There is an innocent glee about a good prank that makes the
whole experience feel like a combination of a snow day, your best birthday wish
ever, and discovering the secret to a magic trick. The disbelief, the
wondering, the reveal, and all of this sweet mischief happening outside the
bounds of expectations makes it seem as if a different reality than the one of
logic and reason. Through the subversion of normal that a good prank requires,
something alternate seems briefly possible.
Think of the Loch Ness Monster photos from the 1930s, or the
Cottingley fairy photos of the 1910s (above, from wikipedia.) Much as my childhood nightmares were
(almost) soothed by the rationale that Nessie was not real, that the photos of
a dinosaur’s head and torso appearing out of murky lake waters were not real,
it makes the world seem a little dull if we do not have sea monsters and
fairies. I’d like some places on the maps where dragons could still lurk, where
adventures with the unknown and alternate realities could happen. Where a door
to something, anything outside of the normal— which can seem stiflingly dull
and predictable—opens, just briefly enough that you can slip through. The
fairies may be paper, the monster may be glued in place, but how lovely, for a
moment, to think otherwise.
But, how would it be to live otherwise? Not that one leaves
bowls of milk out for fairies (although, really, why not?) or expects witches
and goblins to fly across the full moon, but that one lives outside the bounds
of what seems dull, predictable, and logical. This is Robert Frost’s oft quoted
“road less traveled” writ large. Which ever road one takes, we’re all heading
to the same end point, it’s just a matter of how we get there, and how we go
about our living these lives we’ve got, stretching through the yellow wood.
That I am living now, and that I won’t always be, I find this thought not
morbid in the least but rather a reminder to spend my days better.
Most times, this better-living doesn’t look like what I
thought being an adult would look like. Despite all odds and evidence to the
contrary, some little piece of me has had a bizarre Rockwellian vision of what
adult life should be. (Also, Rockwell’s psychiatrist apparently told him that he
painted, rather than lived, his happiness.) I’m now 31, which seems like a
comfortable age to start thinking of oneself as an adult. Someone who should
put away fairy tales and not be afraid of hoax-monsters, who should reconcile
naïve hopes of saving the world with what is possible, who should start being a
productive member of society and the economy. I should work from 9-5, find my
one true love, marry him with a large diamond ring, buy a house, have some
kids, vacation for two weeks a year, contribute to retirement funds, and so on.
Traditional wisdom and the lore of modern American media both promise me that this
combination of actions will make me happy.
I am suspicious. While many may find happiness this way, I doubt
the universality of this being the only true path, of any happiness being one size fits all. It seems like a hoax, which
in my mind has a darker intent than a prank. A prank is lighthearted, and makes
you laugh, after that brief glimpse of the door to elsewhere. A hoax is like a
methodical con, where someone more powerful dupes someone with less power and
calls it a success. Maniacal laughter can ensue on one end and feelings of
self-doubt on the other. This is not kind. I do not wish to participate in that
sort of game.
But to go outside the bounds of expectations, I’ll gladly
play that game. I have six years of advanced education and two degrees and am
about to start working as a low-level landscaper. A friend recently said
“You’re going to get paid to do what people do for fun in their spare time?”
That’s an incredible perspective, because it is true. I feel like I’m playing a
huge prank on the world, or, rather, on the systemic expectations of our
country’s culture. Let others scurry off to their cubicles, leaving home early
to avoid traffic on the commute, wearing pantyhose and neckties. I’ll just be
here, in their gardens, planting flowers. I can't even write that without smiling, without feeling like David or Jack playing a prank on their respective oppressive giants. It's like I've gotten away with something. And whatever that thing is, heart or soul or sanity, it's priceless.
“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out.
Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted
fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and
adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to
enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and
fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the
forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of
that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the
precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy
yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the
body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you
this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women
with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk
calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.” Such was
Edward Abbey’s advice to environmental activists at an Earth First! rally. It’s
pretty good advice for everything, though—pull your heart of out the safety
deposit box, use your best self for what you love, be mentally and physically
active, and you will be victorious over people who are stuck in the ruts of bad
systems and unkind hoaxes.
These folks with their locked hearts and desk calculators,
maybe they’re not willfully bastards. Maybe they just don’t know how to believe
in anything else, how to live any other way. We’ll have to lead by example,
then, like fairy tales being passed down by fireside traditions until the
archetypes are burnt into our bones. To subvert the crushingly dominant power structures, to exit
the tired game we’re not winning, this is the greatest prank I can think of, the
best trick I want to be part of pulling off. And, like any good prank, this is more fun with
gleeful co-conspirators. Robert Frost, taker of twisting paths, thought so, too:
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long. — You come too.
I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long.— You come too.
-The Pasture, by Robert Frost-
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