Goodbye to modern society and conveniences; hello earthship

A friend of mine is moving into an earthship.

I didn't know what an earthship was until a week ago. It's the ultimate in off-the-grid living. Most are found in New Mexico and Arizona, where each earthship home is usually situated on much more land than a typical cookie-cutter house in a sterile subdivision. Not having to deal with neighbors is apparently a big selling point of earthships. You don't get much house, but you sure get a big hunk of property for a reasonable price.

They are built from old tires, dirt and beer bottles, among other things. Earthship inhabitants don't deal with electric or water companies. There's no television cable or natural gas lines.

My friend, a musician whom I've played music with for about four years, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and works remotely from his townhome in Northern Virginia. He is employed by a very large company located in Manhattan. He's about 60 years old and never struck me as the anti-social type. In fact, he is generally pretty good with people.

So why the dramatic move?

I really don't know the details of why he's fleeing to an earthship near Flagstaff, Ariz., in a couple of weeks. I could take some guesses, but they probably would be wrong or would be only part of the equation that is sending him west at this stage of life. He's the second person I've known in recent years to move from the tense metro Washington area to the rural desert of Arizona and the first to buy an earthship. There is rural and then there is earthship rural. When you go earthship, you are making a bolder but perhaps more private statement.

The move to an earthship makes perfect sense and, at the same time, defies all logic. No one likes utility bills. Who enjoys living within arm's length of a neighbor or two (or 20) who you can hear, smell and see every waking hour, as if they are living with you rather than next door or across the street?

On the other hand, I've grown accustomed to electricity, air conditioning and plenty of hot water. Life is enough work without having to process my waste and filter rain water off my roof to drink on a daily basis. I like having a grocery store within walking distance, too.

It's too bad that some people, and their increasingly annoying habits, have to go along with rest of us partaking in modern-day conveniences in suburbia. It's a sin that middle-class subdivisions are planned in ways where no one has any elbow room or sense of privacy. It's also a sin that people seem to not know how to live together anymore. People seem to think that buying or renting a condo or townhouse entitles them to do whatever they choose. If that means mowing the grass at 2 a.m. or cranking up their surround sound 24/7, then that's what they do, with simply no regard for their neighbors.

But I think there is something more to this earthship lifestyle than just getting away from the neighbors from hell, rising utility bills and beltway traffic jams. When I see what society creates with over-consumption, the earthship concept doesn't seem so insane. In fact, it seems pretty responsible and selfless. How many people would be willing to give up their dishwashers in order to reduce their carbon footprint?

A lot of folks have tried to live off the grid and failed. It gets too difficult. And some people say that while the aggravation of modern-life isn't good for one's health, being totally isolated can be just as bad. We benefit from being exposed to nature and scenic views, but apparently we also need human interactions to some degree. Healthy ones. Not the ones where we're giving the finger to each other along I-95 in Baltimore.

My friend and his wife are on an adventure. It's coming later in life. As he says, "If not now then when?" He has a secure job that allows him to work from home. He will have to get his Internet connection via a satellite dish, I suppose, but overall the risk of earthship living isn't as severe as it might appear at first glance. If he was quitting his job and just going to live off the land, well, then I would be more concerned.

Jobs and the cash flow they provide are the last ties to modern society that even an earthship inhabitant probably can't do without.