Introspective Essay #2

"There is a madness needed to touch the gods, yes, this is true. Few mortals possess it, the willingness to step away from the protection of sanity. To walk into the wild woods of madness..."

I am 27 years old.

I have embarked on a journey to see this country, and all my friends therein.

I travel alone, on a motorcycle.

I have been on the road for almost 6 months, longer than I predicted I could be, and am less than halfway through this tour.

There is nothing particularly impossible about this journey, and while I have seen amazing things and been amazing places, what I have done and what I do is not out of anyone's grasp. It is merely uncommon. A thing not done. Does that make me "crazy"? At the very least I am not "normal".

I regularly entrust my person and my belongings to strangers (though I have it on good authority that the strangers who soon become my friends are trustworthy and hospitable folk). Sad to say there are many to whom that does render me reckless at the least.

The only remarkable thing I have done on this trip, or not done as it were, is that it has been five and a half months and I have yet to pay a single cent in lodging.

I quit my job to start the voyage, I have made precious little money on the road, but essentially I have staggered all over this country bleeding money everywhere.

I am going to have to get a job through the winter to finance the rest of this trip, which is preferable anyway because it is very uncomfortable to ride a motorcycle through the cold gray of winter. Having hopefully made my money in the spring, I'll set out again and continue to hemorrhage my savings until I return to the home of my parents.

I have been educated in the science of computers. I can do much with them. Though my skill and knowledge are admittedly a little rusty in many areas, I have at one time been educated in just about every aspect of computers and can learn it all again fairly quickly. Programming, software design, software testing, building computers, setting up networks...etc. Yet almost 6 months ago to this post, I walked away from my "career".

Walked away from my position staunchly planted in front of a monitor, plying my trade, and proceeded to enjoy every moment of every day; to leap from ledges high and wild with hardly any regard for what was or may be, but much and more for what now is. To seek out something far greater than myself.

Home and lodging. Where one returns to and where one lay's one's head. I don't rent my living space and I certainly don't own any. And where I am is in the company of generous family and friends old and new who do one or the other. And there I am laying down a long trail of all I manage to save. I live on other people's kindness and hospitality, for which I am ever grateful. People who have carved out a space for themselves in this world and share it with me. And I remain transient, flowing like water from place to place.

Yet I think this is the best way to exist. I think everyone should travel and see as much of the world as they can but I am only even able to do what I am doing because there are so many people who are not. I am living on other people's responsibility.

Does this make me ::gasp:: a "deadbeat"?

I certainly can't claim to contribute much to society overall. The only skill I can say I cultivated in my free time, outside of my "career path" has been drawing little cartoon turtles.



It doesn't come in handy much.