media, and it’s a balance. It’s a balance of the ego. For me, two of my biggest struggles are my presence on social media, my being online in general, and then ego. I would love to have dissolved my ego more by now, but here I am. Wherever I go, there I am. It’s still there.
I will share that reading the comments lately has been a little painful. I’ve felt some hurt, some sadness, some frustration. The negativity bias has gotten me a little bit where some days I focused more on the negative. But then really, there’s so much positivity. There’s so many people sharing that they’re learning, that they’re growing. Overall, that’s the case. But yeah, reading the comments has definitely decreased my quality of life.
It is important though because that’s how I read what’s going on and respond and be here with you. I will say, what a world of difference it has been in person. Just today, three separate people have found me in the library and on the streets, just out and about, that said, “Hey,” sometimes it’s just, “Hey, do you have a social media account?” And then when I say, “Yeah,” they’re like, “Oh yeah, I’ve been watching you,” and you know that their life has been enriched.
And then other times, it’s people like out here that just saw one video. A guy gave me a honk, and he was like, “Hey,” he’s like, “You’re the guy who owns nothing, right?” Out here in the real world, I have met hundreds of people in this experiment of non-ownership. Many that came to find me intentionally, many that stumbled across me, and it’s all positive experiences, except one woman, actually, back at the beginning.
It’s really important to remember that, and I encourage all of you to remember this: that if you’re getting caught up in the negative comments—whether it’s on my social media or on your own—that is not necessarily a reflection. Scroll down and you’ll see that the large percentage are actually comments of growth and learning and positivity. A lot of people think I’m really trying to get something out of them, and they’re like, “This guy’s got to be trying to get something out of me.”
I get it, but I’m not trying to get anything out of you. I’m not even trying to get you to change. You change if you want to change. You embrace this message if you want to embrace this message. I don’t want to convince you of anything. You are a human being, and I want you to act on your own desires, your own free will.
That is for you. My social media is not monetized. I don’t make a penny from this. I’ve made numerous vows. One of them is to earn less than the federal poverty threshold for life. I don’t want your money. I would love to see you, if you have money and you have plenty of it, equitably redistributing it. If you have land, equitably redistributing it. But I don’t want your money.
I do run a nonprofit. I’m the director of a nonprofit, but I’m not even here soliciting donations. In fact, on my website, I list 50 different nonprofits that I encourage you to support, and I don’t even have my nonprofit listed on that. My nonprofit is off to the side. It does exist to do service and do work, but that’s not my priority. So you can relax, and you can actually be here with a human being on the internet that’s not trying to get anything out of you and enjoy that. I am still involved in money. I did an extensive talk on my relationship with money. You can go to robingreenfield.org/moneyrelationship to learn about that, and my website has detailed transparency. If you go to robingreenfield.org/financialtransparency, you’ll learn about my relationship with money.
Okay, a few more things. I see this quote that says, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.” A lot of people think that I’m trying to convince people to own nothing so that the wealthy will have more, and they’ve mentioned the World Economic Forum. Apparently, they think I’m trying to get it so the rich will have more and the poor will have less, and boy is that sad because that’s the exact opposite of what I’m doing. I am trying—I am joyfully saying that I’m living with less, and it brings so much meaning and purpose—and encouraging those who have more than they need to distribute it so that we have equitability.
The world’s 1% of the population owns 50% of the world’s wealth. That’s the antithesis of what I’m trying to share and create. I want to dissolve that and create equitability. So I don’t have any association with any government organization. I’ve talked to politicians. I’ve influenced politicians through my being, but I have no association with anything of that sort.
So, okay, a little bit on swimming in the LA River. Those videos got over 5 million views between the few platforms, and a lot of people didn’t go very far into my message. First, I’d just like to clarify: I gargled the water; I didn’t drink the water. So if any of you are wondering, I didn’t drink it. I’m just swimming in it and enjoying it, which is a very big difference. Am I concerned about pollutants? Yes, a little bit. But, I’m equally concerned about not having access to water to be in because it’s my medicine.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where a lot of our medicines have been turned into poisons, and that’s my daily balance in this world of not being afraid of the world and living in abundance while we have so much pollution and destruction, and that’s a personal balance that I navigate. I’m not telling anybody else to swim in the river. This is just me doing that.
And I will also share that really the location of the LA River and the time of year matters. This is the ideal time of year to be swimming because there’s still water from the mountains that is melting and running into the LA River, and the rains have flushed a lot of the pollution out, and the water’s cooler at this time of year, and I’m swimming in—not south of downtown, but north of downtown.
A note on being of service: my ultimate goal in life is to use every ounce of my life to be of service. I’m not there yet. My friend Ella said to me that she doesn’t understand when I say that I’m not there yet, because we’ve spent a lot of time together and she really sees that I do the best that I can to use my whole life of service, but I’m not there.
In this experiment, I’ve struggled to be there as much as I’d like. A lot of my time has gone into meeting my basic needs. The main way that I have been of service, though, is I’ve put a lot of time into just being here, four days a week, from 3:30 to sunset. I’m here teaching foraging, Compassionate Communication, simple and sustainable living, hosting healing gatherings. I have been teaching a lot, and that’s one of my main ways that I have been of service.
Now, I was hoping to spend more time with elders and children and being of service to people who are struggling, and I haven’t been nearly as much as I would like to, and that’s an area where I have lacked. But many of the people who have come to my gatherings are people that are really dealing with anxiety and depression and disconnection and have had the real opportunity to build community and connection and learn and grow a lot. That’s the way that I’ve been of service.
Upcoming, when I leave Los Angeles, I’m going to be on a one-month speaking tour. All of my events are free—every single one of them; sharing with people and building community in all the communities that I pass through.
We are coming to a close, Dear Friends, and I want to answer the question: Am I losing my mind? How am I crazy? And I’m genuinely happy to answer that question. It’s an important question. Am I losing my mind? Yes, absolutely—the many parts of my mind that no longer served me, the societal norms, the societal structures, the indoctrination that doesn’t allow me to fully be me, to break free from the delusion and to be truly of service.
I’m losing a lot of my mind very intentionally through deep levels of practice—absolutely. Am I crazy? Also absolutely, yes. The last thing that I am willing to be is normal in a society where our normal is a destruction of the world, is of such inequity and injustice, such exploitation and oppression. I am not willing to buy into the societal norms when that’s the case, and right now, I am willing to go very far and be so openly and honestly transparent about it.
Now, some of you have also had concern about me breaking the laws. Sleeping here in Griffith Park is against city code. I’m just existing so far out of societal norms right now, and it’s really different for a lot of you who have been following me, who have seen me really as this kind of well-put-together environmental activist. This is so out there and so crazy, and some of it includes breaking rules, breaking laws, and I will be doing that my entire life.
The reason why is that I follow Earth Code. Many of our laws—well, they’re supposedly designed to protect us—but so many of them actually are harming us, not protecting us. So many of our laws are claimed to be of justice, but are actually of great inequality, and to the people, to the plants and animals, and to the Earth, so I follow Earth Code. What Earth Code is, is a deep level of critical questioning of analyzing and taking actions that, to the best of my ability, help me to live in harmony with the Earth, with the plants and animals, and with humanity, both here locally and globally. That includes breaking laws, government codes, city codes, federal codes—Earth Code.
I follow first and foremost—I am happy to follow any law that truly serves the people and does this in an equitable manner and serves the Earth and the plants and animals as well. You will see me following every single one of those laws with great joy. But, the ones that are a delusion and are really designed to serve a small percentage of people while harming others, you have my vow that I will be disobeying those laws for life.
In closing, Dear Friends, I’m grateful to all of those of you who stuck around. I did not plan for this video to be so long, but here I am. I don’t know how much longer—maybe an hour—and I really dove into the depth of my heart, and a lot of this video really was for people who are questioning things and also just have questions, but I see that I went deeper in talking to the people who really love me the most and really are the most interested in what I’m doing. That’s who I ended up talking to so much here, and I hope that you found this meaningful. I hope that it answered your questions.
And right now, in closing, what I am exploring is: what if? What if my job could be just to love? What if I could just exist in a state of universal love for everything, for the Earth, for my fellow humanity, for the plants and animals? And, that’s a lot of what I’ve been doing for the last three months and for the last year.
This practice has been such a wonderful opportunity to do that. I’ve been able to just strip back so much—just being here with the coyotes, with the birds, out under the sky, with the people here in Los Angeles. That’s what I’m really exploring. What if my job can be just to love? Love in a way that’s so infectious that others start to love through my actions in a way where others learn to love through their actions?
And so, I hope that through this time that we have spent together here we are disconnected through a screen, but we are here together. I hope that you’ve sensed that love, that you’ve sensed that genuine desire, and that it’s rubbing off on you a little bit so that you will love more, and you will dissolve the illusion of separateness, and you will connect more and embrace your interconnectedness. Embrace your interdependence. See that everything is connected and that we are all here together.
I love you all very much, Dear Friends. Even if you still think maybe you’re a little bit of a troll, I still love you as well. And you’ll be seeing me again soon.
Articles referred to:
The Experiment in Non-Ownership – Robin Greenfield in Los Angeles
The Experiment in Non-Ownership – My “Why” and In-Depth Explanation
Non-Ownership in the Physical, Digital and Mental Realms
