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I realized that I generally get very defensive
and at an uncharacteristic loss for words when asked about my plans and
my beliefs on various subjects, as I found that people tend to either
ignore them for being unlike their own or interrupt me in between every
sentence, making an intelligent discussion impossible. So, as I seem to
be much more eloquent in writing than in real life, I thought to create
an online journal so that I can once and for all express my views and
hopefully create a better understanding, if not acceptance, for who I
am…
At least three times a day, I have to defend or discuss what I plan to
do with my life, or I overhear a discussion of the same. The responses
range from disdain (“You are making a huge mistake!”), to blame and
repulsion (“Where did I go wrong with you?!?”), to ignorance (“It’s
because you want a brother, isn’t it?”), to outright disregard (“You're
so sad and miserable!”). I don’t expect anyone to support me as of yet,
as I’ve not really had a full discussion of my beliefs with anyone, and
I respect those attempts to sway me from what you feel is a mistake,
but I hope this journal serves to enlighten and explain, or at the very
least dispel the belief that there is something horrendously “wrong”
with me.
So,
here we go. Many of you are at least peripherally aware of my plans for
the future, but for those of you who are not… My best friend
Nathan, my dog, and I intend to sell most of our belongings and
travel around the country, occasionally living out of my
car and sleeping in the woods. The first reaction from most of
you, more likely than not, was “Holy sh*t!” If you had told me a year
ago that I was going to be living in a car, I would have laughed at you
and said the exact same thing. But, somehow, here I am.
I
know you more likely than not think that an intelligent, straight-A
student with a 150 IQ is wasting her life away, and that I should go to
college and become a doctor or lawyer, or anything else I want to be,
for that matter. And more likely than not, someday I will. But for the
last 20 years, I troubled over what I was going to do with my
life. I have so many interests and enjoy so many things, and yet I
can’t imagine doing them every single day for the rest of my life. I
would half-heartedly decide to open a kennel, or an animal sanctuary,
or any of the other hundreds of careers I've considered, but a few
months later I would realize that, while it might be fun for a little
while, I could never do it forever. It was always “What would I
dislike doing the LEAST?” and never “What do I WANT to do?” Is that any
way to live a life?
How
many of you can TRULY say are happy? If you were to die tomorrow, would
you be completely satisfied with how you lived your life? Would the 2/3
of your waking hours spent doing a job you hate have been worth it? You
may feel that you have to work, in order to provide food and shelter
for your family. And many of you do. But how much of what we buy is
REALLY necessary? 10 pairs of shoes? 50 sets of clothes? An expensive
car? Video games? Television? Trinkets and decorations to adorn the
same four walls you live in day in and day out? Is happiness truly in
those things? No, as we all know, money really doesn't buy happiness.
It’s a sentiment many of us believe, but few realize the implications
of.
In
theory, we can sell our fancy furniture and our clothes and our
televisions, and pay solely for food and inexpensive housing, and only
have to work 20 hours a week to support ourselves. But then what would
we do with all that free time? We can’t watch television, we sold it.
We can’t go shopping or go to the movies, our job only affords us
enough money for bills. We can’t travel or see the world, we have to be
at work the next day. So, in order to have our house and a sane amount
of entertainment, we HAVE to work that 40 hour a week job. We really
have no other choice. We get suckered into working day in and day out
doing menial labor for a chance to achieve the “American Dream” of that
dull house in the suburbs with the white picket fence and 2.5 children.
I
don’t want that dream. I see how happy it makes all of you. I see my
mother come home every day and immediately take a nap. How, when I ask
her how her day was, I get some disparaging or sarcastic comment. I’ve
read that gallup poll in
which only 10 % of Americans are satisfied with their jobs. Would a
house be nice? Yes, of course. Are televisions great? Sure. But at what
price would I be paying for them? In order to have those things, I have
to sacrifice my entire LIFE. I only get a few years on this earth, and
I don’t believe in an afterlife, so for me, this is it. Do I want to
spend 2/3 of my existence in some tiny cubical? No—I want to travel and
sing and dance and explore and dream. I want adventure in that great,
wide somewhere. I want to be able to get up at a moment’s notice and
leave for New York or California
or South America and have nothing tying me down. I want my time to
belong to me and no one else. I want to travel the world with no
destination and no point of return. I don’t want to wait for the
weekends. I don’t want to dread Mondays. I don’t want to live and die
by a time clock. Every moment is precious, and I intend to make the
most of it. If that means giving up everything I have come to know and
accept, so be it. It will be a small price to pay for freedom.
Traveling
will be difficult, yes. It will be dangerous, and at times
uncomfortable. I have thought long and hard about it, and did not come
to this decision on a frustrated, idealistic whim. Nathan is
one of the wisest, most intelligent people I have ever known. We
have considered all the perils, all the consequences, and I trust our
decision-making more than anything else in the world. I have made
several very good friends who are completely homeless travelers, and
they are the happiest, freest people I have ever known in my life. They
have had more adventures and more friends and more happiness than a
house and a job could ever give. Through small enterprises, they easily
have enough money for food, clothing, gas, and even frequent trips to
restaurants, museums, amusement parks, and movie theaters. They have
taught me well. I have seen their way of life, and the trials they have
gone through to sustain it, and I have seen yours. …I choose theirs.
I
hope you can all learn to understand and accept that. I cannot live in
this world you have built for yourselves, and I am not the only one.
Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau, Leonardo da Vinci,
Krishnamurti, Vincent Van Gogh… all of these people and countless more
have traveled possession less throughout the world, living life as
nature intended. I shall be but one more.
I
would be more than happy to answer any further questions or comments
you may have, though please try to do so with respect and
open-mindedness, as I don’t respond very well to rudeness,
thoughtlessness, and delusions of grandeur. I'll leave you with a quote
on the subject that I find beautiful and inspiring…
~*Tanya*~
“I went to the woods
because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential
facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and
not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish
to live what is not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice
resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and
suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like
as to put to rout all that is not life, to cut a broad swath and shave
close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms,
and if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine
meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world.”
--- Henry David Thoreau, Walden |
