Along this path of life a new option is chosen. Not the familiar crossroads, the clear-cut choice of the past, but instead an ending of the road, the beginning of unformed terrain.
In agony for years in my partial acceptance of expectations and appearances, I have trudged along this path of toil, moaning and bitching the entire way. Overtly unhappy would better describe my demeanor than any quiet suffering or stoic acceptance.
Feet perambulating for years, I finally see a point where I can stop for time. A line has been drawn across the path and beyond it, everything has been erased. What once was a continuing way of resigned discontent is now a featureless blank.
For the first time in well over a decade, nay for the first time since I was nineteen I choose to be unemployed without the intent of seek a new job. Limited freedom awaits, not the fantasy of unlimited resources, but one of measured conservation.
A set sum has been set aside, now to be doled out over time. Beyond setting the pace of expenditures, three options currently appear on the horizon, not roads in their own right yet, but vague options somewhere beyond the horizon.
The space between the end of the current path and what may be chosen is undefined, but as it is traversed my meandering will slowly define a background and define a course.
Three directions lie at differing points of the compass. Find work, preferably something desirable. Extend the vacation with stock if it becomes worth something. Or play for awhile and then terminate my existence rather than working or begging.
Looking back on this, the second direction is really an extension of the third, a delaying tactic if you will.
So, unless I win the lottery, from my current position it would appear that my two options long term is to work or die.
The far more common route is to work until one can retire, typically late in life. Long have I railed against this course and increasingly over time I have moved to the conclusion that I would rather shorten my lifespan than continue the course I have been on.
So here I am, resigning my job, moving into un-chartered territory. Here is an opportunity to play, a chance to reinvent, with choices of consequence to make.
Years ago, I complained about the amount of time and resources it would take to unlearn my past and to retrain my mind. Now I have the time and the resources, do I still have the will? Have I the belief? I believe all things are possible, but probable? In boredom will slothful tendencies be overthrown?
Belief is a thorny issue for me. With no religion, no life’s work, no desire for a family, nor for belonging, I have a difficult time justifying my prolonged existence beyond things I still desire to do or the ingrained survival instinct.
Rationally, I do not see the point of working for forty to fifty years for a few years of leisure at the end.
Work or die. Well, until I can conceive of a labor suited for me and attractive to my mind, my choice today is to play. If I find no better solution, so be it, let me play then die. Let me never again concede to working a job just for a means of sustenance.
I may not rise to my true potential, whatever that may be. I may not become more noble or wise. I may never find my dreams.
I can face all that. My basest hope is to be happier for a span of time. My desire is to be free.
The end of the road is approaching. The hesitation that has chained me for years has been broken.
Eager, I eye the end of the road with hunger and anticipation.
[© 2006 Joseph Wheeler, all rights reserved]