Escape

If you like pina coladas,
Getting caught in the rain...
- The Escape Song

The thing that has changed my view of the world has to do with equilibrium and power. More specifically why it is that when 36 million people are absolutely convinced of the truth of something which defies the status quo, the status quo doesn't change. It has to do with the willingness of people to wage war against the willingness of people to accept discomfort.

But there comes a time when discomfort is a bit too much but still not anything worth dying and killing for. In that direction we plot escape.

Just last night I was comparing road trips with a colleague who runs marathons. He said that from Ohio to Denver is a 24 hour drive, but even after all that, you're only halfway to San Diego. Anyone who has driven across Texas knows that there is plenty of space for plenty of people. And yet we mostly live in crowded cities with people who, more often than not, make us very very uncomfortable. It seems to me that I could escape in the US. And every time I fly over flyover country, especially when I see long straight highways, I wonder who owns all that property down there, and how could I get a eyeball full.

An eyeball full of real estate at 36,000 feet is about as large as a decent sized county if you're looking straight down. I don't know how many counties there are in America, but they're all named after someone. Might as well be one named after me. But I know that I'll not likely have the time to learn what it takes to look after several paltry square miles. The very idea of shaping an acre to grow enough ingredients to fill a Big Mac is daunting. So I'm stuck with my pathetic urban skills. I'm not likely to do much better on a desert island. As it stands, I can't even decide which 10 DVDs to take to the exclusion of all others.

Nope. I need fellows. This place I would escape to must have people. But it's not about just being with people but doing things with people. There are things that I would like to accomplish - tinkering with the tools of my trade like the mechanics who build a monster truck in their spare time. It's a uniquely Western passion I think - this romance with gear. I've got the bug. I can satiate that through online channels.  But my fellows in escape, we need to share something in the lore of the land. I need to be in a place that makes me wear different clothes and communicate with people over distance that takes some doing. So I am drawn to islands and places with interesting geological features that make them less accessible to the world, and binding of those that are there.

Hilton Head Island has these ingredients. Martha's Vineyard has these ingredients. I've thought about retiring both places. Once when I was still under the thrall of Stanford University, Menlo Park had that magical quality to it. I very much enjoyed living in the enclave of South Pasadena for the time that I did. I thought it to be the greatest little city in the world. But South Pasadena and Menlo Park are still too much under the influence of their larger communities. To be there is more like hiding, not escaping. These are not destinations of destiny, rather they are convenient hollows still adjacent to all the bustle. Bustle means dependency. Escape leaves one independent in an organic spot. Hilton Head and Martha's Vineyard are just unique enough by their very nature that they draw people through them. Santa Fe, NM has the same quality I think, although it is not so magical to me - magic for me requires aquatic access.

So I contemplate a final living place for myself. My final home. My last place on earth. That if I make millions or if I make none, I can come back to that place from wherever I travel and feel that it is my best corner of the planet. Where the food and the language is mine. Where the attitude and the community is right. Where my fellows have that same need to be at arms distance from the foolish endeavors of the masses and the concurrent desire for elevated company.

--

Carlin speaks inspired from Pat Buchanan's ruminations about the disunity of American society. He suggests that we might be fortunate one day to live up to the doctrine of the Tenth Amendment. And I have my own hopes of that as well. States rights. Private property. I want to be someplace American where common Americans require some education of a sort to access and remain. The kind of education that makes you respect liberty. The easiest way to say so is money. You can't just walk into a penthouse at the Beresford on Central Park West. Then again, money alone is not enough there. That's the point. There is something unique about what we have evolved to be the places where America might be considered to be at its best. You escape to those places.

Everyone's idea of escape isn't the same. Riffing off Carlin, what say Hawaii becomes the Marijuana State, that Vermont becomes the Gay State? Sure, why not? In fact, we can only hope that becomes the case. Every man has a destiny. Heaven forbid it be the Mainstream.