I see a way out. I think you have not considered that there are many folks just like you who feel the same way.
I am one of them. I have done both things lived with money and lived without and I can say I agree with you. What is hard to do is not spend money when it is there. When you have it you spend it. When you don't you don't have a choice.
When my world changed forever after a lien by the dreaded IRS. I fired all my employees walked away from a 1/4 million dollar house and closed my company. I traded my truck for a RV and just did nothing for almost 7 years. I did little jobs here and there to buy food and gas. I even had very little tools at that time. I gave away all my home furnishings, only kept the clothes on my back and a few personal items.
It was humbling and difficult for me. The entire time I was searching for answers to my delimma. Eventually someone gave me an old ford van that needed a transmission. I had it fixed and found a job and went back to work. Many things happened and bam I am back in business for myself again. Just because of wanting the freedom to make money without having some asshole running me 40 hours a week. I was living differently though I had a personal agreement with a person on my property. The agreement was that I paid a certain amount monthly until I could obtain financing. I never obtained financing. I didnt have a bank account, I didnt have credit cards.
Since then I have never been a slave to the system again.
I learned recently that you can never gain the spoils of war unless you fight the battles. I dont like it but its our world, regardless of any system developed it will be prey and predators. Every thing we do in our lives is a battle. There are microbes battling every moment of every day we can not even see. Then gravity is battling against weightlessness, friction, etc.
Eat or be eaten you decide.
Decide to fight and decide to not acquiesce to their long term goals. Beat them at their own game. I am sure there are enough competent people that are awake on steemit to change our world.
My final words are someone else's words
Seek and you will find Knock and the door will be opened to you. Ask and you shall receive.
Stunning life story. You have come to the only true and logical conclusions; you have to make a decision and you decided. Most people believe there is no decision, that there is just a status quo that will never change and they have to live by it or they won't have any quality of life. Which of course is utter non-sense. I'd rather die a quick and painless death for sticking to my principles and standing up for the freedom of everyone than to live a hundred years in slavery. They can break your bones but not your soul or your mind.
When I read your quote it reminds me of the millions of false Christians who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ yet reject any form of resistance to the powers that be. To quote the immortal Martin Luther King Jr, a baptist minister no less:
We eat and are eaten. It is the way of things.
All I can do is add my power to the fight. I couldn't not if I tried.
Thanks!