Sometimes it comes in the form of an epiphany, a sudden revelation of what matters. Other times, it's a matter of evolution, the gradual realization that this is what must be.

Either way, any way, some people find themselves deciding, in a nation that prizes material well-being, that they are going to do without it.

What we're talking about here is people who have it within their grasp to make a nice, comfortable middle-class or upper-middle-class living, but who for one reason or another have decided to forget the brass ring and step off the merry-go-round. They're not people who haven't any choice about being poor -- that's a different and much sadder story. Instead the subjects of this story are people with good educations and abilities, people who have chosen a low-rent life when they could have opted for an upscale one.

Some of them do it for religious or political reasons, some because they're artists, and some simply to escape the confines of the 9-to-5 life. Whatever their reasons, they don't get much respect from the rest of society, which tends to label them as weirdos or failures. Still, most of them say they're happy -- not because they're making little money, but because they're doing whatever it is they find more important than money.

They only rarely recommend their difficult lives as examples for others, but just the same there may be something in their experience for anyone who's ever wanted to take his or her job and shove it. But after a decade of hearing about the rich and famous, perhaps it's time to hear about the poor and anonymous. Perhaps theirs are the more useful voices to hear.

IN 1986, LINDA GODDARD PUT AN AD in the paper. It read, "Found one good pearl; must sell everything to buy."

She was following the words of Jesus, Ms. Goddard explains, "where he says in order to follow him you have to sell everything that you own and join the poor.

"And that's what I did," she concludes, "and my life has been wonderful since then."

Before her turn to Jesus, Ms. Goddard had worked her way up from disc jockey to radio station office manager -- she has a Federal Communications Commission license but not a bachelor's degree -- but a drug and alcohol problem overtook her chances for a career. It was during the recovery from her addictions that she found her way to her present path of deliberate poverty.

Her choice of poverty is not only about personal and religious salvation: It also has a political side, since Ms. Goddard believes it expresses solidarity with the poor of the world. She worked with Washington's homeless advocate Mitch Snyder before his death, and she supports similar local causes and resistance to war. And when asked if she thought she couldn't do more for those causes if she made more money, she says no: "You make a lot of compromises when you make a lot of money. You kind of rob Peter to pay Paul."

Ms. Goddard, a sturdy-looking 39-year-old with pulled-back chestnut hair, now gets by with odd jobs and housecleaning. Her overhead is low: She lives in what used to be the dining room of a Bolton Hill mansion. Part of the room has been converted into a small kitchen and bathroom; the rest is divided into areas Ms. Goddard designates as office (a desk), living room (three thrift-shop easy chairs) and bedroom (a Murphy bed).

She shares these modest quarters with her partner, Brian Barrett. Tall, thin, reserved, with a long beard and hair pulled back in a ponytail, Mr. Barrett looks the ascetic and admits the appeal of that self-denying form of life.

"The ideal is just to cover your own needs" with what you make from paid work, he says, "and the rest is to give away." And when Brian Barrett says "needs," you know he doesn't mean "luxuries I've gotten used to and would find it hard to do without." The couple does not have medical insurance, for example.

Mr. Barrett graduated from a Franciscan liberal-arts college in 1971 with a bachelor's degree in sociology and then moved into a commune where people worked at building new housing for poor people in the city. That was how, he says, he set off on his present direction in life. To support himself, he does carpentry, house-painting, repair work -- "but more importantly I resist the arms race."

Doesn't this couple ever wish they were a professional pair renovating their Bolton Hill mansion instead of squeezing by in its living room? Don't they ever have any regrets over the choices they've made?

No, Mr. Barrett says, "not at least in what I was striving to do." He has made mistakes along the way, he says, but he doesn't regret his goals.

Ms. Goddard's response is less measured. "I have never felt one moment of remorse since I put my feet on this path," she says. "I know that I'm where I'm supposed to be spiritually, and that's a wonderful feeling. And there's no amount of money that you can buy that with."

MS. GODDARD AND MR. BARRETT'S motivations are religious and political in nature: They combine the traditional Christian ideals of self-abnegation and service to others with a political agenda that attempts to correct the ills of society.

For people like them, the simple life in itself is a goal -- even a moral imperative. But for others who make little money, the simple life is not an end in itself: It's only a means to an end, and a pretty inconvenient means at that.

Writers and artists are the chief inhabitants of this category: Most of them say they'd love to make more money at what they do, but nobody will pay them. And, given the choice between doing something else that makes money or continuing to make art that doesn't, they opt for art -- and end up living the simple life because that's all they can afford.

Which is probably why so few people choose that line of work. Only about 1 percent of American workers are employed as artists, notes Gary D. Gottfredson, principal research scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Social Organization of Schools, adding that in this context the term "artist" includes everyone from "divas to go-go dancers."

Writers don't do much better than artists. With a tiny handful of exceptions, neither group gets much in the way of either money or respect. The thing is, says Baltimore poet Joseph Harrison, these groups, like intellectuals and academics, just aren't "in lock step with the puritanical ethos of the society, with its emphasis on the bottom line and tangible production."

"HISTORY IS FULL OF ARTISTS WHO didn't make any money until they were dead," says Steve Estes.

But at the same time he can't help hoping he'll be an exception and that his own art will make him some bucks. He's working on an hour-long animated film -- "not like a cartoon, it's art" -- which he hopes will make the big time, or at least the medium time.

But in the next breath he says, "I guess I have trouble making something stupid enough to be really successful." And -- this is the crucial thing -- "It's more important for it to be a work of art than for it to be ['Teenage Mutant] Ninja Turtles.' "

Mr. Estes supports himself by working at the Zone, a vintage clothing store on Charles Street, 28 to 35 hours a week, so at night he can work on his film. Sometimes, but not always, he is awarded a grant; this year he got one for $2,500 from the Maryland State Arts Council. He doesn't want to say what his total income is, but how much can a guy make who walks to work to avoid putting wear on his VW bus? He is 38, a 1976 graduate of the Maryland Institute. And he is very serious about making his animated film, and making it his way.

"I'd rather make my film the way I see it being made rather than have someone say, 'Hey you're talented, make this thing for me and I'll give you a lot of money,' " he says. "I'd rather do something that no one else is going to do."

He says he's not sure if he could make money in "the real world" -- or, more precisely, how happy he'd be doing it. He did some animation once for a prominent area business, he says, and found it a "difficult environment to work in because it's more people's egos than anything else. The actual work is secondary to appeasing various people's, like, self-importance."

Then he returns to the subject of his own film. "I really believe in myself, and I believe that if I get this film done it will be successful," he says.

But it's not simply the vision of success that's driving him on through the nights over his drawing board. "I have an obsession or compulsion to see this made. No one else is going to do it, so I'm going to do it," he says. "I've given up a lot of things in order to be able to do it."

THAT LAST IS A SENTIMENT Joseph Harrison can well understand.

Mr. Harrison lives in Waverly, in a fine old dilapidated house with a fine old dilapidated bow porch, on which sits a metal settee chained to the railing. The settee doesn't have a cushion on it, so you can't sit on it. But if it did have a cushion, it'd probably get stolen. You can't have everything.

Which, of course, is what this story is about: Giving up some things in order to have other things. What Joseph Harrison is giving up is a career as an academic; what he wants to have is the time and energy to write poetry. He was on the fast track to an elite academic life, with an undergraduate degree in English from Yale, a couple of years' experience writing poetry and teaching, and then admission to Hopkins' prestigious graduate English program.

Then, at the beginning of this year, at the age of 33, he withdrew from the program.

"I came to the decision that the best way for me to write poetry wasn't to be an academic, and that I was having difficulty serving two masters," he says. "I'm not saying that it's impossible for people to do both. It just seemed impossible for me."

Joseph Harrison says this with an easy-on-the-ear Southern drawl, but if you've ever met anyone who was dead serious about what he's doing, Joseph Harrison is it.

In order to write poetry, he needs large blocks of time, he says, four to six hours at a stretch -- "and I need to bring my best energy and concentration" to it. But the competitive academic life expected of Hopkins Ph.D.s, with its publications and committees and struggles for tenure, would not have allowed this, he believes, and neither would other jobs of the 9-to-5 variety.

"It seems the society forces on you a very hard choice between money and time, and it doesn't even present it to you as a choice," Mr. Harrison says. "But I have insisted on taking the time, and they can fly their money on a flagpole and see who salutes it."

Brave words, the average wage-slave might say, but how are you going to pay the rent? How are you going to eat?

Probably with difficulty, Mr. Harrison admits. He has applied for some grants, so far without success, and he has picked up some teaching jobs. He expects to get by. "In the last two to three years I've been in the $10,000 to 15,000 range, and I would imagine that's where I'll wind up again," he says. "I can live on $10,000 to $15,000."

So the paint peels off the wall in the kitchen, and he doesn't own a videocassette recorder. But "at least it was my life and I tried to do what I wanted with it," he says, "instead of saying, 'Oh well, I guess I'd better not do what I want to do because it's safer to live another way.' "

SO PEOPLE GIVE UP THE FInancially secure life to help others, and they give it up for art. They also give it up for freedom, for the belief that well-paid jobs require such a sacrifice of time and ,, personal autonomy that they're not worth it.

For these people, giving up a high standard of living is easy in comparison with giving up the sense that their lives are their own.

Charles Powers is 43 years old, he has a bachelor's degree from a good liberal arts college, and he impresses those he meets as the intelligent, level-headed, decent sort of guy who could pretty much succeed at whatever he wanted to, if he put his hand to it.

The thing is, he hasn't yet put his hand to it.

"I can't exactly describe it as a conscious decision," he says. He doesn't want to say exactly how much he makes, but he works only 20 to 25 hours a week at a job that's not known to be among the best paid society has to offer its college graduates: He is a waiter, at the Sir Walter Raleigh restaurant in the Hunt Valley Mall. But he's single; he doesn't own a house or a credit card; he budgets carefully; his needs are modest -- so the amount he makes is enough to keep him comfortable.

And when he weighs the discomfort he'd feel working harder against the comfort of his present existence, he decides that -- so far -- it's not worth it.

People ask him from time to time why he doesn't go into restaurant management. But, he says, "I make as much money if not more as an entry-level manager would make, and probably I work 25 hours to make that money, whereas an entry-level

manager would work probably 45. And when I leave, I can go home and fall asleep and not worry, 'Is so-and-so going to show up and wash dishes?' I can leave my work at work."

On top of that, he continues, waiting tables is "an honest job. I don't cheat anybody, I don't lie to anybody, I don't pull a scam on anybody," he says, noting that he's seen "the other side: friends who are managers, young executives, who find themselves sacrificing their principles for some organization for which they work and are somewhat enslaved to."

Perhaps they own a nice house, he continues, and "to meet those payments they have to sell a little bit of themselves. I don't have to do that."

If they're slaves to their jobs, he says, he's only an indentured servant.

BUT THERE'S A DOWN SIDE to his kind of life, Mr. Powers is careful to say -- several down sides. No security for one thing, and no benefits for another: Mr. Powers has to pay for his medical insurance himself, which absorbs a large chunk of his budget. Then, too, many women don't want to date a waiter.

And, finally, although he has more money in the bank than some of his better-paid friends, he says, without bitterness but with some ruefulness, "I'm not proud of what I do."

Given the cultural climate, it would be hard to be proud, since if anyone gets less respect than artists, it's people who live low simply because they don't want to live the standard 9-to-5 life.

Which is why Lawrence Kloze says, "It's been hard having a sense of self-esteem without being occupationally successful and wealthy, and that's probably been one of the major challenges of my life -- to not be financially successful and still have a sense of self-esteem."

This candor is typical of Mr. Kloze. A robustly healthy-looking 51, his eyes are astute and his manner unruffled. He graduated from the University of Maryland Law School in 1966, but he never chose to practice. Instead he gets by on a flea-market antiques business, and he says he has never made more than $15,000 a year.

His wife, Vicki, usually does only volunteer work, although she has a bachelor's degree and a teaching certificate. This year, though, she worked for pay as a teacher's aide -- but she says the couple's income still didn't rise, since Mr. Kloze's business dropped off because of the recession.

Nonetheless, the Klozes have managed to raise five children, two of whom are in college. Their oldest son, Gideon, is at the University of Maryland, which is affordable because Gideon gets financial aid and also cooks his own meals, which saves him the cost of a meal plan. The Klozes' oldest daughter, though, is at New York University, where a combination of grant, loan, contributions from the Klozes and his parents plus the $6,000 to $8,000 the student earned herself have seen her through one year, though it's not clear if she'll be able to continue there for the remaining three.

That's another of the down sides to the low-paid life: You can't send your kids to the colleges of their choice, and Ms. Kloze says this is why she took the teacher's-aide job. Still, neither she nor Mr. Kloze contemplates a more radical change in the way they live their lives. Both of them emphasize that they don't need or want much for themselves -- and they value greatly the freedom of choice that gives them about working.

"I'd rather spend the time with my children and my family" than out at a job, Ms. Kloze says, especially since when you're working, "you're out there beating your head, you're out there being competitive, I hate it. . . . It's unsatisfying, it doesn't make you feel good, so why get out there?"

Larry Kloze, too, feels that the cost of making money is too high. "There were times in my life when I tried to make a lot of money, but it was never important enough for me, and I never had the tenacity to keep working when my needs were met," he says. "I'm too easily pleased."

Besides, he continues, "an important thing in my life is to help other people and to work for the greater good. And because I'm not strung out on my own goals and monetary success, I'm able to be more involved in the greater good."

Mr. Kloze has worked on a variety of community issues, from setting up and running a recycling center to creating a park in his neighborhood of Mount Washington. This kind of community service, like his marriage, has been a source of satisfaction: "I like the simple things," he says.

"I like to be happy. I don't want to punish myself. I'm not trying to prove anything, I just want to live and let live."

But Mr. Kloze also remembers with fondness his own parents taking the family out to dinner when he was a kid, and he wishes he could do the same for his kids -- and send them to the colleges of their choice instead of the colleges they can afford.

But there you are. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. You can't have your simple life and eat out, too.

"To be poor by choice is unusual in this day and age. I can't think of many people who have chosen the same road I have chosen," he says, with perhaps just a tad of wistfulness.

But "I know what it is to have," he continues. "I have wealthy friends and relatives, and I can really hear that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. And I can be happy because I understand what it is really about. I'm not living in a vacuum of just wanting to be like the people in the TV commercials."

The fact is, he says, "I'm happy. We're happy. Happier than other people."