I love sitting on the edge of cliffs. The vulnerability makes me feel alive. This is one of the most beautiful valleys I’ve ever spent time in. A raging creek splits the rocky valley, and from the scamp we can see mesas at the distant mouth of the canyon.
Everything is perfect right now. Kamp is doing better, Elsa is making plenty of money, the car is working great, we are all healthy. All things are near perfect by any measure, I’m still in a bit of a funk though. I want to be producing more, but I don’t know exactly what that means. I want to share this and help others find peace and freedom. Lately though, I’ve been lacking the inspiration to write inspiring things.
Elsa wants me to be kicking ass too, and when I’m not working while she’s working tension builds. She feels like I’m not contributing while she edits. I feel this too and would like to be making meaningful things.
We have Patreon going, but I don’t know where it really fits into our lives. We have three podcasts recorded, just need a couple more to launch with. My book is near finished. All the creative outlets are primed, and I’m struggling to express myself through them.
We have designed our life to be awesome. This unorthodox approach is truly working and it feels good. Almost too good. I feel for everyone else, locked into their soul sucking grinds. I want to help people find the way out through inspiration and ideation. Sometimes I feel a sort of imposter syndrome though, like all of this is just too good.
I never want to come off as showy, preachy or arrogant, at the same time I want to share the realizations and solutions I’ve found. I feel like this could be annoying for people currently slugging it out in the trenches. Our life may seem utopian, and my troubles laughable, but even in this free and awesome life, I have my own struggles.
Sometimes I feel lonely. Not for lack of human interaction or friendship. Loneliness in the way I think and see our society. I frequently question my sanity, wondering why more people don’t think like this. Why do we compete so fervently for money? Respect? Acceptance? I feel isolated in my abandonment of these games. People send messages thanking me for inspiring them and sharing our adventures. These messages light me full of inspiration.
I just wish sometimes that I had a tribe with me out here. I love playing the role of the scout, soaring into the unknown with a smile on my face. I feel like I’ve found the promise land though and have done my best to cairn the trail, but our tribe still hasn’t joined us. Some of this longing for a tribe is selfish, I would like to have people to share stories and adventures with. I yearn more for people to experience this with me, and help blaze the trail.
Plenty of people are blazing trails of their own and taking on problems that make this way of life possible. I just wish more people could find the freedom to live the best version of their story.
It pains me to see friends and family stuck. To the point where I’ll sometimes walk far enough away to where Elsa can’t hear me and just let out a screaming roar. My heart aches for people stuck in the superficial grind of our culture. I know there is enough abundance out here for us to all live free. This frustrates me to my core. This fear based enslavement is unnecessary and ecologically disasterous.
I want so badly to liberate people from the madness of our culture, I just don’t know how to do it. I’ll sometimes read or watch youtube in attempt to pull my mind away from the problems of our species. Intentionally distracting my mind from thought. It’s not healthy, or useful, but it’s a form of escape and I sometimes need that to maintain my happiness. I wish I could be in kickass mode all the time, but when I think too much about the problems of the world I find myself frustrated. Wishing I could do more to help without a direct solution.
The crux of this is that often no movement is the best move. Learning to consume less, need less, compete less, be happy with less is a viable path. We flagrantly over consume, strive too hard, and push ourselves and our ecosystem to the brink. All the while our culture tells us to work harder, that’ll get us out of our predicament.
I think we would be better off to slow down though, even stop. We have advanced too far, competed too much, and haven’t taken the time to assess the direction of our path. This is becoming more of a problem given our rate of acceleration. We are in a rocket zooming through technological innovation and if we don’t slow down to check our compass, we will quickly find ourselves far off course.
Part of the problem is we don’t know where we are heading. We can no longer look to religion for all of the answers. The core metaphors still ring true, but modern religion has been bastardized into being its own root of suffering and fear. Looking to elders is not a viable option, given the far different world we live in currently. People are starting to wake to the oneness of humanity and nature, but nation states continue breeding fear and dividing to maintain power. We are clearly facing ecological crisis yet some people continue abusing nature with gluttonous pride.
We as humans are in a wild place. We need to come together to figure out where we are heading and decide whether the destination is a desirable one.