I Lost My Walking Stick
/I had come to depend on it in the way that only a walking stick can be depended on. And I discovered the difference between a good walking stick and a poor one.
Read MoreI had come to depend on it in the way that only a walking stick can be depended on. And I discovered the difference between a good walking stick and a poor one.
Read MoreA simple guide for—and personal account of—harvesting and smoking red osier dogwood, or what Native Americans and pioneers of the Ohio Valley called kinnikinnick.
Read MoreErik tells me he’s thinking of eating psychedelic mushrooms, something he hasn’t yet done in life. He thinks he’ll “microdose,” he says.
I must talk him out of this insanity.
Read MoreWhile on the road through Flagstaff, Arizona, my van goes caput. I pause to record impressions.
Read MoreI've been thinking lately that we humans aren't as complex and mysterious as I'd originally supposed.
Read MoreI went camping and the moon was full and when it reached in the sky to eleven o’clock I abandoned my fire and walked.
The skies are clearing, the days warming. I don't mind the pain.
Read MoreI am giving up.
Over the past several months I've posted about getting my writing published here and there, about landing an internship with KUER, about quitting a lucrative job, about graduating college. I've shared all this in hopes of inspiring people. For I believed there was a way out, and I thought if I could find it and document it then others would find a way out too.
Out of what was I hoping to find a way? This. This whole setup. This whole chase-money-acquire-debt-do-meaningless-work-or-go-broke game.
What? Not all work is meaningless? True. Education, agriculture, craftsmanship, art—these enterprises have real social value. But in general they pay very little, making it difficult if not impossible to support a family, or they are governed by inane bureaucracies and grubby capitalists. Our most humanistic endeavors, in other words, have been appropriated by this mechanistic, soul-sucking sham. (Btw, I’d say healthcare is a valuable enterprise, but it turned cancerous as soon as it glimpsed how much a person is willing to borrow or pay in order to postpone death and ease suffering.)
I have spent the last five years trying to escape industries which to me seem to offer no value to humanity—marketing, advertising, finance, insurance, real estate, transportation, investing, and all things speculative and manipulative. I have not found a way out. I don't know how and when we went wrong, but we did. Today people are paid extremely well if they can create the illusion of value, marginally well if they are willing to support the illusion. But if a person truly adds value to society, he or she is paid poorly, at least in many cases.
Why is this?
Seriously. Think about what and whom our illusions support. Do you benefit if you participate? Yes, to a degree. But also a part of you dies, because you recognize, whether faintly or clearly, this is all terribly fucked up. You feel something amiss. And if you don’t, it’s because the pleasures of the game have sedated you.
Perhaps it’s fortunate, perhaps unfortunate, but I’m fairly adept at creating the illusion of value. I know how to play the game. I could probably even “win” at it if I tried real hard. But I don’t crave power that much. Nor do I want to pacify myself with the things money can buy—entertainment, possessions—or the things it can’t buy yet promises to—security, safety, a guaranteed tomorrow.
What I want is autonomy. Alas, even this has to be purchased—with an indentured soul. The only way out, possibly, is to become the street prophet or mountain recluse or starving artist. Why do you think I beseech such folk, and solicit their wisdom?
Anyway, seeing as I bragged about my highs in the past, about my progress, I thought it appropriate to share this low, this potential regression. I am losing hope that there’s a way out of this game. It seems that I must sell one part of my soul in order to retain another, and I’m prepared to now, after nine months of trying to avoid doing so. I know most of you have already done this, several times, even do it daily. I’ve done it, too, a thousand times. “Get over it,” you might be thinking. If so, I partially admire your pragmatism. But I think there’s something else we should consider: Is it possible that such compromising of self, such repression of intuitions, indicates not simply that life is inconvenient, but that we're living it patently wrong, in this so-called civilization? Yes, to resist is to suffer, but so too is to acquiesce. And whose cause would you rather suffer for?
I don’t know. I haven’t fully given up yet, I guess, but I am mad—in both senses of the word.
Do you ever feel exhausted or alone or confused so badly that the answers you normally feed yourself about life and meaning lose their efficacy?
Read MoreI went to Burning Man to make a cultural study, to find and contribute to an engaging community, to make art, and to party my ass off. But I'm not sure I'll do it again.
Read MoreA real man is honest enough to admit his need to be validated, is courageous enough to live as though he doesn’t have this need, and is kind enough to assent to this need in others.
Read MoreIt’s funny, growing up. You realize that all the perfect things you thought would come about, don’t.
Read MoreSince I started living clean I have noticed two things in society which trouble me: First, almost everyone is an addict. Secondly, we all lie. Especially to ourselves.
Read Morea weblog and lifework
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Joplin blew out a hit. The smoke hung and twisted in the sunlight, and he studied it there, looking for an answer or sign.
I don’t know how best to tell you this, but you’re wrong. You’re wrong about me, and I fear you are wrong about the world.
Misfits threaten to diversify Provo, Utah, with The Boxcar Studios—an atelier and community events center.
A profile of a young addict prompts reflection on the American way.
Meditation has inspired me to "let go." But how can I engage the good fight if I give in?
Perhaps a greater understanding of what it means to be a misfit will help us better understand what it means to be human.
Wordle is unique in that it’s an addiction you can’t indulge to your detriment.