I don’t know what to do. I’ve never known what to do. I’ve just walked under the sky and kept moving in what felt like a forward direction.
The internal compass could be wrong, you know, but I think that’s fine. What matters most is the motion, not the destination or direction.
My greatest desire has always been to find a place where I’m both in extreme discomfort and total comfort at once. To be able to stand under an oppressive overcast atmosphere, wearing a tailored suit, and not have a single concern. The last time I remember being able to summon that kind of feeling, I was the least free.
I still carry a lot of baggage around from my time in Japan, and not just the emotional fallout of having left behind so much that I loved, but from the near decade of living in constant fear of being late. I say fear, but what I really mean is terror. Three slips in punctuality and I would have lost a livelihood more lucrative than anything I’d ever known. Work schedules, train schedules... fuck schedules. It all created a neurosis that couldn’t manifest itself properly because I was in far too good a position psychologically for it to come to the fore. It wouldn’t be until I’d left, until I’d actively worked to turn my back on everything that I’d built there, that it would start to seep in through the cracks.
It’s taken some six years to come to grips with that, to free myself from the tyranny of the schedule, of the timed obligation. I always believed that if I’d abandoned that structured way of living that I’d find myself lost, not knowing what to do or where to turn. But we’re always lost, aren’t we? Even those of us with the most complete maps, or total senses of purpose and direction, in the grand scheme of things we have no idea where we’re going. A person without a reason to wander is no greater or lesser than one who’s trucking along with a GPS and full tank of gas.
As with all things, it’s with the letting go that the sense of freedom emerges.
“So, we’ve got, what, a hundred thousand lost and lonely souls pounding just as many words into their blog-spaces every day about the things that matter to them. And you know what? I think that’s great. I really do. People need an outlet, and the developed, progressive world has provided one for those with the means to string sentences together on a keyboard that’s connected to the Internet. Maybe they know a little CSS or HTML or maybe they don’t, and they’re using a “free” service to spread their thoughts around. Whatever the case, it’s a wonderful time to be alive, and depressed.
“Here’s something that bugs me about all of this, though, and it’s really only because I’m a so-called ‘content provider’, and as one of those mystical unicorns—though not really all that mystical if you grasped what I was getting at a moment ago—I used to feel it was an affront to my sensibilities and dignity when the aforementioned democratized ‘publishing of the feels’ gave way to everyone and their second cousin labeling themselves a “culture critic”. I mean, that label’s got about as much heft to it as “social media expert” (and, more often than not, you’ll see that it’s the former that’s morphed into the latter in the past half-decade) so not only is it laughable to assume this illustrious title, but it’s taken a step further down the winding trail of insult when some of these folks actually monetize their opinions.
“I’m all for capitalism, I think it’s great that if someone can find a way to make money for doing something, and in turn stimulate the economy with their activities, then they’re doing all right by the current metric. Capitalism probably isn’t the best possible system we could be living under (I’m thinking “we” in terms of “general human beings” here) but it’s the one we’re under now, so we might as well get somewhat good at it until something else comes along, right? So, being able to crowdfund your musings on whether a certain video game or book or pop star’s relationship drama is any good for society at large is fantastic.
“What is it about all this that gets my proverbial goat, then? Why am I taking the time to pound out a few thousand words of my own, in a critical tone? It’s the folks who are participating in the grand game I’ve outlined here who use their energy to try and tell us what’s wrong with whatever it is they’ve ingested. Why a certain writer is horrible at telling a story, and their books shouldn’t be selling. Or why a billion-dollar franchise shouldn’t be adding more entries to its library. Or… well, I think you get the idea. The whole thing about taking an hour to write—and, if we’re really, really, lucky, edit—some big think-piece bashing some bit of popular culture is that no matter how subtle the subtext of “don’t participate in this thing, I did, I took the bullet for you, you don’t have to waste your own time and brain cells on it, I’m here to tell you that it’s capital-B bad for you, and save you from it,” the fact of the matter is that whatever pissed that person off enough to get them to write about it also got them to think. It pulled them out of whatever rutting, grinding doldrum their mind was in, and sparked a huge fire under their ass, one that made them go out and metaphorically cry to the heavens about it. I use that phrase, and maybe it’s a little harsh, but when I see thousand-word write-ups on stuff and those posts have only got one share or like or whatever the social media metric is, maybe it would’ve been better off remaining unwritten.
“But yeah: The thing made the person think. So, then that person, who thinks they’re doing the altruistic thing by going out and warning everyone about the dangers of what they’ve consumed, what they’re actually doing is attempting to shut down the whole critical thinking process of their audience.
“Isn’t it better to experience something bad, and have it challenge your ideas, than to trust someone else’s subjective opinion on what they felt?
“I sure think it is.”
He lived aboard a solar-powered ship that cruised around the equator. The deck was comprised of photovoltaic cells, and not for walking on. There were weekly required guano-scraping sessions, but aside from that the setup was maintenance-free.
Below the wide deck and its solar wings was a luxury cabin, soundproofed and built on a giant gimbal that eliminated the effects of the sea’s rolling. He had all the amenities needed for a comfortable life: kitchen, full bath, king-sized bed. The real work was done in the forward room, where he had a state of the art satellite-connected data center.
The solar deck floated only a few inches off the surface of the water, giving it just enough clearance so that the cells were never submerged. The rest of the ship was below the waterline, and the gimbaled cabin provided a crystal clear view of the outside via high-definition cameras wired to an array of widescreen monitors.
With a stocked pantry he could go without making landfall for up to three months, and after becoming an expert on the aquatic life he extended that to six, a full half-year living off the bounty of the sea.
It was a lonely, solitary life, but so had his land-based existence been. The time spent aboard the ship was far more exciting. Never had the awareness of his own independence been greater than when he was nestled in the belly of the craft, sailing under the broiling equatorial suns, and plying his chosen trade of data brokerage.
2015.08.13 – 2015.08.21