There’s something to be said about the people who give up the “real” world and run away to live in the mountains, grow their own food and then spend their days growing daisies or weaving baskets as a way to get by.
I’m not going to lie – I’m tempted into this idea today. The notion of quiet, responsibility-less-ness, the only-do-stuff-because-this-is-required-for-survival notion…it’s a nice idea. But the problem is, I am quite crap at making my own jam. I enjoy doing it, but I’m not particularly good at it.
Plus, I’d miss things. Like mobile phone signal (although I’d probably love the first 48 hours of being out of contact with the ‘real’ world). My hand blender. The ability to whack wet clothing into a tumble dryer. I’d miss the Internet the most, but I think you already knew that.
I like how living life that way forces your focus, though. That seemingly extremist view of cutting away everything that is actually immaterial for your basic survival. In a world driven by materialism, I have to commend anyone who does indeed take off for the forests to live. So much of what we have defines who we are nowadays.
But this isn’t some tirade about how we’re all item-driven consumers hellbent on owning the next best shiny thing, and then 45 versions of it.
It’s more a musing. Like a stripped bare idea of something that’s sitting within me, right now. There’s a piece of me that aches for a little silence, and yet I’m scared of being without the noise of the life around me. I realise there are merits to both the noise and quiet, but it’s funny how life never really gives it you when you want the one, but not the other.
There’s a story behind this, though. Growing up, I was a loner. Sometimes extremely so. That little essence still lives with me, and it is there that all these words swirl from. They swirl outwards, in circles towards the world, but sometimes – very sometimes – I feel the need to pull them close to me, hold them tight and keep them safe.
There are words that live in my head that would not survive the reality of this world. They’d be punched into corners and well – that’s actually happened before – sending them whimpering back into the dark recesses of my head where they are safer talking to themselves, rather than to anyone else.
Today is one of those days. It’s better the words get left to talk to each other, rather than letting them loose. Tomorrow, I will let them loose again.