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Experience, Exploration, Freedom, Adventure vs Stuff & Money

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

I’d like to share something that I wrote in my journal in July, 2002.  I was living in Aspen, Colorado, and already thinking about an around the world trip, which didn’t actually happen for three more years:”

Sometimes, I conduct little imaginary conversations with any naysayers who might think that I’m being irresponsible and not “saving for the future,” by spending my money as I get it on something as ephemeral as travel.  Nobody would bat an eyelash if I spent the same amount on obtaining a house or a mobile home.  You couldn’t get much of either on what the year of travel is going to cost.  Or how about a car?  All would agree that a car is a necessary purchase, right?  Well, those things require constant investment and upkeep and they tend to tie you down.  I have learned that it’s very easy to find a place to live when one needs that, and transportation is always available in some form or another. I don’t need to own it all.

This is the secret that Americans don’t know.  They think that their identity comes from things….that their security comes from things.  And the accumulation of things is approved; but the refusal to accumulate is looked upon with alarm and disapproval.  Many of my contemporaries, who are in their sixties, have already spent tens of thousands of dollars on rebuilding their bodies. One friend must have used up a hundred grand of hers, or Medicare’s, money on hospital bills, just in the five years that I’ve known her.  If they are not fixing their body parts, they’re fixing their wrinkled faces with cosmetic surgery.

Now the news is full of stories about the worthlessness of two medical procedures that millions have spent big bucks to attain:  atherosclerotic surgery on the knee or shoulder, and hormone relacement therapy for menopause.  Neither does much good, at all, though both cost a whole lot of money and have been sworn by for years.

Then, there is the vast amount of money that has simply disappeared from millions of American lives through their faith in the stock market.  So many retirees, or wanna-be retirees, are broke right now because their pension funds have evaporated in these scandals and the bursting of the stock market bubble.   That’s what it’s all about.  These American Expectations of The Good Life.   Afraid, afraid, afraid!  That’s what everyone is these days because of the economic changes.  They are not the fat cats that they once thought they were. 

And meanwhile, there’s me, skimming along on the surface of it all, carrying no expensive baggage.  I get to stay in fancy hotels, or in unique hostels, eating wonderful cuisine, and loving every affordable minute, because I’m not drowning in the strange psychology of this society.  I’m also not spending one penny more than life would cost me if I stayed in one place and just existed.

I find it so hard to believe that it was only three weeks ago that I returned from Europe and started back on the job.  It feels so long ago.  That’s because of the sameness of the routine.  Nothing here has essentially changed since I arrived five years ago.  It’s a time warp sort of feeling, as if I’ve been doing this forever; going through the same motions in the same surroundings.  So, stepping into it again, I sink back into the same old jelly mold and the days again become monotonously alike.

This is the way that many humans live their whole lives.   This is what normal feels like to them.  One friend has been doing the same thing here for over thirty years, often with the very same objects.  So have her friends and neighbors.  I step away for a year-and-a-half and then come back, catching them in mid-motion of a routine activity which they were following on the day that I left.  This is life for 99% of the population.  I can’t be compelled to feel guilty for the choices that I have made to live my life a great deal differently.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.  Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men, as a whole, experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer, in the long run, than exposure.”  Helen Keller