In Defiance of Gravity

Little kid miss-ive

2007-06-19T11:00:00.001-06:00

The other night I got back home from a family vacation/wedding, and one of the first things I did was get on the computer and catch up on everything I'd missed in the internet-world. So I read all my daily webcomics and checked my email and checked a couple of computer-game-related forums. Then, something felt like it was missing, so I did it all again.

After I realized what I'd done, I remembered that I used to have blogs like Anthropik and Ran Prieur and Tom Campbell and Dan Bartlett and Village Blog and so on bookmarked, but not anymore, so I decided to check in on the "anti-civ" blog community. And after reading through posts on the latest argument between Jason and John Michael Greer, and catching up on Ran's latest, and posting a few times at Village Blog, I stopped for a bit. I remembered why I had to remove these blogs from my bookmarks in the first place. I remembered why I don't read books by authors like Alice Miller or Derrick Jensen anymore, why I don't read any non-fiction anymore. I remembered why I don't watch the news and why I don't talk to people. I remembered why all I ever do (when I can't play with kids at least) is sit in my room, listen to music, and play computer games.

I. HATE. EVERYTHING. ELSE.

When I was younger you couldn't PAY me to engage in so-called "adult" conversations. I *hated* non-fiction books. I *hated* any long and overly-descriptive works of fiction. I loved stories, though, particularly short stories, unless it was a novel where I liked the characters. And what I'm realizing is that my interest in stories and people is the only thing that interests me about anyone else. Everything else is bullshit.

I don't want to hear your theories. I don't want to hear your intellectual arguments. I don't want to hear logic, I don't want to talk to you about what I'm going to do with my life, I don't want to talk to you about who I'm going to be when I grow up, I don't want to hear about the "Real World", I'm TIRED of this bullshit. All I really want to do is play with other kids. At the family vacation/wedding, any time I wasn't reading (I read The Giver by Lois Lowry and Bluebeard by Vonnegut) or playing with the kids I was utterly bored.

It seems that at some point a few years ago, I developed a tolerance for the quote unquote "adult" world. I would proudly point out my report card and SAT and my accomplishments in my extracurricular activities, impress people with my worldly knowledge and perspective. I was eager to make a contribution, to change (save!) the world, to be a hero! And while I'm in nowhere near the same "life situation" (whatever the fuck that means) that I was then, I find that this drive still remains.

but FUCK that. Fuck trying to impress people. Fuck trying to become an "adult" in someone else's eyes. Fuck comments about how big I've gotten, how articulate I am, how proud I must make my parents. HA.

And FUCK huge ideologies. When I was younger I never wanted a job -- why the fuck did I spend two years rationalizing this with a huge ideology? I wanted money (for toys and games!) but I rarely wanted to work for it. I would always skip out on the church service (adult and boring!) to go to RE to be with the other kids, but I often wanted to skip out on RE (often very suffocating, when the "teachers" had an agenda) with the other kids and just go play outside.

And fuck self-improvement and puritanism. The paleo diet?! PAH. I don't want to talk or think about dieting, ... ugh. As a kid I enjoyed eating all kinds of sugary nonsense. I still do. I'm now conscious of how a lot of it is so-called fake (artificial) food made to look/taste like food made with quality ingredients, but I still like the real foods! I don't care if it has butter or milk in it. I don't care if it has X # of calories! I don't care if it has cholesterol or zomgsaturatedfat or Red Dye #5 or MSG or anything. I don't want to "Be Healthy". I don't want to "Get Better". I don't want to improve!

There is NOTHING wrong with me! There is nothing WRONG with me! There is nothing wrong with ME! THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!

...

I joined an Ultimate league as something fun to do this summer. Ultimate is a team game, sort of but not really like a mixture between soccer/football, except played with a disc/Frisbee. It's a very competitive league though, and I'm not very skilled at Ultimate and I'm pretty "out of shape" because of resigning from life a while back. And so last night I skipped out on a match. I just didn't want to go. I was feeling a lot of pressure to go out and run and make myself better and practice and improve and impress people on my team and make good runs and play good defense and win the game and be the best! But I don't enjoy any of this. The only thing I enjoy about that scenario is imagining it happening! But I balk at actually doing any of this, and it's no surprise either. It's the same bullshit that I hate from earlier.

I had to quit soccer for the same reason. I hated performing, especially high pressure performance. I would go to practices and would play "much better" than I would in a counting match because of the difference in pressure. And even in practice I could only play when I didn't have coaches and other players watching me and criticizing. For this reason I enjoyed myself the most ("did the best") in small-sided games where there was no goal except possession of the ball.

I could go on and tell hundreds of stories about how pressure has led to painful experiences and insecurity. But I'm writing this for myself and I already know those stories.

What I want to do instead is help to create and be a part of an environment of play and creativity where pressure doesn't interfere. An environment like that on Whose Line is it Anyway? and within an old-cat jazz band or with a dance partner you're not trying to impress or just any time with little kids. I don't know many stories like this, from my past or from anyone else, so I'll write (enact!) them myself. I get to invent a whole new world. Fun!

Wild Geese

2007-01-02T21:08:00.000-06:00

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

Rewilding and Puritanism

2006-12-19T14:42:00.000-06:00

It seems that whenever anyone brings up "rewilding" what comes up first and foremost are the supposed difficulties in doing so. Words like "difficult", "impractical", and "impossible" are thrown around, and the tone of this discussion is invariably disparaging, doubtful, or despairing. Rewilding is spoken of as if it were a chore, involving great sacrifice and the "giving up" of many things we enjoy. Rewilding is thus often seen as the journey of a puritan or an ascetic, where no one is truly wild unless they are "pure" and the measure of how much one has rewilded is how "heroic" are one's sacrifices and self-denial. How utterly depressing! and ridiculous! If the only thing that is supposed to come out of rewilding is a self-righteous ego-trip -- that is, the ability to look down at others with a sneer and say "I'm more pure than you" -- then it's really no wonder why so many people are imagining rewilding, but not actually doing it. It's one gigantic masturbatorial fantasy, no doubt illustrated with imagery of the Pure and Righteous in everlasting bliss up in Heaven/Eden/Wilderness while the sinners burn in Hell/Civilization. It's all well and good to imagine that we are going to Heaven, but actually doing what it takes to get there is another story entirely. The actual self-punishment and self-denial of the puritan/ascetic contain little of the pleasure found in such a fantasy, and most people are simply not cut out for its extreme requirements. Sure, you could go Paleo, ... but in the meantime there's chocolate. And butter. Mmm, butter.

I take the attitude that if I have to be an ascetic to get to Heaven, I don't really want to go to Heaven anyway. I'm not concerned with being more pure than anyone else, I really couldn't care less. If rewilding has to be a chore, then I don't want to rewild any more than I want to clean the toilet. I'm rewilding because I want to be happy, not because I'm looking to atone for my sins (ha! what sin). I didn't drop out of school because I was protesting my white male privilege and the lack of equal opportunity in schools -- that's absurd!! Only a guilt-plagued ascetic would do that. No, I dropped out of school because I fucking hated it. I was unhappy, so I left -- simple as that. Ethical justifications for such simple things go beyond unnecessary, into the realm of life-draining moralism. I don't need a self-righteous justification for who and what I am in order to be me. No one does. I only need justification to be someone I'm not.

So anyway. I'm rewilding because I want to be happy. Rewilding for me isn't about surviving the collapse of civilization (HA!), or about alleviating my liberal guilt, or about purity. For me it's about having relationships -- with family, a tribe, and all the plants and animals and trees and lakes and rivers (and cars and plastic and civilizations!) around me. It's those relationships I want, and relationships are not Heaven OR Hell -- they're both and neither all at once. I've never had much of a family but I imagine family is something like that. I sure do want to figure this out -- and here there is no drudgery or moralism, only inspiration, excitement and possibility. You might even call it a feeling of returning wildness. Whatever the feeling is, it beats the hell out of self-denial and purity, that's for sure. Pass the chocolate, I'm rewilding.

Going Home

2006-12-19T10:30:00.000-06:00

It might be absurd to title a single post "Going Home", because that's the entire subject of this blog. It's safer for me to call it "in defiance of gravity" or "rediscovering playfulness", but all I'm writing about is going home. Rediscovering playfulness is all about me reconnecting with the little kid inside me.

For me talking about the pain of "civilization" is just an intellectual way of saying "Mommy, I miss Daddy. When's Daddy coming home?" or "I don't like school. I want to play instead."

Talking about "going primitive" is just an intellectual way of saying "I want to play in the creek! and climb trees! and catch fireflies!"

And really, talking about "community" or "living in a tribe" or "dropping out" or "rewilding" is just another way of saying "I want to go home." All I really want is to go home.

Some of you (hello to all my imaginary readers!) know that I've been living here at Teaching Drum Outdoor School for about 3 months now. I'll be telling the full story at some point, but right now I don't have time, because I'm leaving in 3 days.

It's sad to leave, and scary and exciting to go home -- and I'm going home.

It's a magical world, full of possibility. Let's go exploring!

"I just want you to be happy"

2006-12-06T22:35:00.000-06:00

I've heard a pretty compelling theory that sedentism and ultimately civilization emerged from people wanting to have a party all year long.

This is the stuff of nightmares. This is the gravity I defy.

On later edit:
This comic also reminds me of something Ran wrote in his novel Apocalypsopolis. From Chapter 14: "You sound like my parents again. 'We've worked our whole lives on the assumption that you wanted to be in a shiny cage, so you'd better stay in there and like it!' I'm sorry you had to do all that stuff that you clearly didn't like, but it stops here." (emphasis mine)

It stops here!