The hippie and the dropout

[otherlander]

Once upon a time there were two men. They were born in different cities, but born at around the same time and born into the same economic status: the vast American middle class. After they'd both been alive for something-teen years, their government decided to declare war on a country in Southeast Asia. One of them, who we'll call Jack, avoided the draft by paying a lot of money, and so for him, the war became little more than a background event as he went to business school to learn how to become rich and successful. The other, who we'll call Joe, avoided being sent to Asia by mere luck, and took advantage of this opportunity to take part in a growing counterculture that was opposing not only the war, but many destructive trends in civilization. Joe went to college, too, and took part in a takeover of some campus buildings.

Well, eventually, the war ended, and there was a growing mood of cynicism in the country where Jack and Joe lived. Jack didn't much mind; he had landed himself a good job and was quickly moving up the corporate ladder. Joe, on the other hand, felt the need to do something, so he got his master's degree and became a college professor. He figured that maybe, he could teach the next generation a thing or two about activism and justice.

Some more years passed. The nation- and Jack- voted for a new leader who officially espoused the small-government pro-corporate mood that had grown stronger over the past few years. Some more years passed. Joe became the dean of the university where he had been teaching, and was pleased to find himself in a position where he could really change the system from within. Jack became a powerful CEO, and many people praised him and were jealous of him. However, although society considered him successful, he found that the money and cars were making him about as happy as fresh air and a mild breeze would make a bluefish. It just wasn't his element, and he realized that he couldn't be happy contributing to a capitalist regime that was oppressing so many people. He started reading books by Upton Sinclair and Naomi Klein.

More years passed. Now, for the first time, we will find Joe and Jack living in the same city. Joe is giving speeches to large audiences of students, training faculty on how to encourage critical thinking in their students, and aranging forums and events where speakers and activists come to the school and talk to the kids about social justice and civil liberties. Jack is living in a tree fort down by the river, taking care of feral cats and using his spare change for cans of spray paint, which he uses to scrawl anarcho-socialist slogans and stenclings in highly trafficked places. Joe might appear to be the successful one, but he realizes that he isn't really happy, because he's become part of the machine that he so wanted to liberate people from in his youth. Yes, he's reaching people with his message, but only the people who could afford to go to college in the first place. Jack, on the other hand, is finally happy, happier than he was on any given day when he lived the life of a high-flying businessman, because he's done what he was always told was impossible. He was told that he needed a good job, needed a house, needed health insurance, a car, car insurance, a television, a computer, an internet connection, a laptop, and a million other things. But he's found ways to do without them, to meet his need for food and a warm place to sleep and ways to keep adiquatley clean, all without support from the global economy. He has done the unthinkable and OPTED OUT OF CIVILIZATION. But he might not stay in Joe's city for long; winter's coming and so he'll probably catch a freight train to some place warmer.

This is not a moral story. This is not an immoral story which redeems itself by ending with a moral. This is not a tale to instruct. This is not a recommendation of what to do with your life. This is not an attack on left-leaning academic professionals fighting the good fight. This is not an endorsement of being a hobo. This is an observation, and a lament, for the paths to happiness which have been blocked off by our heirarchal culture, for the things which are neccesarry to stay alive in this world, and for the connections we could have made but didn't. This is a sigh of acknowledgement, and nothing more.

[checks-n-balances]

1. Thanks for posting this thought-provoking story - K&R

Hard as it is to think about, it makes me wonder where we're all going to end up...

[Fumesucker]

2. Dead.. That's where we are all going to end up..

Even if a way is found to make us medically immortal we will still eventually die in an accident.

[otherlander]

5. Thanks for the K&R

I bet there's about six billion people out there wondering the same thing and secretly scribbling up manifestoes in their basements and bedrooms about how to save this species that never wind up getting read.

[BeFree]

3. I be Jack... kinda

It feels better, knowing what I know, to be so independent, to be free. Mostly.

Imagine that you are a tribal member of a lost Amazon tribe, for a minute. You might actually be happier there than here, eh?.

After all, in the end, what does it matter? The only goods you take with you are the do goods, be goods and feel goods that come every day.

[otherlander]

4. "the only goods you take with you..."

That is positively... beatific.:D :smoke: