Ford knows I'm capable of making a litany of dramatic, damming, and maybe unduly despotic proclamations, either provoked by alcohol, the hangover day, or just waking up on the wrong side of existence. Someone that does that too often it's hard to take seriously when they describe the “plight” of what they're experiencing. I'm sure many clinically depressed or mood disordered people were summarily swept up in dismissive and condescending cultural normative understandings. Before we derived a concept of “mental health,” there was nothing to “get” or “fix” about a mope, nor shared language that might help discern a real problem from the really self-indulgent.
That said, I want to be dead serious. Right before I take off on the trip to do my “training” to start this job, I want to speak about the bottom floor of my fears about proceeding down this path. I want to say yet again that I think it's a problem. I don’t think what I'm doing is quite more a mistake than a solution yet, but that it can become so if I'm not paying attention. I don't want to become the person I'm imagining by finding this kind of lifestyle too compelling. I'd like to remain a noble savage.
The environment I'm going into will be “normal.” They want business casual. They operate between 8 and 5, with several breaks in between. They'll pay more than I need, but never really enough. I know their language. I know their tone. I got their degree. I'm significantly more the product of their relative stability and comfort than I am the things I've attempted to do in striking out on my own. But I stress, the reason I wanted, and argued, and sacrificed, and put myself through sketchy and painful things was because I was overwhelmed by what I saw as the self-immolating tendencies of that world.
I don't want to be good enough. I don't want what's handed to me. I don't want what isn't fought for. I can ride the coat tails of those who came before who prescribed their version of “the good life.” But that isn't me. I'm not business casual, early riser, or under the illusion a drug-addled household that abuses children is going to benefit from my 5 point plan and hour a week consultation. I'd love to be wrong about that, but the “impact one person” is a narrative I've long derided. I'm going to be contributing to a culture with overriding behavior I disagree with in the only way I know how, exhaustively.
Whatever scary or horrifying things I've ever said about suicide, they were usually due to a reflection on the world, not the internal one I was harboring. I don't wish for this to change. I don't want to be out-of-body watching myself go through motions, spend money, and recycle the worst kinds of conversations. When that happens, I'll want to die. So, whether you believe me or not, this is what I'm flirting with in this kind of life. My will to live is going to depend on how I can fit this into a larger paradigm and not let it become me. When I don't feel like I have options or like I'm moving away from having to do things how I desire, we're entering dangerous waters.
Without trying to sound too disingenuously selfish, to be sure, I've felt at the end of the “labor” rope for quite some time, even and especially in a job that I was able to leave “at-will.” I so happen to have a will that turns an inch of freedom into over-indulgence and the smallest notion of captivity into a life-sentence. It's important to understand that different things do this to different degrees. But that goal across levels is to find a way to reject them completely. That's me still moving towards a completely off-grid and sustainable lifestyle. That's still in the pursuit of knowledge about how the world churns in spite of how many “busy” or “tired” claims come flying in.
I think I finally feel a measure of guilt. Guilt that I've been broken. Guilt that the norm is proving “right.” Guilt that for as good as I consistently say I have it, and read about relative to the rest of the world, I'm not able to carry the ball forward without weathering a potential game-losing fumble. I'm still willing to entertain the idea that this happened at precisely the moment it “should.” As I have the land, as my bills are fleeting. I can take on the burden of paying particular attention to my mind and fitting in with hopefully a giant monetary resource from doing this job like I know they aren't used to people doing it.
I'm willing to be surprised. I'm willing to take the risk. I know it's not all bad. But the fear is no less real. The consequences no less damning. I'm not allowed to be comfortable. Comfortable is death.
