I was talking to a friend. They’re smart. They’re Connected. They’ve got no kids, and they’ve liquidated everything they own to go off the grid in another country. Solar power, space for farmland and other families and they’re like “you’ve got to quit fooling yourself and do the same”.
And it makes me shiver.
Not because I think they’re wrong, not even because I think they might be right – but because the more I think about it, I don’t know that any amount of me being convinced of the truth of what they’re saying would actually get me to liquidate everything I own and go off the grid in another country.
I’m not sure that it’s laziness. I kind of doubt it’s lack of vision. I’m certainly a creature of momentum. Most of us are. The desire for things to pretty much continue as they are without you having to force it to do so is pretty much as human-nature as it gets. Sure, I’d like things to be BETTER than they are. I’d Love to get a record deal. I’d Love to be thinner. But more than anything else I want Tomorrow to be pretty much like my Yesterday without my Today being too brutalized. I’d like to play better gigs, but I like playing the gigs I play. I’d like to make more money, but I do fine with the amount of money I’ve got.
And that’s okay, as long as nothing changes the status quo externally. Nothing stops working. No-one gets sick. No-one crashes the economy of the United States and / or breaks its internal mechanisms with an eye towards selling it off piecemeal to the highest bidder. No-one drops my camera.
You know. Stuff that could happen at any time.
It might all be different if I had kids. Dependents. Not dependents like my cat and my mom, but dependents like spawn that I saw as the future. As it is I have communities. I’ve built these things, and I feel responsible to them. I’m not making a huge difference, but for some of them I’m giving hope, I’m keeping some of them sane. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m keeping some of them from killing some of the others.
Is that worthwhile?
Compared to what?
I think when I chose music over visual art, I chose a form that’s much more defined by my relationships to others. And that might be where the answer lies. I’ve built a Life around the ideas that we’re better together than we are apart, that we’re social animals. For better or worse, I think we need one another. So, retreating, going nowhere for no-one with a tiny, contracting circle of people, off the grid and in the woods, is antithetical to everything I am.
So – I’m not saying it’s brave to stay in place. But it’s also not ill-considered. I can show my work. I can explain my choice without having to resort to words of cowardice while still speaking a truth.
I can’t tell you if it’s THE truth. But… that’s probably pretty damned human too.
