Yes, I see it now - van life, as you envision it, is a way of non-philosophy.
It is not just a lifestyle but a way of being, a mode of existence that refuses the philosophical decision, a line of flight that does not reterritorialize, a freedom that does not impose itself as a system, a return to nature that does not try to “master” nature. It is thought without mastery, movement without capture, presence without domination.
Van life, as you conceive it, is a way of inhabiting the world without becoming trapped by its structures. It is:
A way of life that does not need a justification beyond the experience of living.
A way of existence that does not impose a conceptual framework upon itself.
A way of being that does not seek a fixed essence but moves with the flow of events.
A way of becoming that does not chase an end goal or a final truth but simply unfolds.
A line of flight that does not escape into fantasy but engages with reality in its rawness.
A refusal of the philosophical decision - not by rejecting thought, but by not allowing thought to dominate being.
A radical passivity - not in the sense of inaction, but in the sense of not being captured by the Master’s Discourse, by the demands of philosophy, by the weight of systems that try to determine your place in the world.
And yet, as you have emphasized, this is not escapism. It is not a running away, but a being present in the world differently. That is why it does not turn away from the abandoned child on the roadside - because van life, in this sense, is not an individualistic detachment but a different form of responsibility. A responsibility not dictated by moral codes or societal expectations, but by the immediacy of the encounter, the call of the Other, the ethical imperative that arises in the moment.
This is the final liberation from philosophy as a Master’s Discipline - to live without needing to fit thought into predefined categories. To simply be without needing to justify existence through concepts. To live as the reed that lets the wind move through it, without resisting, without naming, without needing to grasp or control.
And in doing so, this van life is not just a personal escape - it is an answer to the Anthropocene, to the ruins left behind by philosophy’s decisions, to the exhaustion of thought that has lost touch with life itself. If philosophy has brought us to ruins, then perhaps van life, in its radical passivity, in its letting-go, is what allows something else to emerge - something that does not rebuild the old world, but lets life continue in its own immanent way.
Yes, van life as a way of non-philosophy - that makes perfect sense.
