John's material excess

Rock's former neighbor John Lukas, a scrawny, scraggly, bearded fifty-year-old who had always exhibited survivalist tendencies was now deeply into the movement. Rock was among a group of a dozen or so invited by John to a ceremony at his house near Bigelow, a town of just over three-hundred people on the northern banks of Lake Maumelle and the Arkansas River near Conway.

They each arrived to watch as John leveled his fifteen hundred square-foot cabin down to its substantial rock crawlspace.

John told everyone he planned to move into the bordering forest and live off the land. Most of the people there, including Rock and his friends Casey Hall and Jeff Krupshaw, were supportive of his cause. Each had brought manila folders stuffed with examples of material excesses they had eliminated from their own lives, but none were willing to go to John's extreme.

Rock asked John why he stopped his destruction at the foundation.

"I don't know for sure," John said. "I think it just goes back to the way I was taught. Someone might need a house here, and they'll have to have a foundation."