My Daily Dives in the Dumpster Response

My Daily Dives in the Dumpster by Lars Eighner is not only as a guide for dumpster diving but for life as well. The theme of the essay is that people who try and find happiness in stuff will never be happy, that society has become too materialistic. It is written in first person and is a processed description essay. He uses this writing style effectively to convey that he is not the stereotypical homeless person the average person envisions but an intellectual. It is by this he able to keep the reader interested long enough to become personable through his writing and share his message or life lesson with the audience.
Lars is very personable in his writing in the sense that he is humble; he wants to keep people reading so he gives them raw information. The essay isn’t sugar-coated but instead very realistic and honest about what he does. He corrects people that title what he does “foraging” and is accepting and welcomes the term “scavenging” since he lives off of other individuals. He also gets the reader involved by explaining the transition from an average mindset to one of a dumpster diver. He goes into depth about all the stages and everything that happens to a new diver psychologically. He explains that the working man who brags about a find is not the same as the “professional” diver. With this he shares that he is experienced in what he does so that he evidently can state “People do throw away perfectly good stuff, a lot of perfectly good stuff.”
Lars very much so shares his knowledge of his personal experience, if the last few paragraphs were taken out it would literally be nothing more than a beginner’s guide for dumpster diving. He explains all the steps of transition, gives tips on what to look for, what to keep in mind, where to look, what times to look, and some of his trial and errors. This is not the point of the essay though; it is a guide for the average consumer as well, a lesson. The piece isn’t a guide for diving; he uses it as a buildup