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@@ -41,42 +41,69 @@ Usually wanting is better than having. We call this buyers remorse, but it's bas tk -## The Big Blue Bus +## The Mooring of Starting Out +About six months before that first drive my wife and I had one of those epiphanies of boredom that are common in America these days. We looked around and thought, is this it? We had a house, suburbs, kids, cars, stuff. My wife wanted something else. Somewhere else actually. This life, I don't think it's for us. We should go somewhere, do something. We'd been to Nicaragua, we like it, we decided to look into going back. A friend of ours was down there at the time, she seemed to love it. Our twin daughters were two, we had a boy due to arrive in a few weeks. We decided, we'll stay put until he's walking, then we'll go. It was a plan anyway. +I had a nagging thought at the back of my head though, the thought was America. It's not perfect, in fact it has a lot of problems, but I've traveled enough to know that I am American. The least American American, as my Irish friend Keith once said, but American nonetheless. And something about that, somewhere in that, I felt the need to show my kids the country that shaped me, even if it did not end up shaping them. And there is nothing so American as the road trip, Jack London, Henry Miller, John Stienbeck, and yes, Jack Kerouac. In many ways the road trip is America. America is an endless road, a becoming, not a thing become. -On reflection, I am perhaps prone to doing things with an unjustified amount of confidence. This far I've been lucky. Silly brave me pointing that beast down the hill with such brazen confidence doesn't realize +I decided we should get some kind of travel trailer and drive around the country for a few months, a year, some time anyway, and live on the road. +One symptom of my least American Americaness is that I don't like new things. At the time my car was a 1969 truck I'd inherited from my father. tk tk tk exampels of loving old things, things made of metal, made with care, made with pride. We traded all that for a bunch of junk imported from overseas. And ming you it's not junk because it was imported from overseas, it'd be junk if we made it, but I don't think we'd make it. I see people making things in America and it isn't plastic junk. It's computers from Denver or tk from tk form tk. and so on. When we put our hearts into it, America makes wonderful things. Things we need, not things we want. Fuck stuff. +I turned to the internet. As you do. I searched for vintage travel trailer or something of that sort. I found out about Shastas, I learned about airstreams, I learned about a lot of things like that and then one day, I don't remamber the specific terms I plugged in, but I came across my first Travco. People often name their Travcos, this one was called Myrtle. Once I had the name I plugged it in and, to put it cheaply, I fell in love. +I also found the Bumfuzzles. -I had no idea that all that fiberglass was encasing a rather small, underpowered Dodge 318 engine bolted to a solid steel, 1969 steel, frame, I did not know at all what it was capable of, even less what I was capable of. Neither of us had any idea what I was doing. +## The Big Blue Bus -How I end up here +It became the big blue bus the minute our kids saw it. None of us remember who gave it that name, but it stuck, for us at least. It also became the neighborhood attraction, which it would remain for the next eighteen months I spent gutting it, rewiring, replumbing, repaneling, and rebuilding it into something that was livable for a family of five. +How exactly I was going to do that I didn't really know. All I had was vision in my head of what it would look like when it was done. This was, fortunately, enough to sustain me even when I ran out of time, money and self confidence. I never wanted to quit, in fact quitting or giving up on it never entered my mind. I knew when I started that on the other side of this massive undertaking lay a totally different life that was going to be much better than the one we had before it and I never considered not getting to it. There were times when it took immense will to keep going, and my blood sweat and tears are figuratively and very literally in the Big Blue Bus, but I never once thought of stopping. +I have, thus far in my life, found that there are very few things that you can't do given sufficient time and money with which to work on them, *provided you have the will to do them at all*. If you have that will you tend to find at least the time, and once you find the time you often find you don't need nearly so much money as you thought, though often you need much much more time than you thought. It also helps to know the right people. If you don't you'll need to seek them out. I knew nothing about electricity when I started, but one of my good friends was an electrician. I knew nothing about plumbing when I started, but I did know a plumber. +Not everything was easy though. I knew nothing about engines and unfortunately I didn't know a good mechanic to teach me. I mainly ignored the engine in the beginning. Focus on what you can do, do it and when it's done move on to the next thing. -I have, thus far in my life, found that there are very few things that you can't do given sufficient time and money with which to work on them, *provided you have the will to do them at all*. If you have that will you tend to find at least the time, and once you find the time you often find you don't need nearly so much money as you thought, though often you need much much more time than you thought. +There will no doubt be plenty of things you think you are absolutely no good at -- I can't learn a foreign language to save my life -- but the truth is, assuming you're of sound body and mind, the things you are not good at turn out to really be things you lack the will to do. We beat ourselves up about these things sometimes, at least I do. I spent years thinking I was somehow an idiot about languages, and I am, but not because I'm an idiot about languages, everyone is an idiot about languages, but because I lack the will to change that. -That's how you find yourself five feet in the air, strapped to a 27 foot long 1969 motorhome with no clue if the brakes even work. I have driven somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 miles, that's what you might call, planning, but this is the first time I've strapped myself to a 27 foot long monstrosity in unknown condition and promptly set off into unknown roads, barreling down a mountain on narrow streets through a town I arrived in a scant 2 hours ago. +This conversation requires that we define some terms though. Like will. +I will. That's the opposite of waiting. Will is action. Will is getting up off the couch for no reason and walking to the wall opposite you and touching it for no reason other than you willed your body to do it. You did not wait until you felt like it, until it was convenient, until it was right, until it was perfect, until you wanted to. You will it and it is done. +I used to wait for things to be right, to be perfect, to be easy. Slowly though I realized that waiting is a kind of will, it's just a lack of will. I know from experience that nothing good ever comes of waiting. The question is what happens between this realization and the point where you actually get off the couch and walk over to wall. Some of it is purely practical. We don't own a television, which means we don't spend our time watching it, which free up a trememdous amount of time in our lives. this is the single biggest, easiest thing you can do to reclaim your life and develop your will -- throw away your television. +The other practical way to get off the couch and over to the wall is to make a plan. It might be a terrible plan, it will probably be a terrible plan, mostly likely you will go do whatever it may be in a way that's nothing like the plan. The plan is irrelevant, but the planning is very important. There are only two ways to beat the fear you feel inside. And the thing stopping your will from making its way in the world is mainly fear. -There will no doubt be plenty of things you think you are absolutely no good at -- I can't learn a foreign language to save my life -- but the truth is, assuming you're of sound body and mind, the things you are not good at turn out to really be things you simply lack the will to do. We beat ourselves up about these things sometimes, at least I do, I spent years thinking I was somehow an idiot about languages, and I am, not because I'm an idiot about languages, everyone is an idiot about languages, but because I currently lack the will to change that. +One way past the fear is to sit around waiting for it to pass. That way does not work. The other way is distract yourself sufficiently until you are able to move yourself forward without noticing that you have done so. I was able to get in the Travco that first day and go barroling down the hill into the unknown because I had a very simple plan: drive up in the morning, pay for the thing, drive it back. I was simply doing what I had planned to do. -This conversation requires that we define some terms though. Like will. +A good plan takes your mind off the fear, off the unknown unknoable future. It frees your mind from fear so you can catch your breath and think. That's why armies plan, it's why sailors carry charts, it's why everyone writes things down on a calendar. We all love a good plan, the real trick of planning though is actually start doing the first steps of the plan so that you move forward without realizing that you've done so. -I will. That's the opposite of waiting. Will is action. Will is getting up off the couch for no reason and walking to the wall opposite you and touching it for no reason other than you willed your body to do it. You did not wait until you felt like it, until it was convenient, until it was right, until it was perfect, until you wanted to. You will it and it is done. -I used to wait. Before I realized that waiting is a kind of will, a choice, a lack of will. I know from experience that nothing good ever comes of waiting. The question is what happens between this realization and the -The way to overcome waiting it to make a plan, however terrible it might be, and then go an do it in a way that's nothing like the plan. The plan is irrelevant, but the planning is very important. There are only two ways to beat the fear you feel inside. One is to sit around waiting for it to pass, the other is distract yourself suffiently until you are able to move yourself forward without noticing that you have done so. A good plan takes your mind off the fear, off the unknown unknoable future. It frees your mind from fear so you can catch your breath and think. That's why armies plan, it's why sailors carry charts, it's why everyone writes things down on a calendar. We all love a good plan, the real trick of planning though is actually start doing the first steps of the plan so that you move forward without realizing that you've done so. ## Cuts I pull into a gas station, but it proves too small (the tank is in rear and these pumps were not 27 feet from the door of the building) so I leave. My parents, who were in town to visit their grandkids and graciously agreed to give me a ride to Mars Hill, stop at the gas station and go inside and later report that the entire gas station is talking about the Travco, speculating on the year. +On reflection, I am perhaps prone to doing things with an unjustified amount of confidence. This far I've been lucky. Silly brave me pointing that beast down the hill with such brazen confidence doesn't realize + + + + +I had no idea that all that fiberglass was encasing a rather small, underpowered Dodge 318 engine bolted to a solid steel, 1969 steel, frame, I did not know at all what it was capable of, even less what I was capable of. Neither of us had any idea what I was doing. + + +How I end up here + + + + + +That's how you find yourself five feet in the air, strapped to a 27 foot long 1969 motorhome with no clue if the brakes even work. I have driven somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 miles, that's what you might call, planning, but this is the first time I've strapped myself to a 27 foot long monstrosity in unknown condition and promptly set off into unknown roads, barreling down a mountain on narrow streets through a town I arrived in a scant 2 hours ago. + + + + |