Wonderful greenery has sprouted up all
around, and my mood has brightened with it. In the past several
weeks, I was selected to interview for a job which I very much
wanted. My travel expenses were covered to Canton, NY for the
interview, which lasted 2 days and included a hike into the woods.
After 2 weeks of waiting, and being informed that they had narrowed
the selection down to myself and one other candidate, I was informed
in a very polite and straight-forward e-mail that the other candidate
had been offered, and had accepted the job.
At first, I was quite disappointed.
The job would have entailed all of the aspects of life that I am
currently most interested in, including wilderness, outdoor
recreation, community, sustainable lifestyle and leadership. But the
simple prospect of the job had me distracted for weeks. Had I landed
the job, I would have continued to be distracted by the need to
prepare my equipment, finances, living situation and travel plans for
the job. Because I did not get the job, I was able to immediately be
more present where I am, and I believe my performance and happiness
here have increased substantially because of this.
Spring has sprung here in NC. Leaves
are popping out on all the trees, blossoms continue to bloom and
fall, insects and birds are flying about, and the frogs and crickets
hum a sweet melody in the evenings. The scent and sight of
wildflowers catch the senses as they peek through the grass and
trees. The sun warms the bones, and the water is finally warm enough
to take a quick dip. I have been thoroughly enjoying teaching
children about connection, cooperation, adaptation and adventure. I
feel that I have hit my stride here, and the next couple of months
will flow by smoothly.
Though I have not posted a blog in some
time, I continue to write when the inspiration hits. The following
are bits on subjects that I felt strongly enough about to put my
thoughts into words:
Free Time:
"The
man who has a lot to do usually keeps his general views and opinions
almost unchanged; as does each person who works in the service of an
idea. He will never test the idea itself any more; he no longer has
time for that. Indeed, it is contrary to his interest even to think
it possible to discuss it." -
Nietzsche
Who has time?
Who has free time?
Not the working man. Not those with
bills to pay and errands to run and friends to stay in touch with.
Trips to plan and food to eat and mouths to feed and blocks of
nothingness to put in order. Relaxation and recreation must be scheduled. I will
take a nap here, or when I am exhausted, and cannot spend energy
thinking any longer. The months and weeks ahead seem to fill up
faster the more organized we become. Now that I have a calendar, my
calendar is full. And TV will fill up the other blank moments.
So, I ask again, who has time?
I had time when I was traveling. Time
to sit and think and read and write and contemplate. And now that I
am a working, productive citizen, plugged into the grid, doing my
part to make money circulate in and out of bank accounts, I once
again have no time. Luckily, I am spending my working hours with
people I enjoy, doing work that I find worthwhile and fun. But I do
not have the time I would like to sit and think and envision a
different way of doing things. How am I to break free of a system
that I spend 8 hours a day participating in? Why do I have such a
strong desire to do so?
Free time is a privilege that few
enjoy.
Tell me about yourself:
I long to suck the marrow of life!
With every year, every week, every experience, I learn more, I love
life more, and I realize that there is so much more to know and do.
I love human beings. I think we are amazing in our capabilities as a
species as well as as individuals. Our capacity for love and
imagination and creativity, organization, construction, passion and
atrocity, our ability to fight through tragedy and overcome, our
ingenuity and complexity and shared experience.
For the last several years, as an
outdoor educator and wilderness guide, I have pursued a line of work
which satisfies my deepest cravings. To connect with nature in its
wild, living state, to know my place in nature and the world. To use
my body every day to work and live and educate and recreate in
beautiful, healthy, diverse outdoor environments. To connect with
people who share my vision and values and sense of purpose, and to
the challenge myself physically, emotionally, mentally and
spiritually. I strive to keep an open mind, even though I realize
that I have formed strong opinions and many of my experiences
reinforce them. I strive to really know people, in a way that
surface conversation and casual friendship do not satisfy. I'm a
lover, and I give affection to nearly anyone who will accept it.
I have a wonderful family whom I love
and get along with incredibly well. I've had an easy, fairly
stress-free life growing up in California with supportive,
understanding parents who, to this day, are working toward many of
the same long-term goals that I am.
A Brief History of the United States of
America:
Nearly 400 years ago, a group of
Europeans escaping religious persecution sailed across the Atlantic
to a newly discovered territory. While there were several million
people already living in this land, they did not have guns, and so
the Europeans took land from them, pushing them out of whatever lands
they wanted for themselves in a bloody conflict lasting several
hundred years in total, until these natives were relegated to small
plots of fairly useless land, after being killed and moved and lied
to until they had no trust or confidence left to fight with.
The Europeans did well in the new
territory, and more arrived steadily from Europe. England declared
the new land as one of its colonies, and so it was until the people
living there got tired of laws from across the ocean, and decided it
was time to start their own country. The revolutionary war rid the
new country of its English shackles, and a group of visionary men
with compassion and foresight, except for the fact that most of them
were owners of African slaves, got together to write a constitution
for the new country. The USA began on the verge of the industrial
revolution. Natural resources, which were plentiful in the new land,
were being grabbed up everywhere, as was land. Soon, every piece of
land was owned, and the nation had expanded across many miles to
another ocean.
To support the growing industries in
the nation, railroads were constructed coast to coast, and with them
came the invention of the corporation, a large business entity
originally intended to complete specific projects chartered by the
government. In the early 1900s, the automobile was invented, and the
nation decided to make a network of roads for this new technology.
In order to fund new business ventures, and to buy the new
automobiles and other expensive new stuff, the nation came up with a
banking system in which people could borrow money and then pay back
more money later. Everyone went for it, and now more debt is owed
than the actual money that exists in current circulation. Another
system, the stock market, allowed people to buy small fractions of
big companies, and to profit off of their piece of that company when
the company did well.
Meanwhile, most regular Joes continued
to work for a living, at new factory jobs which paid well after
little training. The nation produced lots of stuff, people spent
money on the stuff, and everyone was happy for a while. After a
while, the stock market had trouble growing any further because
everyone had already bought everything they could. The stock market,
silly thing, is based on the idea that businesses can continue to get
bigger and more profitable every year indefinitely,
which would require both indefinite extraction of resources and an
indefinite expansion of consumers, both of which are not possible.
So the stock market crashed, making lots of rich people less rich,
and lots of poor people completely destitute. Then we decided to
employ lots of these people to build roads and dams and trails in
parks, which worked pretty well.
Not
long after, we got into war in Europe and Japan, which somehow always
manages to cheer everyone up. During this war, plastic and TV were
invented, and now everything is made from plastic, and everyone
watches TV. About 15 years after this war ended, another war started
in Vietnam, and people weren't so happy about the new war. It was in
a place most people hadn't been and didn't know anything about, and
they were confused about why we were there. For the first time in a
long time, people started to question whether the government really
know what it was doing.
Meanwhile,
immigrants from all over the world continued to pour into the USA
because they could get pretty good jobs, work hard, and provide a
comfortable life for their families in this country. It was a dream
that many people shared. There weren't a lot of other places that
made it possible to earn and save enough money to start your own
business, get higher education, or buy a house. Plus, with the
debt-based banking system, everyone could borrow enough money to do
what they wanted to do.
International
business corporations started getting bigger than governments. Rich
people kept making more money, and everyone else eventually
stagnated. Rich people were very interested in keeping everything
the same, keeping the money going into their pockets, so they
continued to make the stock market seem very important. They tried
very hard to convince everyone that making money was more important
than having a healthy planet to live on, which seemed silly to lots
of people. Advertisements on television convinced a lot of people to
buy things in order to make themselves more attractive or more
powerful, which none of the products could actually do. But people
kept buying lots of useless products anyway, and this helped the rich
people spend more money convincing everyone that they should make and
spend more money.
Meanwhile, people
were becoming sad, depressed, physically unhealthy and spiritually
unfulfilled. At this point, they all had a choice to make: Continue
supporting the system that says money is most important, that buying
and making money are what we should focus on, or start something new.
A new system which says that health and happiness are important,
which says that having a happy, healthy family with bright futures to
look forward to is what this country is about, not money and buying
things. Lots of people were confused by the messages they kept
getting on television every day, telling them that buying things is
very important, and that they need to be more attractive and more
powerful. But most people who tried hard managed to find a partner
to love, without the need for all those products, or all that power.
The biggest thing that split these lovers apart, however, was money.
What will the people choose? Love or money?
