Do I Dare?

Middle Class Suburban White American (MiSWA) life as seen on television: Go to school, get a car, get a job, buy a house, accumulate stuff, take care of the house/yard/stuff, buy more stuff, have a family, take care of the family by buying more stuff, send your kids off to college and to a similar fate, grow old with a spouse, retire with a spouse, have a great twenty years relaxing with the spouse and buying even more stuff and then die happy surrounded by loving family...who will throw away your stuff. They have enough stuff of their own, thank you.

THEN, go directly to heaven where you won't have to worry about the polluted environment you left behind.

MiSWA life as experienced by me: Go to school, get a junky car, get a job, get a second job, get a third job, go to school again, get another job, get another junky car, get a second job, go to school again, save some money, crisis, lose all your money, get another job, get another half decent car (that you pay through the nose for), realize that your biological clock is ticking and try and have a family, fail to have a family (though you do get laid a lot), try desperately to keep your life together, save, crisis, lose, save, crisis, lose, watch your dreams get crushed to smithereens, grow old, wear the bottoms of your trousers rolled, suffer, die alone and decompose.

Let me make something clear: most of what the capitalists want me to want I don't want. Well, the kids, yes, and the health insurance and the really good whiskey. But, besides that, MiSWA life as seen on TV seems so banal that it gives me ulcers...or, maybe that's the Ten High. But I digress. I've always wanted to simplify my life, not make it more complicated. I'd rather walk than drive, rather swim than jet-ski, rather read than watch television, rather not be available twenty-four hours a day on a cell phone, rather watch my yard grow into a tangled, fantastic mess of vines and wild-flowers than mow, weed-whack and leaf-blow.

I've always maintained that less I have, the happier I am. I am not a person who wants stuff. If anything, I'm an anti-horder. For some reason, however, I thought the only route to this stress-free, simple life style I imagined was by becoming financially secure through the only route I knew: the MiSWA route as insisted upon by the culture that engulfed me. I guess I thought this because I couldn't get away from the notion that the first step to this perfect life was saving some money and buying some land. I wanted to build a small eco-friendly dwelling on this land and invite some like-minded friends to do the same. I also thought I needed health insurance since my chronic pain was getting worse. So I took their word for it. I dug in my heels and did everything right. The capitalists rubbed their greedy hands together and stuck their golden straws into a giant Tiki cocktail composed of my sweat, blood and crushed dreams.

All I've done, all of my life, is work. Sometimes two jobs, sometimes three, never one. I've always excelled at school, never had a complaint about my work ethic. However, when I look at my life now and compare it to my life twenty years ago, three degrees and two careers later, there is no difference. I am still checking my bank account every day to see if I can afford my groceries. I still haven't seen any other part of the world besides my own. I am finally able to see doctors, but none of them help me or believe me, so I'm still clueless about where all my pain comes from. I am stressed all the time (could that be where my pain comes from?). I realize that I will never make it to retirement except, possibly, as a crippled person, bitter and yellow.

This is what capitalism expects of me. I'm playing right into its hands. Its hands that dangle the carrot of success and the fruit of security and the seed of satisfaction just far enough over my head so that I can't reach it. I try, of course. I grasp and grasp and grasp. I work hard, hard, even harder to get just a piece of it. Eventually, I collapse, and all I have to show for all my efforts is a sore fucking arm. The capitalists go on vacation and I lie in an exhausted heap on the floor.

You see, fellow pathetic little pawns of the working class, it is clear to me now that we've all been deceived. I am not paranoid enough to believe that this is by intent, but it will be the fate of most of us by design. The system is rigged to defeat us. We will not get to reach that glorious retirement when we can actually do what we want to do because when we arrive we will either be too poor, too sick, or probably both.

At forty-six, I am finally clued in to the fact that if I want to enjoy my life I have to go the other direction, now, and before you Fox News types start calling me a "taker", I'm not talking about living off the generous handouts of the makers who drive this just system of which I speak. However, I am going to attempt to earn a living doing something you might find equally distasteful: art. I will work at your soul crushing jobs just enough to get by. This is the only way I will ever get the time that I need to flourish as a human being.

So that's it. I'm going to stop clenching my teeth (giving myself TMJ in the process) and stepping on the gas pedal with all my might, only to spin my wheels and sling dirt across my windshield. Instead, I'm going to calmly shut off the engine, get out and go sit in that glade over there, under that peach tree. I'm going to take a big bite of what ever falls, lie down and watch that big old money pit of a truck called the American Dream disappear as it sinks out of sight into the viscous mud.

In other words: I'm dropping out, man.

I'll be poor, but I'll be happy. I'll be less stressed. No kids. No travel. No good whiskey. No more uncaring doctors. But I'll have my health back, and time. Oh, precious, beautiful time...


Coming up next: Alright so you can't trust me about this, but the next entry WILL BE the long awaited earth-shattering paradigm shifting continental shelf smashing wave crashing anomalous orgasmic essay of orgiastic essaydom: "animal rights is the next human rights". Or maybe not. It might be "I love my metaphors like I love my vegetables: mixed." Or it might be something entirely different.