Smoke billows from my lips, a stark contrast against the night sky on Orcas Island–part of Washington state’s San Juan Islands. There’s not a sound to interrupt my thoughts as I turn to see a “We’re hiring” sign posted on the window of The White Horse Pub, a restaurant and bar where a friend, Warren works.
It’s not tourist season on the islands, but there’s a steady stream of locals into the bar on a Wednesday. I could make it off server salary. With the steady paycheck of a minimum wage job, I could live pretty damn good.
Should I stay here? Should I let Moneytripping slip into oblivion? That would add a twist to the story.
That thought pattern is becoming more prominent as I drive into month three.
And I know why. The other day, a friend sent me a New York Times article about Imposter Syndrome. Once I week, at least, I feel like a fraud.
I didn’t get an economics degree and I haven’t studied politics. Instead I have a general journalism degree from a public university in my hometown. And every time someone asks the college question, I make sure they know the program was shit. In my courses, the professors required us to write four stories a quarter.
Four stories in three months? How the hell is that supposed to prepare me for real life as a journalist which comes with daily deadlines, passive aggressive editors and ever-increasing digital duties?
Who gave me permission to talk? And why is anyone listening?
Many of the best suffer from bouts of Imposter Syndrome, as well. As mentioned in the NYT article, Maya Angelou once said, “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find me out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.'”
It’s a tough paranoia to deal with.
So I take calls about jobs that put me right back where I started. And I wander aimlessly around cities perusing through thrift stores or sipping on a drink at bars with employment opportunities, hoping to get the courage to ask for an application. But there’s something heavy holding the words down in my gut…
How do I go back to real life?
Inspiration for this trip came in the form of a underfed activist and finance writer in London. I didn’t get it then, when he told he wasn’t looking for a full-time job, even though he struggled to pay rent, wore only hand-me-down clothes and stressed about visa fees when he traveled for workshops and panels.
But as the drives get longer, I keep thinking about his decision. Maybe it’s about integrity, living the life you espouse, but that’s not the main reason I’ll continue. I’ll stay on the road because in living like this days are more present, months are longer, 2015 seems never-ending.
I live longer than the banker or the bartender, who’s routine becomes monotonous, that which they can complete on autopilot.
I’ll stay on the road, because I have the freedom to go where I please, discuss what I want and be a person only molded by my own ideals and goals.
And that freedom is intoxicating.
Warren and I were having a beer at the island brewery when an old man came over to chat, using Warren’s tattoos as a way to break the ice. It was Veteran’s Day and he had served in the Navy, tearing up when he mentioned shrapnel in his leg.
“They tried to fuck me up with the war. But it didn’t work,” he says. While he could be talking about the hate that mushrooms out of America’s military complex, his service did have an effect on him. After his service, he lived on a boat until he found Orca’s Island.
His landlord is trying to raise rent $100.
It’s nice to live on a boat, he says, “where you don’t have to pay someone for your freedom.”
Great post and boy oh boy can I relate. Stay out there on the road. You’re having a great experience. When you find a place where you feel truly comfortable and surrounded by good people and can make some cash maybe then it will be time to chill for a while. Until then enjoy every second of this incredible freedom. Safe travels B.
I’m going to challenge you here on a few things.
First, do you think that the banker or bartender never lives or that their day is monotonous? You might try stepping into their shoes to see what their life is all about first. You might be living longer, or your hours of interstate might not be longer at all. How does it compare to the truck driver? The flight attendant? The emergency room doctor? Just because people choose to be a part of something doesn’t mean they have wholesale sold their souls.
Second is that remember your freedom in this context depends on a infrastructure that is built by those people. It is both a physical and a social infrastructure. For some of those people, the days are also never ending, but perhaps not in a good way. Someone has to stay still, or stable enough to brew the beer you drink, build the roads you drive, and the maintain the Internet you use to publish. Are all those people drones on autopilot? Do they just exist so the free spirits can be fulfilled?
Also, how do you know you are molding a life based solely on your ideals and goals? Where did they come from? Are you sure they are yours and not a vestige of your upbringing, your education, your environment? These are questions to be very careful about. As someone once said, “it takes tremendous discipline to be a free spirit.”
It is an interesting concept in the context of your blog and mission/trip about money and payments and value. What do people pay for the life that they live? What does it really cost to have the life that you want? What value do people get out of moving, staying put, trying to be part of, or apart from, society? If you’ll excuse a money-related pun — is it all two sides of the same coin?
I went back and forth on the bartender/banker thing… Because what I want to say is that for me personally, this life allows me to live longer. Some people live for bartending; I quite like bartending myself, although it does become monotonous for me and a vicious cycle.
The point I want to expand on in the book, and which will align more with Moneytripping, is that our lives our set up in a way that makes it quite difficult to change, and that I don’t think is particularly good for us. So I want to learn to play the guitar and then a month later I want to set that down for the violin. OK. That should be fine… Just as, I should seemingly be able to spend four years studying journalism and then decide I want to go back for sciences. But currently that’s not doable. We have set our lives up so that we must know what we want and strive towards that one goal so as not to lose momentum, pensions, etc.
I have been thinking about this, though. Last week, I published a piece on another blog, with this: “We must always think about the things that work against us. Who or what has manipulated me into living like I do? My horoscope? An ex? My parents? I worry we are never anything except fully authentic and absolutely inauthentic.”
If you have a few minutes for something whimsical, then you might also appreciate this little ditty about being on the road and thinking about ideas.
http://sonichits.com/video/Celestial_Navigations/The_50's