There is a fact that many political activists seem to forget the acts of surviving in a system that actively tries to suppress your life is political.

This doesn't have to be a direct effort, either. With the lack of social safety nets, America has many who have to put a disproportion amount of effort into this, the very simple act of barely surviving. Madness.

That is why I will share my experiences, so hopefully Dear Reader you can have more information; and resultantly an easier time than you otherwise might have. Outliving people with bad opinions by staying as warm, well-fed, and other things required to not die is necessary.

If you take nothing else from this set of posts remember this:

The act of living is a just accessing: What do I have. the resources at your disposal, the opportunities available to you, and your own condition.

What do I need. This should be separated into three Immediate, medium term, and long term. The length of the latter two are relative and depends on your situation, but generally Immediate are things you need by the end of the day, medium term should be around a week to three months, and long term should be anything six months or longer.

Then How Can I Use What I Have To Get What I Need. This is the most important step. You need to try to find the best solution to each stage with the resources you have at that moment. If you lack adequate resources you need to figure out how you can use what you have to acquire the additional resources needed to fulfill those needs. let me contrast two different examples.

A 6'4" homeless man accesses the resources at his disposal. His person, a smartphone that has no service, but functions adequately when connected to wifi and he is close enough a Starbucks to have connection, about eleven free newspapers he procured from machines nearby, A water bottle, his mostly clean clothes, his canvas coat, a small tarp, a mummy bag he uses as a backpack, basic survival gear, and $15 he made late last night selling individual cigarettes he was given even though he doesn't smoke.

He is in a midwestern American city with a population of about 20,000, from what he has seen and heard the police here are on the more antagonistic side and as a result he won't be able to start a fire in town. He recognizes that as he doesn't have a propane stove nor the room for one, he will have to rely on fast food and foods from supermarkets.

His immediate need is eating and not freezing to death by his count he needs around 4500 Kcal to replenish what he has burned from walking, shivering, and mildly starving from only eating about 300 Kcal of peanuts and the last of some strong broth he made with the remnants of a rotisserie chicken and canned. Using his smartphone's relevant apps he checks the available food deals at nearby Fast Food restaurants. Using the McDonald's app gets a two heavily modified Big Macs for $5.99 with a small fry and he selects bottled water as his drink. The modifications are requesting extra of all the free veggies and extra of all the free sauces as it easily adds 100 calories. when he pays for his meal he requests that they substitute his water for coffee. This time he gets told no, but still gets his water. he takes extra napkins and surrounds one of the Big Macs and the fries in them to help them stay warm while he slowly eats the other one. He knows from experience constantly eating slowly keeps you warmer. Using Mc Donald's Wifi he pulled up the nearest supermarkets app, Fredmeyer in this case, and he claimed a free jar of peanut butter and got a rotisserie chicken that was normally $8.99 for ~$6.50 with coupons and his members discount leaving him with around $2.50 and enough food to sustain him. While walking to pick up and pay for his selected items he stopped at gas stations dumping out and refilling his water bottle to drink on and hold to keep warmer. Lastly, after getting his food he would need to find an unoccupied dark corner to get inside his mummy bag pack newspaper around himself in the bag to keep warmer, and roll up in his tarp to keep the water out and to make himself look more like a pile of trash in hopes of avoiding getting harrassed.

He could probably repeat this cycle just with different sources of meager income, but lets say in a week it is expected to snow meaning he is guaranteed to freeze to death. his medium term goal would be either cleaning up enough to hopefully be able to hitch hike by getting clothes on the cheap at a supermarket and showering at a truck stop or by gathering enough money from those meager sources of income to get a bus ticket to someplace warmer.

His long term goal in this case could be getting stable employment in an area with internet cafe's, Air B&B's and other temporary living spaces with facilities with the hopes of gathering enough cash to get or share housing in the area near his place of business.

The lines of action here are clear as the alternative is death. Compare that to a college student in a very similar situation only they are housed in a dorm room and they are paying for access to educators and resources they otherwise wouldn't have access to, but also limiting their capacity for work. This college students still needs to eat, the question again is what resources do they have at their disposal and how can they use them to accomplish their goals. Are their goals valid? Sometimes dropping out is the correct action; but nuance is required to be as certain as possible. In this modern world resources and capital are the lifeblood of a household. If dollars out are greater than dollars in, unfortunately hardship is all but guaranteed.