Like most people around the world, I have a hill of beans in front of me. Individually, each one of our little pinto bean molehills is not all that impressive. It's traumatic to us to see our pile of beans, but in the big scheme of things, our beans don't add up to much. Collectively, however, suddenly there is a mountain range bursting up out of the ground. It wasn't there a few months ago. What the heck? Some people are now saying, well, I warned you. We saw that mountain range coming years ago. Others are saying, what mountain range? Isn't it lucky I hate eggs?
I heard this quote today (I know, I'm only a century late to the party): "Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard" (H.L. Mencken, 1916). This quote made me snicker. "Good and hard" is always a funny phrase. "Deserve to get it" says to me be careful what you wish for and you don't always get what you want but you get what you deserve. As a retired idealist, I align myself with the optimistic view that the earth will be just fine without us. All of us.
My rant was inspired by a realization that for once did not flee my brain after it entered, probably because I've had this realization so many times over the years that it's worn deep trail ruts in my gray matter. You could call it the Oregon Trail of realizations. It started in Oregon, so that metaphor works on two levels.
I came from Oregon Trail people. Pioneers who put their houses in covered wagons and set off across the country to brave the great unknown, searching for land they could take from whoever was there before them. They left Missouri, crossed the Plains, killing whatever they could along the way, and ended up in the fertile Willamette Valley, where they got busy tearing up trees, building farms, and killing Native Americans. It's a time-tested method that not everyone is on board with, but as long as you are White and male, it's grand.
I did a version of that as I grew up. I set off into the great unknown of young adulthood, mowing down anyone who said no, you will never make a living as an artist, and moved into other people's territories to exploit their natural resources in my quest to prove my parents wrong. In my secret heart chamber, buried deep under layers of arrogance and self-will, I knew that everything I did was going to end in disaster. What did disaster mean to my 21-year-old self? No clue. Don't remember.
I do remember seeing a commercial on TV showing a happy man riding a bicycle with a little house on the back. The tall wooden box must have been no bigger than an outhouse, and maybe that's what it was, I don't remember. It seems to me he was wearing pinstripe trousers and a cut-away jacket, quite a dapper dude. No idea what the ad was selling. I was enamored with the idea of carrying your house on your back. Self-sufficiency to the max, no need to rely on anyone, as you explore what it means to have total freedom. As if having an outhouse on the back of your bike would lead to freedom. Ha.
You get where I'm going with this. I've always liked the idea of the self-sufficient mobile lifestyle, and I always knew that the settle-down-and-get-married life was not going to be for me. So, in a way, you could say living in my car was always going to be my destiny.
The other half of this prediction, though, stems from my relentless compulsion to fit in, to do it right, to play the game, even if it meant giving up my creativity, identity, and freedom. Hence, turning from painting to commercial art and graphic design. Turning from fashion design to sewing clothes for people. Turning from failing at business to getting a business admin degree (so I could figure out how to do it right). And then falling into teaching, and choosing to pursue a Phd in business admin so I could be more "marketable" to my employer, who laid me off six months before I graduated. I can keep going. Using my Phd to become an academic editor and a dime-a-dozen adjunct faculty at a for-profit higher education institution not unlike the ones I criticized in my dissertation.
I'm like a moth who keeps returning to the stupid flame of societal approval, seeking warmth and light and repeatedly getting singed.
I hear you muttering, Wow, that's so bleak, does she hear herself? I hear myself, and I hear you, too, thanks for caring. I invite you to worry about your own little molehill of beans. If you turn your back for too long, it could become a mountain range. A lot harder to make into frijoles.
You could say I've given up and I don't care about anything anymore, but you would be wrong.
The only thing I've given up is the quest to mold myself into something I am not, never was, never could be. It may have taken becoming homeless to finally be my true self, but here I am, sitting in my car in a patch of desert outside Marana, Arizona, expressing myself to my endless patient therapist, Google Blogger. The sunset was spectacular.
I think I have one blog reader left. Bless you, Bravadita. I started this blog in 2012 when I was struggling to get my dissertation proposal approved. I was a flaming bag of rage. Then the teaching job ended. Then Mom took over my life. Then Mom ended. Then I ended up in Arizona, which might be the end of me if I stay here one more summer.
One thing I know about myself now: I am not a quitter. This blog is proof that even when I'm cranky, I can fake it, I have faked it, and I'm still faking it.
For example, I show up for my mentoring gig, even though the chances that the artists I mentor are going to make a living selling their art are worse than their odds of winning the lottery. I don't tell them to go get a job, and I mean, a real job, one that pays them benefits and a pension so they will have something to live on when they get to be my age and they can't walk anymore because they need two hip replacements. I show up for my faculty job, offering encouragement to business people who don't care about extending theory, about adding to the vast body of human knowledge, about proper citation format, or locating robust sources. They couldn't care less. They just want to get the degree in the shortest amount of time possible as cheaply as possible so they can get that job, that promotion, that accolade, and walk in the procession wearing the stupid beret with the velvet-trimmed robe they won't bother to iron.
Hey, maybe this is Keppra rage finally kicking in! If it is, I kind of like it.
The truth is, if you know me, you know I care deeply about people, about life, about justice, equality, and mercy. Despite my desire for peace, love, and understanding, I know it is not possible to stop a runaway train if it is heading for a crash. It's like telling a teenager, don't drink and do drugs. It's like telling an artist, get a job so you'll have something to fall back on. Some trains have to crash. Democracy is a runaway train. The conductors are asleep at the wheel. Half the passengers are in the club car fighting over who gets the last piece of pie. The other half are leaning out the windows screaming with their hair on fire. Nobody is right or wrong on this train. We're all on the train together. We are going to get it good and hard.
Excuse me, my hair is smoking. Catch you later.
