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.

Heritage and Setting Sail

In the mid-1800s, an Irish woman named Mary set sail for America. En-route she contracted ship’s fever, causing her to lose her hair, but she survived the journey and went on to make a living selling homemade items.

In the US she met a mysterious journeyman named Tom Fitzpatrick, whose origins are unknown, and they gave birth to Catherine Fitzpatrick, who grew up to own and run a boarding house, which she rented to mill workers.

Catherine then wed another traveler, John Devlin, an English-born sailor who ran away from home at 14 and traveled to Australia, South America, and South Africa.

These were my ancestors, and as you can see, it is in my DNA to be on the move. It helps to explain why I cannot sit still for long, and why the office quickly feels like a prison with florescent lights and prisoners who happen to have nice health insurance. It is why a noble death involves a fatal maneuver while on the most epic of journeys, not sitting somewhere and rotting.

It is why I begin planning the next journey as the current one ends.