The Rat Trap

“I don’t want the cheese, I just want to get out of the trap.” - Spanish proverb

Society overrates work and underrates leisure. Most have some inkling of this but are too scared to flee the rat race, at least not before the trap is ensnared in the form of old age and decrepitude.

I have fled the rat race several times before and make no apologies for it. In 2017, I fled in order to travel and live in China because the thought of selling everything and traveling for awhile sounded appealing. It was more than appealing, by the way. It was incredible.

You have to ignore popular opinion to flee the rat race. The longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes, mentally, to leave. We become addicted to our corporate benefits just as we do to our smartphones. We steadily conflate our work identity with our real one.

Breaking from the herd is difficult for a social animal to do. “But what will you do?” This is the most unbearable question to answer, yet the answer is simple: what you damn well please for a change.

I left the rat race for the second time this year. I’m learning, slowly but surely, to be idle. I’ve rediscovered the library, walking with no path in mind, and my love of art. I’ve lounged, and spent a lot of time doing a whole lot of nothing. I’ve practiced the art of the afternoon nap. What I haven’t done is stress myself.

The benefits and retirement packages are the cheese. I enjoy quality cheese, but the kind they give you at work is processed garbage.

2024: A Hopeful Step Back

Sometimes you have to take a step backward to move forward. I have a pervading sense that backtracking will be a theme for me in 2024. I’ve realized, through trial and error, that I want to revert certain aspects of my life.

The first change surrounds my cycling. I tested the waters of fitness cycling for a few years and have decided to go back to my bike commuter roots. Broken bones are not the primary reason for this. I find the most joy in keeping cycling simple: just hopping on a commuter bike and riding around a park, or on a short trip to the grocery store. I envision my future and cannot see myself embracing cycling as a sport: it just seems like an added stressor, and cycling is supposed to be my stress relief. So, I’m selling my endurance bike and a lot of my cycling apparel.

I often find the most joy in life when I keep everything simplified. Cycling for me is a prime example of this. I want cycling to be an adventure, not a chore. I want it to be organic and raw, not an exercise monitored by GPS watches and power meters. I want to breathe fresh air and have the world slow down, not obsess myself over the desire to speed up. I generally hate “intervals,” so why am I pigeoning myself into more of them during a hobby?

I want to rid myself of the Protestant work ethic while on a bike.

I’m also ditching the Kindle in favor of more physical books. I read far too much via blue screen. There was a time in my life when I only read text on paper. Electronic reading is a strain on the eyes. Sometimes I wonder if our screens will render all of us prematurely blind.

I’m aiming to write more reviews. Years ago I enjoyed providing reviews of various elements of pop culture and I’d like to return to the habit. Some of my favorite authors, including Edgar Allen Poe and George Orwell, were also prolific reviewers.

Finally, I’m prioritizing my own dreams. Over the years I’ve let them slip too much for the sake of money and as I look up the capitalist heirarchical ladder, I don’t see more money solving any problems. In fact, I see more money creating new problems.

When I die, I don’t foresee anyone reading a eulogy about how much money I made or how productive I was as an employee. That would be terrible as part of anyone’s eulogy, and the thought of that having anything to do with my character is nauseating.

What would I want to be said at my funeral? I think everyone must ask himself or herself this question at some point and come to terms with the finiteness of life. I think for me, the answers are starting to be more apparent, and they have nothing to do with materialism.

So here’s to 2024, a step back for the sake of forward movement.