How To Disappear Completely and Never Be FoundRecently by James Altucher: How to Quit Therapy
I wanted to move into a homeless shelter because I thought that girls who were homeless would be more likely to go out with me. I had this fantasy version of what a homeless shelter would be like. We’d sneak around to each others rooms as if they were dorm rooms. It would be romantic. Lots of giggling. And crack smoking. Heck, I’d try it. For love.
I had a job and wasn’t really homeless. I had a place to live. But my girlfriend at the time hated me I was pretty sure of it and I needed a change. Plus the homeless shelter was right next to my place of work. I could’ve lived at the shelter and it was about a 20 second walk to work. How great can life be? I ask again: How great can life really be? The homeless shelter director said “no” to my request. He called my references. I had said I wanted to write about the experience. My boss, my ACTUAL boss at the time, said I was probably mentally ill. I didn’t have that job for too much longer. Nor did I move into the homeless shelter. But they did let me give chess lessons there. All of this to say, there’s something primal in me that wants to disappear. To mix with what I view as the lowest of the low, to forget about my past, to sign up for a future that is meaningless, to think only about right now and give up everything else. When I was a kid I bought the book How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found. I don’t know if any of the techniques still work but here was the author’s plan:
Look at old newspapers from around the day you were born to find the names of babies that died that day. Ask your state government for their birth certificates. This isn’t unusual. Many people lose their birth certificates. Use the birth certificate to get a social security card (say you’ve been a permanent student up until now). Use the two forms of ID to get a bank account, credit cards, driver’s license.
Change your hair color. Lose weight. Put a tack in your shoe so you start to walk differently. Start siphoning money out of your bank account until it is all in cash. Find a crowded city where you can rent an apartment cheap and disappear in the crowd. Plan on building an employment history by starting with temp or construction jobs. Then disappear. Just walk out of your house and never go back. You’ve just committed pseudocide. The word “pseudocide” fascinates me. Its like a “little death”, a phrase often used to describe an orgasm. The book had anecdotal stories of people who had disappeared (how the author kept finding these people was never explained). People running from marriages, lawsuits, the IRS, or maybe just every now and then someone needs an eraser, some whiteout to rub over emotions, fears, anxieties. A clean slate that would bring a temporary Nirvana when some, if not all, of the mental and emotional baggage can be discarded with your old life. Wrapped up in a garbage bag and left behind a bowling alley. March 29, 2012 Copyright © 2012 The Altucher Confidential
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