We Weren’t Meant for This
I saw a glimpse of a different life, far from the stress of the city and rat race. It opened my eyes to what life should be.
I was fortunate enough to visit the Northeastern area of the US, close to the Canadian border. It was the first actual vacation I had taken in over a decade, thanks to funds, and the fact that in the US there is no guaranteed vacation time. I was surrounded by loon calls, a crystal clear freshwater lake, mountains, and trees. Lots of trees.
I don’t know or care if you believe in magic, but I do. I felt the pulse of the Earth in this place. Felt the spirits of nature all around. Being here was the most calm I have been since I was an adolescent, and didn’t understand how fucked the world is.
I wasn’t anxious, I wasn’t enraged. I wasn’t worried about getting up for my job, wondering what fresh hell I would step into that day. There was no existential dread clawing at the back of my mind.
It was immediately apparent how unhealthy our lives are
As we know, stress can kill you. It turns out that being in a constant state of fight-or-flight does bad things to our bodies. Not to mention the mental effects, and the effects on your relationships. For me personally, I was awful to be around. Thank god my partner and I have a solid relationship, and we are able to work through our issues.
I have a number of chronic stomach issues due to the stress, and my mental health is more often than not in the tubes, thanks to a shit job with shit pay for a shit company that thinks bathroom breaks are for executives only. I wake up every day feeling like “The Scream”. The thought of doing this for 35 fucking years makes me sick to my stomach.
But here, I felt free.
That week, I didn’t feel like my brain was scrambled by stress. I didn’t fee beholden to a schedule. I wasn’t forced to attend bullshit meetings that could have been an email or listen to our executives talk about how “thankful they were” for the work we did while they avoid answering questions about raising our pay and making our benefits actually worth something.
My anxiety was almost non-existent. The existential dread was significantly diminished. Within the beautiful clean air, surrounded by birdsong and lapping waves, I realized, at least in part, why I was so damaged.
Our way of life is making us sick.
When I was a child, I was always in love with nature, and that really hasn’t changed much as an adult. But, also, being an adult means that, aside from the occasional jaunt to the local park, I’m stuck inside staring at a computer screen. My residence is cramped. By the time I am finished, I’m just… Done. I have chores, I have to make dinner (though I do love cooking, it’s still time consuming). And then a limited time to spend with my partner before they pass out in time to be up at stupid O’clock in the morning to get to their shitty job.
This isn’t the life we should be living, selling our precious time for money for basic necessities. Having a gun held to our head while we toil, without any real choice. And it’s only looking like it’s going to get worse. It’s become so much more difficult to pay for basic needs when the CEO pretty much takes all the money for themselves, and leaves you with crumbs. Not to mention all the banal, meaningless work that adds no value to anyone but the company.
For all of our technology, there is no replacement for our natural world.
There is no VR that can replace standing at the top of a cliff and listening to the waves crash against the rocks, or feeling the wind on your face, or seeing the stars without light pollution. Our society, and our industrial revolution, made damn sure to scorch the earth and pump our air and water with poison.
Here, I didn’t feel the weight of the pressures of living in our broken society. For a week, I got to feel human. I felt like more than a number in an awful, meaningless job, where I can feel myself die inside little by little. The water was clean, the air was clean, and it was breathtaking beautiful.
And we could have had this. This harmony, where you can live, really live, outside the rat race. And it’s something every one of us deserves. It shouldn’t be something only those rich enough to afford it, or lucky enough to have a place they can stay for free. This place shows that yes, we can actually live alongside nature, without destroying it.
We deserve to be able to peruse what makes us happy without having to beg for time off from our miserable jobs. We should be surrounded by nature, not trying to extract all of its resources to the point of depletion. We should be in a post-scarcity society, but those with a dragon’s hoard of gold now hold us hostage. We don’t have “Free Choice” in society. We are either forced to work for pennies while rich people get richer, or starve.
Things need to change, or the sickness will never be excised, and we will never be free to truly just live.
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