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From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan 7 17:20:03 1991
To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-2
FREEDOM VERSUS SECURITY -- HOW TO BEAT THE TRADE-OFF
(#2 in the second online CAA series)
by
Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
Columbus, Ohio
July 4, 1986
A nation takes a day off from its countless private prisons -- its careers,
its roles, its lives of quiet desperation -- and celebrates liberty. Liberty!
Red, white, and boom! Company picnics, family gatherings, bratwurst in the
park. Fireworks. Tall ships, the Lady, and 40,000 shells bursting over New
York Harbor.
One year ago in San Carlos, California, my bike parked in a friend's
livingroom, I stood on her condo balcony and fired my flare gun skyward in a
small-scale celebration of freedom. The report echoed from dark buildings, and
we uttered the obligatory "aaahhs" as the sizzling fireball arced 45 degrees
over the parking lot and began its descent. Oh no... it crossed the street
and, so perfectly that it could have been planned, splashed sparks onto the
pristine white roof of somebody's Cadillac. Oops.
The year before that, I pedaled sweaty into Abilene, Texas after an 85-mile
day -- straight to the heart of wholesome Americana, a Fourth-of-July community
picnic. The dunking booth, the backward softball throw, the rousing speeches,
the egg toss... they were all there. Liberty. Freedom. A 3-day weekend.
Now, as I prepare once again to hit the Road, I find myself thinking about
freedom a lot -- especially as distant fireworks touch the sky outside my
apartment window with intermittent pastels and punctuate Mendelssohn with
muffled booms. In 43 days I'll turn my back on this otherwise colorless
suburbia, trading my temporary home in physical space for a life of endless
adventure in Dataspace.
I'll trade what I can't keep for something I can't lose.
Freedom Versus Security
In my first article here on GEnie, I told you the second one would be about
the business structure that keeps all this afloat. Well, I don't feel much like
talking about that right now -- it seems a bit dry next to the larger questions
of freedom, adventure, growth, learning, and life's true bottom line (FUN).
We'll get to it eventually -- soon you'll know all about the data
communications links between the Winnebiko and my base offices, methods of
handling mail and money, and how all this bicycle-borne gizmology (5 computers
now) adds up to a smooth and efficient office-on-wheels.
But before I tell you *how*, I think I should tell you *why*.
What, short of insanity, could compel a reasonably successful freelance
writer/consultant to give up the sporadic bliss of midwestern Yuppiedom and
wander endlessly on a bicycle?
A fancy getaway? That's the most obvious one -- *escape*, on every level.
Is the road the Other Woman, a sweet piece of asphalt to whom I can always run
when I need to sidestep the myriad horrors of commitment? Maybe. I always
have been fascinated by the energy associated with beginnings, and the nomadic
life assures a steady supply.
Or is the whole thing a PR gambit -- a clever marketing ploy designed to
bolster my chances in the brutally ephemeral publishing business? Possibly.
This is a scary way to make a living, you know: pushing a bunch of buttons in
what you hope is the right order in the fervent belief that some editor will be
impressed enough to send a check. A news angle helps.
Or... is the Winnebiko my non-threatening door-opener, my ego-boost, my
drawing card -- an eccentric alternative to having a hot face from the silver
screen and a pocket lined with cold cash? Hmm. It does tend to elicit the
groupie effect...
Or could it be that I'm just pedaling the planet looking for home, never
quite sure whether it's out there or inside me but convinced that I'll know it
when I see it?
Ah, how about this one: the journey is a way to get paid for playing -- a
plot to cheat the reaper and live countless lifetimes of love and delight while
everyone else plods along toward the distant golden promise of retirement.
That one doesn't sound bad at all. Why the hell should I grow up? It never did
my friends any good.
I've been accused of all of those at one time or another by cynics,
parents, or envious observers -- more often than not with some justification.
But when you look a little deeper, two unifying motives emerge:
1. I want to spend my life learning.
2. I want both freedom and security.
The first one is obvious enough. The bicycle is a learning machine; travel
opens doors. In my high-tech regalia I attract people of all descriptions,
then filter through them to find the witty, bizarre, brilliant, and aware.
Movement versus stasis, insight versus oversight, energy versus ennui,
adrenalin versus booze. Yes, learning is very much the essence of this, and I
change a little with every mile.
But the second one is a little more subtle.
Freedom and security... the contrapuntal components of the human dance. A
brutal trade-off, it is: if you want more of one, you pay dearly with the
other. Wanna run around? Fine, risk your marriage. Want a steady paycheck?
Forget the flexibility of freelancing. It's like gain-vs-bandwidth to an
engineer or comfort-vs-weight to a backpacker -- having both requires inventing
new rules, new technologies.
Freedom and security. Hit control-S and think about it. What do you do
when your main objective in life is to have your cake and eat it too?
For a while, as I pedaled the first 10,000 miles, I had myself pretty well
convinced that beating the trade-off consisted of doing business on the road --
writing with a portable computer while having enough adventures to fuel the
process. Neat stuff, my little electronic cottage on wheels... I fine-tuned it
endlessly and wrote rhapsodic articles about how things would never be the
same.
Then I concocted a theory that the real key to beating the trade-off was
online society -- made possible by the fact that "place" is no longer a purely
physical notion. This is a major change in the life of Man, for suddenly one's
address is no more an issue than one's birthday or alma mater: interesting,
surely, but not in the critical path to a relationship. As the months on the
road wore on, my home became Dataspace, never more than a phone call away. I
lived online and wrote more rhapsodic articles about how things would never be
the same.
But it takes more than technology to solve the problem, as sweetly alluring
as she may be. Adding new tools to our armamentarium of information-handling
devices does not in itself erase the habitual lifelong traps that limit our
options and make us drop anchor, intellectually speaking, long before we learn
to sail. It takes something else to change the rules of the game and create
new freedoms.
It takes a genuine passion -- for life, change, growth, and experience. It
takes pulse-quickening excitement at everything from a new switched-capacitor
filter chip to seeing what's over the next hill, from understanding the life
cycle of that little flagellated protozoan bastard named Giardia Lamblia to
questing after the transcendance of the well-turned phrase. Passion. A
rebirth of wonder.
And from this, surprisingly enough, comes the ability to avoid the
trade-off entirely: if you're not enslaved to a single specialty, you can move
freely and conjure a home anywhere at all. You don't need to be a writer or
information professional -- just curious and ALIVE. That sounds like a pretty
good definition of having both freedom and security at once.
Intellectual Goldmines
So that's it. Roll all those motives together and you'll see why I'm doing
this. I get asked that a lot, as you can imagine -- the question is almost as
common as "what are the solar panels for?" They stand there, Americans of all
descriptions, they stand there beside the road studying my bicycle as if
somewhere in the tangle of eccentric machinery lies the answer. Their
curiosity is obsessive, for they see something of themselves -- something they
feel deep inside and struggle to recognize. Freedom, growth, learning,
adventure, hope, *joie de vivre*...
But many miss the point, and ask: What are you selling? Do you have a
sponsor? Is this that bicycle race across America? Are you trying to set a
record? You testing this here new kinda rig? Is this something medical? What
are you trying to prove? Where are you going? Are you crazy?
It's hard to explain on the street, this need to wander endlessly with
body, mind, and heart. Sometimes I fumble with the real explanation; sometimes
I just smile and say, "Well, I got tired of the 3-bedroom ranch in suburbia and
this is the next logical step." That's true, but a bit abstract.
No, this is really about *mines* -- intellectual goldmines. Every
professional specialty, every sophisticated technology, every instance of
superhuman dedication represents yet another mineshaft dug deep into a great
mountain of potential human knowledge, a mountain riddled with glittering
mineral veins and awesome riches. Into the mines go the specialists, and from
their pick-clinking wizardry emerges goodies of all descriptions:
microprocessors, designer genes, carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers,
geosynchronous communication satellites, flute sonatas, macro zoom lenses,
predicate calculus, sheer-when-wet bikini fabric, Tae Kwan Do, aerodynamic
derailleurs, bold new life insurance plans, supermarket psychology, science
fiction, and Post-it notes. There's a lot of magic in that mountain, probably
an infinite amount, and it is the skill and persistence of the knowledge miners
that makes it available to the rest of us.
I know, for I used to be one. I spent years conjuring custom
microprocessor-based control systems and writing the software to make them
dance. It was... rewarding.
But something was always missing. One by one, I watched my passions die:
every hobby became a business, every plaything a professional tool. Computers,
lasers, precision measurement equipment, logic design, photography,
communications gear -- each one lost the glitter of "new toy" and took on that
worn, dusty look of "business equipment." Jaded, dulled, I turned to freelance
writing... a license to be a generalist, the perfect profession for one versed
in the art of BS.
But it wasn't enough. I still worked in a mine -- I was just free to visit
others occasionally, sometimes taking the miners out to lunch and quizzing them
about their work. It was much more interesting than staying in the same mine
all the time, but still I was chained to a desk.
I just happened to own it.
So on a hunch, I dumped the desk and moved to a bicycle. The theory was
simple enough: since this mine of mine yields words, and words have no mass, I
should be able to carry it wherever I go, right? And if I travel far enough,
slowly enough, I'll not only provide myself with an endless source of literary
stimulation, but also have a helluva good time in the process. Right? Right.
I could visit every damn mine in the country, if I wanted to -- never again
trapped in a single one, growing endlessly without having to drop anchor and
specialize.
And my timing was perfect. A few years ago, this crazy idea would have
required far more discipline and dedication than I could have mustered.
Maintaining a mobile writing business before the era of portable computers and
data communication networks would have involved heavy machines, tape
transcription, mail drops, a hundred pounds of paper, huge phone bills, and no
small measure of frustration. But now... well, this adventure IS called