Disclaimer: This is an exercise of projection in 3rd person, told as a story. This is an attempt at working things out to see if they would *work out* within the society I live in.
The man used to wonder about how things would be, about how to attain his modest goals through time without loathing most waking moments leading up to his achieved dream. He jumped from job to job, training then working, wondering what to do for a while, and training then working again, but never achieving some form of peace with his work.
After a bit over half a decade he was able to achieve his goal of owning quite a small plot of land in the mountains, in a place where people did not really live in. He had his small cabin there, with a view onto nothing exactly. Sure it was the smallest place he’s ever lived in, but it also seemed for him to be more than enough to suit his new environment. Technically it was small, but the reality of things, in his perspective anyway, is that his house extended beyond 4 walls and land delimitations.
And now his days are spent in a fashion that isn’t much different than any other day before that. All he wanted, after all, was to live in a peaceful place; as in one without neighbours, in the middle of nowhere, so that he could just go out and think in complete peace; as long as wild animals were fine with it. But a passing deer or a raging boar is less distracting than saying hello to another human being.
So sometimes he wrote, sometimes he made music, sometimes he thought and smoked while looking into nowhere from inside his cabin. And in the mornings he would work out.
At some point he thought about hunting to get his own meat; which he learned. He thought about growing his own garden to get vegetables; which he did. Every now and then he would go into town to get things he couldn’t grow by himself, or things he enjoyed and would rather have them still, such as tea. The tobacco he enjoyed smoking could only be bought in certain tobacco shops, and so even more rarely, also because of the expensive nature of pipe smoking, he went to the closest big city to refill for a few hundred bucks at a time... And probably get a new pipe.
To get money; to pay for his expenses and monthly debits, he would simply go out every now and then, offer his services to do whatever job he could manage: from administrative work to plumbing. Obviously he always had more success in manual types of jobs, something he always struggled with but decided it was enough; if anything his days in the military showed him that he could get shit done with his own hands if he wanted to. He just had to know how to.
How did he arrive to the conclusion that jumping from interest to interest, in a work environment, was going to be fine? Wondering often, trying many things, coming to the conclusion that in reality, he finds some enjoyment in many jobs. Enough to make him keep working in a field for enough time to get to a workable level of proficiency. Something good enough for consumer-level jobs, good enough for the local businesses that may have needed him.
What was the other alternative? A true humble life would also mean an agricultural life in some way. In small ways. More self-sustain, but less free time. Time for himself was what the man wanted the most. Just to exist and to make decisions with no need to attend to x and y all the time. Completely selfish, as he believed in the age old “to live and let live” - to a certain extent only. While this man was seemingly content and at peace with his own life, as if he died already and is only going through time until his actual death, he also held certain types of people in contempt, and it was hard for him not to go and rent against them. What a human should be in his mind, what a human is, and what a human does to itself. He hated cities and while living in one, he would make sure to not go out and use the advantages of a city life as little as possible. Buses? On foot, car or on bike. Mostly on bike. Restaurants? Never go there. Take-out? Never call anyone to deliver food, he’d go there himself a few times a year, or if he passed in front of one and had nothing planned for his one proper meal today.
He simply wanted to consume less while still living comfortably, and working when needed for himself mostly, but also for others if they needed additional time to finish or do something.
His relationships as well, were kept to a minimum. What was comfortable for him was to get his social needs satisfied: which he got simply through interactions with his old friends still living in the city, or around the world – that he met in real life or through the internet: now mostly done through the internet. He never really needed to see another human, nor did he really need human touch anymore. Perhaps it was because the man lived his early adulthood by himself with no other soul in his life, except for short periods of time, where he ended up in a relationship – as he didn’t know, as he wanted to try, as it felt right to do. But now that he understood his incompatibility with other forms of life, he gave up and worked through his occasional loneliness without much effort. After all he was already used to it, and he didn’t have to think about having any company.
Over time he became more and more distant from humans, from his own humanity, and eventually, from life itself; as he wanted and desired. His only link to keep him properly sane was a poor internet connection, and his occasional jobs. He was fine with his way of life, as were the people who knew him. He never gave off a negative aura. Initially, people were more inclined to approach him – perhaps a gift from his mother, who had very good motherly traits, even with other people her age. But as the solitary man learned and experienced from life and others, his aura changed to be a friendly one, and eventually, to an unfamiliar one, both cold and warm.
His goal now that he lived a bit in his cabin, is one that he had for years already, that came around soon after his desire to go live in the mountains: To take a trip into nothingness for a few days. And to write from a place where the only alive thing is yourself; where the air is still and the wind brings decayed matter to the sands of Time; to the sand on the ground. The next big iteration on a philosophy of void. And while he battles still with the concept of legacy, his writings would be his, if none or some read what he wrote.