The other day we were in the city trying to find our way home and a lightbulb went off in my head and I turned to Matt and excitedly said, "Did you ever realize that this is where I-80 ends?" I definitely used many gestures and voice inflections trying to explain the significance of the fact that the highway that stretches from sea to shining sea, so to speak, ends right here in our own backyard.
Some days I imagine myself shooting past my freeway exit for work and driving, out past the mountains, past civilization, into deserts and tumbleweed salt flats, away from all my problems and surrounded by nature. I fancy myself to be a Ben Kenobi type, the hermit, and also a wanderer and a nomad. I'm not so much a city-lite to need the constant buzz of civilization and to keep up with current events. Nay, I would not have drank the hemlock but rather would have left Athens with my cloak and walking stick and wandered the Mediterranean until the day I departed the earth. Lizards and twigs would be my company then, but life's a bit more lavish these days - we have video games.
Sometimes I forget how close freedom actually is. There are no physical laws limiting us from freedom, just societal obligations and monetary needs. Is that why there is a whole subculture of people who have shunned those things nowadays? While I am far from dreading my hair and buying a steel frame backpack and a dog to hitchhike along the coast, I am still in search of my manifestation of
freedom
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