We had a productive weekend, but it also felt easygoing.  We cleared out the area under our bed, one of the final refuges of uncategorized "stuff" we own.  We filled a couple of bags with trash and clothes to give to Goodwill.  It was a relief.  Up to this point, I've been feeling like I'd been mentally and practically ignoring the imminence of our upcoming move into the van, and was pretty certain that I'd be spending the last weeks of May a sticky, sweaty, terminally stressed human mess trying desperately to rid myself of the massive caches of possessions that I, apparently, own in my neurotic fantasies.  In reality, we don't actually have that much to get rid of.

I also cleared off the shelf of filthy cans and bottles I'd procrastinated in photographing for my soda blog.  That will also be getting updated soon.

Suck it, diabetes

If clearing away junk actualized the move into the van for us, it had the less happy effect of throwing into contrast, for both Jenna and I, how ready we are to leave, or at least be done with our jobs.  I feel alternately under-utilized, in the actual nature of the work I do (or don't do, since I mostly get paid to sit and stare), and overwhelmed at the prospect that this is probably the kind of thing I'll spend the rest of my life doing.

I work at multiple client sites in Philadelphia for a document-processing contract company.  In practice, I scan, copy, shred, and mail at a variety of offices downtown.  I'm stationed at an office for a few days or a week at a time, trying to learn the particulars of the copy center's workflow, before being moved to a new site.  It's not that I consider myself "above" this work - in fact, this is the most "prestigious" paying job I've had since graduation.  I have cleaned toilets, scraped plates, and all that.  I found food service to be comparatively mentally active and engaging.  Rather, most of my displeasure arises from the fact that I'm not even very good at this job.  Giving in to the temptation to allow my mind to wander while doing deceptively simple jobs causes me to make obvious, easily-avoidable mistakes.  Despite the repetitive monotony of, for example, copying and binding a document of a few thousand pages, mixing up your copies or misplacing a tab or failing to remove a staple can turn this simple task into a mire of fruitless searches through reams of paper, re-printings, un-jammings, botched collations, and dozen other variations on general mess, each of which I've become acquainted with.  Needless to say, each office does the same tasks with slight, arcane variations, which must be followed to the letter.  It drives me up the wall to try to stay aware and a step ahead by dint of sheer mental effort, but my failure to do so leads me to bitterly self-criticize for the fuck-ups I inadvertently create.  On bad days, I think that my incompetence at even this basic work is a function of a fundamental incompetence within me.  This, of course, portends little good for my future prospects.  On better days, I think that perhaps it's not an intrinsic failure of mine, but perhaps an incompatibility of my particular skills with this work.  In which case, I self-pityingly wonder if this is really the most society feels I am good for.  Either way, one conclusion is unavoidable - I can't keep doing this.

When I first conceived of moving into a van a couple of years ago, I hoped that I could avoid or postpone the 40-hour workweek.  Perhaps naively, I thought it would be like semi-mobile squatting: carrying your home on your back like a turtle, what could be easier?  But complications continued to arise and only now are we actually ready to do it.  I know it won't be as easy as I'd thought it would be.  It's been hard enough to come by the money to do this - and in large part this trip is possible due to our parents' support and an insurance settlement I got from a hit-and-run bike accident.  The money/guilt thing is a whole other issue for me, and I've struggled with that a lot in the last year, as well.  I would really like to be able to say that I made this happen on my own, but it would simply be a lie.  It brings up a lot of uncomfortable questions of privilege and authenticity that maybe I'm not ready to face full-on at the moment.

Two years ago, I glorified non-traditional lifestyles.  Although I would never have expressed these sentiments so bluntly, it seemed to me that hopping trains, squatting, or otherwise living outside the system was morally superior to investing one's life in a vicious, unjust, and unfulfilling capitalist shell game.  I also believed that those who refused to play by the rules of that game were courageous and capable of enduring hardship, uncompromising in their pursuit of excitement and freedom.  Those who were willing to take the risk of poverty could reap the spoils of authentic adventure and ethical unassailability.  Conversely, cowardice spelled damnation as a cog in the cold machine of globalized capital.  I had perversely recreated a moral schema not so far removed from the crusader of unhindered capitalism, Ayn Rand: for Rand, those with the initiative and strength of character take risks by inventing and producing products, while the weak preterite masses untouched by ruthless genius serve the master class in whatever meager ways they may.  For me, the heroic risk-takers weren't businessmen or inventors, but those who dared to drop out, while the unfortunate masses were those who ignorantly toiled away, alienated from the products of their labor, spending their money in a desperate chase for authentic feeling.  The content is different, but the form is the same, and both are equally bullshit.

My political convictions have become blunted.  I've come to see, firsthand, the comfort and easy enjoyment that a steady paycheck and urban lifestyle can bring.  Sometimes I look at beautiful consumer goods and think, "You know, why shouldn't I want this?  Wouldn't it be nice to have this?"  I found that I like good food.  Good bike parts feel good to ride on.  Cheap coffee sucks.  Clothes that don't come from thrift stores fit better.  And although I always knew that, I now allow myself to accept it, and not to feel (as) guilty for having material wants.  For a long time, I would have felt that getting wrapped up in, for example, the aesthetics of home furnishings was pathetic, decadent, and unprincipled -  caving in to the logic of capitalism.  As with most things, my truth is somewhere in the middle.  Consumerism is empty and boring.  Self-denial on principle is equally empty and boring.  And, having met a decent cross-section of the glorified drop-out class, I can vouch that most of them aren't bathing in limitless freedom and enjoying their lives to the fullest or whatever.  A lot of them are knife-wielding scumbags I want nothing to do with.  I began to think about the things that brought me pleasure, and began to reflect on how few of them would be improved upon by becoming homeless. I've come to realize that freedom isn't a singular concept.  Every lifestyle represents a balance of freedoms - which you give up, and which you get to exercise in return.

I guess things are more nuanced than they seemed when I was 19.  I bet no one has ever felt that way before.

It's absurd to view life as a hard duality: surrender to the soulless, cubicled, materialistic, middle-class house-car-wife-kids catastrophe on one hand or freeing oneself from the moral and practical confines of an oppressive society on the other.  I know that both of these are threadbare clichés, stereotypes, media portrayals, juvenile fantasies.  Not all compromise is capitulation.

If this van trip was originally a test to see if I was made of strong enough stuff to be one of the heroic resisters, one of the brave, principled rebels, I hope that now it is a more open-ended journey.  I don't know what I mean to accomplish, but that's probably a good thing.  Perhaps I'll hate living in a van, and then at least I'll have an idea of how I don't want to live my life.  This trip is kind of a leap of faith.  It's going to take me out of my comfort zone.  But it's not going to be a test of my mettle which, if I "fail," means accepting that I'm a weak-willed product of the Establishment, or whatever.  That's stupid.  Rather, I would like to see this as an opportunity to try to exercise spontaneity.  It would probably be good to free my mind from my compulsion to analyze.  I need something unexpected, a dose of unfiltered experience.

Well, that's where I'm coming from.