The Flip Side of Freedom

The funny thing is that to most people, this is the regular side of things—the panic, the scary feeling in the pit of your stomach, that What If I Don’t Make It feeling, is the flip side. And I guess it is to me, too, because I was excited for this time for years before I was afraid of it. Kind of like an iceberg, in the distance—you see it far away, and it’s so pretty and so cool and you just want to explore it. As you get closer, you start to realize how big it is, and then you look down and realize that it’s even bigger, under the surface, and you wonder what, exactly, you’re in for, here. And then, if you’re like me, you panic, but that current that you were so glad for, before, carrying you in, is now even stronger, and you’re stuck. And, if you have good friends to talk to, then you start to realize that it’s a really good thing the iceberg is so big, because that gives you way more space to explore.

Of course, that’s all writing from the viewpoint of a young seal or something. If you’re approaching an iceberg in a large ship, well, you’re screwed. But it’s probably way more fun to live life as a Weddell Seal or something, than aboard a ship. When have you ever seen a seal acting all depressed? Nah, seals know what life’s about—like otters. I bet you’ve never seen a depressed otter, either. Man, those things know how to live. Floating around on their backs all the time, rolling around in the surf, barking up a storm… man, otters know what it’s all about. I wish I was an otter.

But hey, not being small and furry and able to swim like a fish and still breathe free air doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with my life. It really is just… a whole world out there, waiting to be explored, waiting—I can do anything. Anything! What can’t I do? Well, I can’t fly. I can’t turn into an otter, I can’t do magic. But outside of that… I could do anything! I could spend the rest of my life as a starving artist on the streets of New Haven! I could start growing a garden, a little bit at a time, selling whatever I could, and eventually wind up with my own farm. I could spend my life stealing apples from orchards at night and selling them on the black apple market! I could START the black market for apples! If there isn’t one already.

In all seriousness, though, there’s a lot out there, and I think I’ll be just fine in the end. My biggest fear is that I’ll get caught up into some rhythm, some cycle that I don’t like, or don’t agree with, and wind up doing that for the rest of my life. The daily grind—I don’t want to trap myself in something that’s going to grind my life down on me. My second biggest fear is that I’ll start living with money as an end, rather than a means. I already have to check myself on that thought process—it’s part of what attracted me to anarchy. If I could live without money for the rest of my life… I mean, I can. But I don’t know if that lifestyle is for me. I do know that I will not find happiness if I start thinking like a businessman, which is why I freaked out when my friend started talking about opening a business. If I had the option to make it as a business owner, eventually owning this huge company, this corporation, I would… probably turn it down. I hope I’d turn it down. That life is too easy—no matter how difficult it is to do the business thing or whatever, I would fall into it, the material comfort, the lifestyle, and I’m terrified I wouldn’t be able to let that go. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want material comforts, I want a challenge. I want to live, I want to breathe air untainted by perfumes or chemicals or burning flesh, I want every day to push myself to the limit, body and soul, I want to sing my heart out, I want to fast in the desert, I want to live. Spending my days in an office on a tower, no matter how luxurious and big, and my nights in a luxurious apartment, with whatever material things I wanted at my beck and call, is not, in my opinion, living. It’s existence, yes, it’s technically being alive, but… it’s a life that I think epitomizes the verse “Gain the whole world and lose your own soul.”

So that’s what I’m afraid of, in a nutshell. I’m afraid of falling into the trap of a pattern; I’m afraid of becoming fat and happy; I’m afraid of not living a life that will fill my soul, or a life that fills my body, and not my soul. I’d rather die tomorrow than wind up in that board meeting thirty years from now.

But, what I’d forgotten is that I have that choice. No one’s really pressuring me into anything (unless you count a serious pressure from friends to do something that will make me happy), it’s not like I’m already on that path. I just have to… live. Which I will be more than happy to do.