I’m reading This I Believe right now, and want to be reading it more than doing anything else. That desire isn’t too ultimately distracting, although some other thoughts are, and here we go.
A year ago, for the first time ever really, I started thinking about my future. I’ve never been particularly interested in the long-term future. Two questions became important. 1) How do I want to be living and 2) Who do I want to be there. Do I want to change how I’ve been living? In this introspective search for what constitutes the internal definition of normality, I’ve been thinking a lot about what is different between how I live and how I want to be living. Nay, I’m wondering what I’d be sacrificing to “settle down” and if it’s worth it. See how the two are linked?
Flipping back through old journal entries I’m easily distracted by faintly similar topics. This is all so familiar. “me: My endgame is finding a cohort I can love and support who wants to do crazy things with me, live according to our ethics, and have a positive impact on the parts of the world that around us.”
The first question in the discussion of how I live is choosing at what level to evaluate; how deeply. Lets start pretty shallow with a brain dump of how I’ve been spending my time.
- riding bikes
- drinking
- drinking and riding bikes
- organizing events (seattle bmf, toorcamp, shmoocon)
- bicycle advocacy
- spontaneous road trip to montana
- sleeping in the back of a dump truck in montana
- drinking in montana
- welding bikes
- writing memoirs
- reading non-fiction
- working on open source software
- computer conferences
- built a shed
- took up cyclocross
- built a picnic table
- canoing the duwamish
- camping
Alright, there’s been a lot of drinking. I can probably part with that either way. There’s a lot of building, both projects and getting involved in events. What do I identify with and want to do? Will 2009 have been a good year? I don’t know. It was a hard year. I still can’t stop pushing those boundaries, ignoring my wounds and pushing hard for emotional truth. Jesus though. I can’t fucking believe where I was a year ago. If by no other sign than that; I need to find a lower gear.
- build (carpentry, welding, etc)
- travel (spontaneously and aimlessly)
- meaning (volunteer? social? heart?)
- simple (utility > design, carhartts > dockers)
I keep feeling like I’m supposed to be heading down a path of forming a long-term relationship, finding a house, with a garage for my projects settling into working normal hours so I can be home for dinner. Like there’s an expectation of that, but I don’t know from who. And for what? Why make this sacrifice? For love? Should I have to?
No. I’ve proven to myself that traditionally education not only wasn’t right for me, but it was holding me back. I keep making the connection between dropping out of high school and going through a period of soul searching with this last year. There’s a reason for that. Some day I’ll learn to trust my intuition a little better. I simply don’t live a traditional life and it’s not going to ever be that way.
It’s funny having friends that think getting drunk and sleeping in the back of a dump truck is totally an average day, but running a web operations infrastructure for a large company is totally something else. Then I have friends who are the complete opposite. Friends who find building and riding a tallbike is a Tuesday, and others who think it’s amazing. I’m feeling some degree of this is normal, but we’re getting a point. I live for today, without structure, because structure inhibits. Sure, it’s reliable and comforting, but I don’t want complacency. It’s only good for so long. There’s no fear of becoming a couch potato, or emotionally devastated to the point of holing up, because there’s too much left to do. I just can’t still that long. Something is out there, and I’m still looking for it.
“I believe in the pursuit of happiness. Not its attainment, nor its final destination, but its pursuit” – Andrew Sullivan