I, am tired. Stress the space between the syllables, the pause before enunciation, feel the weight of articulation. There is a weariness which transcends sleep...and it is intimate, abiding in the soul like the spirit of some heathen apparition.
The man in front of me works with well measured movements. Each step calculated to maximize productivity. The check in desk at the airport opens in four hours, four hours to wax the floor, four hours to disassemble and reassemble the poles and ropes all the while dodging pedestrians who heedlessly walk in the way. Each individual has a role to fill in the operation of the leviathan. The smoothness of the operation dependent on the calculus of uniformity. Betrayed autonomy wears on man, having ones actions mandated by the needs of a personless abstraction undefinable erodes strength.
Waking in those predawn hours, choking back autonomy, being sure to be ready for the day or days to follow for it was anyones guess when we would again see home all for the profit of a few men. The operations board dictated destination it was our life, subject to change at the whim of the salesman, company, or unforeseen circumstance. Daily we would clock in and look to the board sacrificing our hours, relationships as if they were doves and the board the alter. Looking to the workers in any industry I see the same sacrifice, the same cost benefit analysis. Life then becomes a conflict, a conflict between the non physicals needs of the human and the need to provide home and food. Some navigate this chasm effortlessly. Others balk and refuse to give to pressure. Those who refuse conformity can become heroes but more often then not become tragic images littering numerous and nameless sidewalks.
It has been numerous weeks since leaving the patch and now my eyes have seen I can never forget the how of industrial civilization. What remains a phantom is the why? Why we have expanded and constructed such a wasteland, why we give ourselves to consumption, and why we see the increase in mental pathologies but refuse to draw the connecting line between pathology and root cause. In bible college we were taught that context is king but in our daily analysis we refuse to contextualize.
In the past few days my nights have been spent in Portland and in the woods overlooking the Pacific. When night falls in the basement of the city I hear the bustle, the sirens, the drinkers stumbling in, and that wonderful blend of languages from Arabic, Farsi, and English. But that myth of progress that is the city can only tantalize for so long. Contrasting the nights in the city to the nights in the open brings the whole mess of civilization into focus. Hiking up to the dense forest on the coast leaving the drone of vehicle engines below the tree line I began to breathe. Despite my years of tobacco consumption I felt strong, alive, aware, unwinded. As the sun sank into the sea and darkness feel on the forest floor I made camp quickly, started a fire with ease in the dampness, smoked my pipe in the stillness, and laid out my wool blanket on the ground. Despite tree roots, cold evening air, and damp ground I slept and snored. Sleeping in the dirt brings us into communion with our beginning. If some deity did form us from the dust or if we evolved it does not matter in those moments. We are living beings, growing, decaying, going through the life cycle of all beings. Sleeping in the city, living in the city separates us from our origins.
As I nodded off to sleep on the ground I thought of that operations board...I breathed easily knowing my sacrificial doves have been returned. The next morning I woke with a rested soul.
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