On Life and Living
My time in LA was characterized by the stereotypical American city: eight lanes of crowded traffic in both directions, parking lots absolutely everywhere, no pedestrians, and big, fancy office buildings. The people I know told of their plans: working, moving up the ladder, and making money; school for the sake of work, work for the sake of money, money for the sake of a home. The enjoyment of life? The question was more often, “What enjoyment of life?” I feel bad for my Korean friend who just started a serious relationship only to have to go back to Korea for 18 months (putting his final years of med school on pause) so he can do his mandatory military service.
I have a continuous conversation with my roommate about things here in Iceland: we both came here for better lives, to find peace, to simply live it all. And yet here we are, feeling like things could be so much better. I can speak for myself in that things in Iceland are considerably better than in the US. However, that doesn’t change the fact that there are so many meaningless issues. Starting with why in the world our company can’t put food in the staff fridge. One of my favorite pictures from work is of a lemon. They put a lemon in the fridge. There was no food, but there was one lemon sitting on the shelf. I still like my job, but my boss won’t even change my Saturday shifts after me asking for three months and even having my supervisors ask him on my behalf. Simply put, there are frustrations.
I’ve decided on a plan moving forward, to actually live the life I want. I’ll go to Finland for one week to check it out. The plan is to ultimately spend two months working in Iceland, then one month focusing on myself and my “stuff” in Finland. Back and forth. I can buy a place in Finland and rent in Iceland — with Finland being so cheap. There’s a lot left to be figured out, like where will I live next in Iceland. But I spoke to my roommate, and we will begin the search immediately. We’ve both had enough, both decided to focus on fixing these issues we see, both ready to move forward and onward.
What remains is the question of life itself: living life. I’ll admit that I still have yet to figure that part out. I know with certainty that I have no interest in money or the busyness of the “modern world.” I’ll never live somewhere unwalkable. I’ll never live somewhere “corporate” like so many American towns and cities.
Almost one year ago, I wrote Nightlife, one of my favorite pieces. Last year, I wrote 106 pieces of prose and 149 poems. To date, I have shared 21 of those 255 pieces. Why? Because sometimes, I feel like they’re too personal. Other times, I feel like they’re too much. Others still, I simply don’t like. But in general, I have no desire to share them. I wrote them all during the worst period of my life, they often express negative emotions, thoughts, or feelings. I do feel like they express some concepts better than factual writing can, so here is one of those pieces, My Humanity, which fits here:
My humanity is a man standing in the window. He stands high above in the home he has made. He looks down on the ground, the earth for which he longs. His heart pleads for him to return whence he belongs. But the earth no longer is his home.
So he watches from the window, the trees in the wind. He watches from afar, the mountains and their snow. He listens from within to the rain on his home. He dreams of a life that no man can ever know.
Man and human, separated by a window. Where did my humanity go? I see it, there, outside in my reflection. He watches me, there, in silent contemplation. He weeps for me and who I never can be. He speaks to me in the blowing of the wind. But his words are lost to my void within.
My flesh has no purpose with no sun to burn. The face that I wear shall never be borne. What use is there to anything I do if my humanity is a dream that will never come true?
All he can do is stand in the window. All he can do is reflect on his life. His calm in the storm is the swaying in the wind. His blood is the rain from which he is sheltered. His heart is the earth which he never shall know. His soul is the sun from which he must hide. His humanity is a man who no longer is human.
I wrote that piece after leaving Iceland last year, returning home to Michigan where the only thing I could do was stare out my window at the trees. I felt trapped in my apartment while the world was just out of reach. And, of course, my heart was left in Iceland.
The idea here is of a human world. I’ve been trying so much recently to grasp what it actually means to live a “human” life. For me, comfort plays a big role, hence my desire for a couch which seems like such a silly thing to long for. But in my mind, I imagine the sense of peace I will feel when I can leave my bedroom door open, when I can sit on a couch without disturbances, when I can sleep through the night without being woken up by other people. Comfort.
There’s also more than mere environment, there is the life to be lived: people to know, places to visit, things to do. I have also been thinking recently of the people I enjoy spending time with. We can do whatever we want for however long we want. I think of the old man, for example, who I meet with on Mondays. It’s such a simple thing, to sit at a cafe and talk. However, the lack of any external communication is so profound to me. The way we communicate is that he comes by my work (the same building as the cafe) to ask if I’m around. If I am, he updates me like how he once came by to change our meeting day. I’ve written about this before, but there is an indescribable element of humanity to these interactions. I quite literally cannot contact him if I need to. I can only leave a message with my coworkers in case he comes by. The same goes for him with contacting me. I find that to be beautifully human for whatever reason.
Similarly, I don’t stay in touch with people. My preferred communication is, “Let’s meet here at this time and do this.” Not quite so direct, but that’s the idea. The reason for that is if I’m going to talk to someone, I want to talk to them face-to-face. I want to interact with them. Like a human. If someone leaves the country, that’s typically the end of our interactions. Am I wrong for that? Who knows. Nor does it matter. There are a lot of people in this world. Not that I’m throwing them aside, rather I want to live a life: I want to be with people, not message people. That is the one thing I can appreciate regarding social media. I use only Instagram, and I can share what I’m doing if it’s noteworthy as well as see what these people I know are up to. So we can stay “connected” in some way in spite of the distance.
Nature also plays a big role in my idea of life. I want to be in nature, doing things that involve the earth. That is why I walk everywhere, always avoiding buses and cars. That’s why I go to the park and do literally nothing but exist for a short while. There are nice places in buildings within the city, too. But there is nothing like the feeling of being out in nature. Here in Iceland, I could watch the bumblebees running around all day, every day. Perhaps I would describe such activities as giving my conscious mind a rest so my subconscious can churn away freely. And perhaps that is also why I write so much in opposition of living busy, hectic lives — of drinking, partying, etc.
The biggest problem I have yet to tackle is fun. There’s so much else to figure out first that I haven’t made it a priority. I can only hope that once everything else is resolved, I’ll have more to say on that topic.
As a closing aside, I swapped some shifts around while writing this post. It was approved and put on my schedule, so I gave away a weekday shift (the very reason I did the swaps). Then my boss removed me from the swapped day after approving it and put someone else in my place. Without telling me. That summarizes my frustrations. But I’ll use that time to focus on myself… that summarizes my hopes.