Living off the land
Reading an article in The New Yorker about John Luther Adams, an experimental composer who lives in Alaska, I come across this:
Adams is well aware of the naivete, sentimentality, and outright foolishness that can attach to fantasies of dropping out of society in search of "the real."
It goes on to say that sometimes the attempt yields great art. What it doesn't have to allude to are stories like those of "Into the Wild" and "Grizzly Man."
I know my anxiety sometimes takes this shape: that I am fed up with American Idol, President George W. Bush, hedge funds, and so much else, and I worry that I am too human, not enough animal. But I can't actually change that.
As I've gotten older, and found a comfortable, trustworthy, loving family, I want isolation less often. For the first time, I find myself wanting company. I still crave nature, but I want to temper that with the realization that I am a product of my society, and that it would take a whole other lifetime of learning to live without the support of society. I need to find patience with that. I need to be patient with the facts of where I came from, even and especially the parts I don't like. I'm a product of Catholicism, and television, and suburban housing. I can move toward something else, but I have to be patient with the fact that I wasn't born there. I may never know the peace of being someplace for a very long time. The peace of being where I've always been will never be mine.
Adams is well aware of the naivete, sentimentality, and outright foolishness that can attach to fantasies of dropping out of society in search of "the real."
It goes on to say that sometimes the attempt yields great art. What it doesn't have to allude to are stories like those of "Into the Wild" and "Grizzly Man."
I know my anxiety sometimes takes this shape: that I am fed up with American Idol, President George W. Bush, hedge funds, and so much else, and I worry that I am too human, not enough animal. But I can't actually change that.
As I've gotten older, and found a comfortable, trustworthy, loving family, I want isolation less often. For the first time, I find myself wanting company. I still crave nature, but I want to temper that with the realization that I am a product of my society, and that it would take a whole other lifetime of learning to live without the support of society. I need to find patience with that. I need to be patient with the facts of where I came from, even and especially the parts I don't like. I'm a product of Catholicism, and television, and suburban housing. I can move toward something else, but I have to be patient with the fact that I wasn't born there. I may never know the peace of being someplace for a very long time. The peace of being where I've always been will never be mine.