I Wrote This For You

I write this not for you, though there is a chance that you will understand what I write, that it will help you in some way. I do not write it because I want you to do anything, to help me in any way, to respond, or even to read it. I write it because it makes me happy to write, and well, what is more important then to spend life doing those things which make you happy?

I hope that you still have your open mind, for what I write here is strange, alien, uncomfortable to many. What I have here is an idea, a song, and the most rebellious suggestion in the world, perhaps. You might already have had it – I hope dearly that you have – because this is the sort of idea that betters everything it touches. I get ahead of myself – let me start where I really started, where my fingers began:

I worry that now, when torture and murder, aggressive world war, have become commonplace, accepted actions of the country I grew up in, that there isn’t a place there left for me. I’m scared, because I refuse to compromise my values just to live in a geographical region, and yet most of the people I love are right there. I wonder – what can I do, if they won’t leave, and I won’t come back, to ever see my family and friends again?

What scares me most of all is that they don’t even see the problems, so busy are they with the trivialities of each day. They just know I’m off “having a good time” in another world, “being young,” in the “time of my life,” before I settle down to “real life.” I am having fun, and that is good, but to them it is impermanent, irresponsible, and one day must be ended for me to live as a “normal” person – to live as they do.

It isn’t like that – this isn’t a vacation, this is a series of actions taken toward a goal of escaping the crushing, consuming prison of modern American life. I want out, need it, because everything I see outside is alive, and when I was in, all I saw was death – it almost killed me too. I broke out of that life and of that place, and in that I was transformed. I am not who I was, I cannot ever be that me again. I cannot come back.

This isn’t to say I won’t come visit – there are people there that I can help, dying slowly among the already dead – waking zombies, lifeless breathers, the ones too far gone. People too tired, too sick, too beaten and scared to cry out for it, but craving life still. I was one of those, and I can help those still in need. I may return to that place, but I cannot ever return to that life. If I do return, it will be as a free man, and it will not be to stay.

Still – pulling people out of a killing world isn’t good enough – no one should have to live like domesticated animals, like tools. No one should spend their life’s blood, energy, time in unhappiness, in pursuit of goals not their own. No one should, yet almost everyone does, and I can’t save them, because no one can save anyone else – they might be happier, but the problem is just transferred – now they would serve my goal.

I hope you understand what I write here, but I know that mostly you won’t. How could you? Words are an imperfect means of communication, and communication is a dream – we can only hope to spread what makes sense to us, and let everyone else interpret it as they may. I will say only this – modern life, with its obligations, debts, necessities, is not as joyous, or as fulfilling, or as happy, as it could be, and that is our fault. We are slaves by choice before we are slaves out of necessity.

It could be better, happier, richer for all if we simply let it, if we said “no” when we meant it, if we refused completely to be used by others for their ends, if we each did what made us happy. We aren’t required to accept a certain level of misery to live – we can change that through a simple refusal to work, live, or exist in any way that we do not enjoy.

Your goals are all attainable, if you would only stop sabotaging them. “Well that sounds good for other people,” goes the standard reply, “but I have an x and a y and a z, and so I can’t be irresponsible and run off like you.” Irresponsible! Obligations! You build those for yourself, then use them as the reasons for you imprisonment.

Yes, you do have to take care of certain things, you cannot drop your baby on the street and run off to India, but look around you, at the supposed restrictions on your life – who put them there? Whose choices led to their existence? We all create our own reality. You create yours. Those chains which hold you back from your dreams are of your own making, and came from your own choices and actions.

This is a good thing. A joyous thing. For if you created your own chains, then surely you have the power to break them as well. It does not matter how deeply you are indebted, how consumed you are by your job or unhappiness or obligations – all is removable if you desire. If you desire it! – this is key. Freedom is not license, but choice. It is not a belief system, only a simple question – “Am I happy?” – fueled by a raging desire for joy.

It’s true! People the world over have learned this, figured out what I write here of their own accord, and resolved to pursue their own ends forever more. I meet them, we cross paths every day, share stories, lives, hot meals, beds. I know who they are because they are the only happy people I see, the only happy people in the world. It is indisguisable, if you know what to look for. I can tell you what to look for, if you like.

These people are the ones doing nothing, drawing, painting, kissing strangers and running in the rain. They are the ones with holes in their shoes, with beautiful poetry at their lips. They laugh at God, because they have become God. If they discuss politics, theology, philosophy, they do even that joyously, turn handstands in the park, paint on the walls without permission. They are the ones who make living their art.

Make no mistake friend, there is a better way to live your life then the way you live it. There is a more joyous way for me to exist, for him with the guitar, for her with the curly hair and the frown. That better way is whatever makes you happier, allows you to feel and spread more love through the universe. If you want it, it is possible. If you seek it, you will find it all around you.

Courage is needed, great strength of will, an unquenchable lust for life and joy and love. Those things exist inside us all, untapped by most, unknown by many, but there nonetheless, ready to explode outward if and when we call upon them. You do not have to trust me, you certainly don’t have to thank me – this is not my idea, I simply found it lying in the road one day, picked it up, and found it fit me. We can share it – it will grow to accommodate us both, and more beside.

Really, it affects me not at all if you are happy, if you are enjoying your life to the fullest. It shouldn’t hurt me to see you so unhappy, and so unaware of your unhappiness. It is your life to live, but I love you, and I can’t bear to see you hurt as you do. I will help if you want, or leave you be if not, I just felt I had to try. I release you – go free, be who you wish, go fuck, go fight, go sing and dance, go learn, go teach, go travel, go do what you have always desired. Just go.

I love you always. Yours in freedom -k