Goodbye

It's so difficult for me to see you sitting there looking all dejected. You try to look stoic, and you do, but I can feel the waves of hurt coming off of you. They harmonize with the hurt I already feel and make being in your presence intolerable.

I hate to hurt anyone, especially someone I love.

It has, however, become impossible for me to deny that we are on two very different paths. Due to my experiences with the Dominant Paradigm, and to my free spirited nature, I choose to reject what our society sees as worldly success. By most accounts that makes me certifiably insane. But I believe that life is not measured in the number of breaths we take but by the number of breathtaking moments we experience.

Don't get me wrong, I admire you for being ambitious and working hard. And I can completely understand that you have a plan to make a secure future for yourself.

I also have a plan to make a secure future for myself. But it doesn't involve lots of money and a 401K and Social Security. It involves fertile Earth and a community of like minded people who actually get pleasure from chopping wood and carrying water. It involves a lifestyle of direct connection to the Earth and it's cycles, and of sustainability and respect that I find this culture so sorely lacking.

Yes, I do plan on going off to "grow carrots" (and a whole lot more!) for a living. And if I die in poverty at 45 or 55, at least I will be able to go out into the woods and meet death on my own terms.

I will not be struck dead by heart attack or stroke trying to keep up with the unnatural demands of this system. And I will not die a horrific painful drawn-out death on machines and chemicals as I suffer from some Industrial disease. I will not live a miserable life as a wage slave, and wonder at the end, what I lived for.

I will die happy.

I seek to escape this trap our culture has set for us; make more money to buy more things, be indentured for 30+ years to the 'company store' just to have a roof over my head. Fuck that. You only live once (well, maybe not, but I intend to make the most of it).

As I am certifiably mad, I cannot ask and don't expect that you subsidise my pipe-dream hippie reality with your conventional reality. I completely understand if you want me to leave. But I would like to stay for a couple months while I get my new home ready. I will pay rent of course, and try not to be a burden or disturbance. But if you want me to go I will find a way.

I used to hope you would come with me, but unless the world ends tomorrow I know that is unlikely.

For some reason I feel like I need to make clear my reasons for leaving;

New Orleans is not a logical place to live. Glaciers all over the world are melting at an unprecedented rate, a 25 mile chunk of Antarctica is getting ready to break off, and we are several feet below sea level. I can only see the sea levels rising, and tropical storms intensifying as our poor abused planet tries to blow off heat.

Our food production and distribution systems are fatally flawed. They depend entirely on fossil fuels and are inherently unstable, not to mention unhealthy.

Our economy has for some time been built on pretend money. The depth of its imaginary nature is just beginning to be seen, and I believe the price we will pay in terms of cost in human lives has yet to come due, but is not far off.

We are approaching the nexus of a perfect storm created by our greed and lack of foresight. I don't know what exactly is coming, but I feel in my bones that we are rapidly approaching a time of great change. Our false, unsustainable systems will fall away, and I want to be a part of the sustainable systems that will eventually take their place.

I also want to be with my family, especially my Mom, as things restructure themselves. I owe her a deep debt of gratitude, as throughout the twists and turns of my rather bizarre life she has always been there for me without judgement and without fail.

I love you and I wish you the best. I hope I am wrong about the coming changes. But I will still be happiest growing 'carrots' in a communal setting.

I am truly, deeply sorry for hurting you. I do love you, and I did try to live your life. But I am stifled here. I am a caged bird. I cannot breathe in this city.

And you wouldn't love me anyway if I killed the part of me that is free.

So I cast off the bowlines and take a leap of faith into the unknown.

Bring me that horizon.