I just ordered a McDonald's. Because of such an act as a consumer, I contributed to the existence of this destructive corporation. McDonald's is destructive because it deliberately pays very low wages in a country without minimum wage so that their franchisers can gain obscene profits. We know the equation. The cost of me sitting here writing is not in terms of hours and electricity. The fact that I did not prepare in advance made me choose between breaking the creative flow or ordering delivery. If only they had local-food delivery. Why can't the creative forces also set up a catering service that charges $3 for delivery? At least I'll be getting fresh food, vegetarian even maybe, instead of this junk I'm eating now just to keep my sugar level up. There are other costs to me writing apart from the physical, mental energy, the costs of physical instruments to facilitate writing (space, electricity, internet)...........I'm spending precious time away from Thea.
I might very well one day, when Thea is old enough to want to go by another last name, go around begging for alms so that I may write my brains out and spend non-writing hours meditating under a hundred year old tree. It's true that we need money to eat - and since I have no land nor talent to cultivate my own food, I must cultivate simple tastes and the humility to be able to beg for food so that I will not be thwarted from being the vessel to deliver this burning desire to write.
When imagining this scenario, I remember how in my younger days, I was thwarted from pursuing writing because I was afraid I would go hungry. I was afraid I would not have a home, a car, a calling card, a job title, etc etc. But I'm giving myself only a few more years to live. The things I will not be able to bring with me, I will not accumulate. Only my deeds and my loves will gain my devotion.
It's not so easy for the next person to say, "I'm going to quit delivering meals for McD's and go and find the purpose of my life." And in acknowledging that, we acknowledge that the problems of our destruction lies in the hands of, not so much our unwillingness, but our unconsciousness to let go of our illussions. If there is only one thing I can do before I die (apart from making sure Thea grows up to be a braver and greater warrior than I) is to be able to leave behind a series of materials which will help people to wake up to themselves, to shed away the layers of fear which bred that thick crust of conformity that is shackling them to those destructive forces and uprooting them from their dreams.
Whether or not you call it 'fortune', I have arrived, halfway through life, at a point where the choices I had made have helped me make more and more of the sort of choices I would like to have. At 32, I am not overly-concerned about my maternal options, nor mortgages and loans of things I don't need. I don't have parents whose expectations I have to live up to. I am not intoxicated by romantic and sexual inclinations which would make me overly concerned with love and/or sex. I have no 'career' nor any of the titles and entitlements which would traditionally oblige me otherwise. I understand that it took me 32 years of struggle to arrive at this point of freedom, the same way it took others X-number of years to arrive at their own version of their freedoms and entrapments. We are, ultimately, the product of the choices we have made. And it is never too late to start choosing....except that it gets harder psychologically, because we're more deeply encrusted in our own make-believe realities.
How many others will be able to see 'reality' as it is and start informing themselves in ways that will help them create the new world? How many can arise from destruction in this lifetime? To arise from the monotony that besets our own deterioration and ultimately, contribute to this destruction we're in?
If there is one thing I am going to do before I leave this life - it is to help as many people find in themselves the ability to see through the smokescreen and arise from their own destruction.
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