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DANGEROUS INFLUENCES
#48 in the second online CAA series
by
Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
Palo Alto, CA
December 7, 1988
copyright 1988, Steven K. Roberts
Maybe it's the Pink Floyd. Wordless memories overtake the present,
obscuring it, confusing it, rendering the computer puzzling even while
practiced fingers perform their familiar little dance. Perhaps madness lurks
herein: time is inside-out; the swirling vapors are real. Guitars like
scalpels part the calloused years, revealing visions of terrible glorious color
overlaid upon frieght trains rumbling gritty in the night, adventures and
obsessions shot through with scalding orgasms and icy knife thrusts of panic
potent enough to raise gasps and gooseflesh...
Yep, it's one of those days. There is some uncertainty about whether my
eyes are open or closed, for the imagician of the intellect runs a shell game
with reality while the fingers patter on... I recall suddenly a day up Boulder
Canyon, long ago, the mountains inside my head barely differing from those
outside, rock hard and hot against my cheek, legs vibrating with the tension of
death's leering proximity, and that crazy moment when the internal model of the
world gets lost in a dozen hotly competing alternatives -- each convincing,
each alluring, each equally fatal if mistaken for the real thing. I grinned
into the stone and inched impossibly upward, curiously disconnected, vision
overloaded, abruptly free...
Ah yes, freedom. Maybe THAT'S what's behind all this. The sudden
exhiliration of walking empty-handed away from Somebody Else's Plan and
sticking out a thumb, leaning against the girder of an Illinois drawbridge for
thrumming three A.M. liftoff, dynamiting a love nest with walls where once were
windows, releasing the brakes what-the-hell and flying with a shout down a
mountain road, releasing reality and flying with a scream into the infinity of
psychosensory unknowns... it all tastes of freedom.
Try, PLEASE try to capture this. Reach into your past, before marriages
and businesses, and examine the gaps between major commitments. Inside those
gaps are subtle tears in the fabric -- glimpses of wild seductive alternatives
to everything you knew at the time. They're like tantalizing clandestine peeks
through slightly parted curtains: alternative realities only inches away...
close enough to fondle.
Hey, maybe you not only peeked, but passed through. Did you get a wild
hair and hitchhike off somewhere, not caring where, just for the sweet sense of
movement and adventure? Did you leave your self behind one night, carried on a
seductive wave of music and light to a nameless place that left its mark across
the decades? Did you drop acid, shave off all your body hair, and have a
menage a trois with hot-blooded Turks in a bat-infested Mexican pit cave?
Or hell, maybe you passed through and STAYED. Are you reading this via
satellite in a sweat lodge of musty buffalo hides, toking righteous ganja and
idly scritching a mad tangle of gray beard while your eyes twinkle knowingly in
the soft blue glow of an electroluminescent backlight? Is the notion of
staying five years in one "place" (defined however you like) repugnant? Are
you doing exactly what you want to do with your life, not only now but at 9:00
Monday morning and tonight in bed?
The most delicious freedom comes from living beyond the known -- and not
necessarily in the "alternative lifestyle" tradition. Seeking is fine, but the
real prisons are those of expectation: denying the possibilities of a life in
order to be what somebody wants you to be. I've watched brilliance tarnish,
fade, and finally disappear in the murk of a stupid marriage. I've seen those
capable of pushing the big envelope waste a lifetime waiting for little ones
with paychecks, rationalizing lost time with dreams of retirement and future
ventures. I've seen others, constrained by circumstances or interests to a
steady job, discard all leftover energy in a nightly haze of television,
alcohol, pot, religion, and numbing routine.
I am not a proselytizer for nomadics -- or anything at all, really, other
than what's already inside you. There are countless ways to explore that, and
my own peculiar choices are obviously not for everybody. But damn it, do you
have any idea how much brilliance and wit rots away undeveloped? We need to do
away with the numbing influences of this mad age and start developing PASSION.
What could you teach others if you applied your skills and insights to whatever
you love most? Could you change the world if given the chance, even if only
through a tiny increment in the exponential evolution of intelligence?
Today's assignment: do something that involves risk, learning, awe,
passion, courage, invention, insight, or the sweet sparking of another's
awareness.
* * *
Interesting phenomenon, speaking of all that. Watching "The Grey Fox"
last night, I found myself intrigued that society has always lionized a certain
class of criminals -- outlaws, renegades, and charismatic purveyors of misdeeds
various. We make heroes out of those who hurt us (as long as they do it with
panache and avoid the taboos of rape, child abuse, grisly murder, and so on).
There's something here that's more than a literary device, and I think
it's the same phenomenon that keeps the "Computing Across America" madness
alive. People are fascinated with life on the edge - - endlessly obsessed with
freedom and adventure. The fact that 99% of the culture never HAS any freedom
creates a vast market for anyone who's "really out there doin' it." And so, if
you're a nomad, adventurer, wild-eyed inventor, or even a colorful bandit, then
you have a direct line to the envious sympathies of an entire nation.
In my case, this translates into easy sponsorships, frequent invitations,
and book sales. Scores of opportunities arise, far more than I can ever
accept. The contrast is dramatic: as a faceless drone with a forgettable name
trying to eke out a freelance living in Midwest suburbia, I hustled hard for
consulting gigs and magazine assignments, grateful for every byline. I even
did a few engineering jobs that were every bit as complex as the Winnebiko, but
so what? My computer-packed NEMA 12 enclosures disappeared into factories,
blinking their little lights alongside the creations of a thousand other
forgotten behind-the-scenes specialists.
But then I trashed my lifestyle, sold the house, and hit the road without
a security blanket -- living hand-to-mouth as a high technomad on a compu-bike.
The change at first was subtle, but within months my file of newspaper
clippings was too fat to carry and I was appearing on national TV, Time, USA
Today, and so on. Why? I was still the same person, wasn't I? Was it the
bike?
No, it was the risk. The freedom. The public reminder that inside each
of us is a bit of madness. I started getting letters from people I had
unwittingly pushed over the edge, strangers thanking me for showing up in print
at a critical moment in their lives. I began witnessing the groupie effect, my
<pangs> of longing for sexy strangers turning into a succession of short,
intense relationships. And despite worries about day-to-day survival, I began
sensing envy from those with stable incomes (even a few millionnaires).
And soon it crystallized: The bike is an essential component, for it
legitimizes my claim that this is a lifestyle of blended techno-passions and
allows network interconnection with a global community. But the bike is ONLY a
part... the whole is something ancient, wonderful, and by no means my own
invention. Freedom.
If all this makes your chest tighten with something akin to lust, makes
your thoughts turn to wispy nostalgic images of wide open spaces, or fires you
with the urge to live on the edge, then don't just sit there, damn it... go for
it!
* * * * * *