Vagabond: somebody who has no permanent place to live and wanders from place to place.
When I first met Mingus he said that he could tell that I wasn't going to "stick around". When I first befriended Foressa she said that something about me told her not to get too close, because I wasn't going to stay in Raleigh. I suppose my search for something beyond wherever I am has always shown on my face or in my personality...
For those who don't know, I'm moving again. It's becoming a way of life for me. (I already hear the rumblings of the landlubbers: "why don't you settle down?" they say. To that I reply "avast ye scoundrel haters!"). I've made two big moves in my life. The first from Michigan to NYC, the second from NYC to Raleigh. Now I'm making it three with a move from Raleigh to Philly. It's an interesting experience, being a vagabond. For one, you learn who your friends are and who you really care about (by learning whether you/they are willing to do the work of love across distances). And you find out the amazing tenacity of the human soul. But really the vagabond life, for me, wasn't really about wanting to always be on the move. It's one of those "choices" that only makes sense if you know what the constraints are.
I have lived nomadically ever since I can remember. That is, I have always lived in someone else's world and on someone else's terms and, never wanting to accept these terms, I have been constantly (internally or externally) on the move. And this because I am different, because I dream and my dreams are demanding, making me irredemibly convinced of their objectivity.
[Radicalism, after all, is the ability to see the possible in the actual, the courage to announce the presence of Marvel, and the conviction whose strength allows us to sacrifice everything in order to make the possible a reality.]
Some men today announce that the world is flat. This is an inaccurate depiction of the state of social relations; inequality is rife. Yet it accurately describes the radical despair of an age in which the pharisees announce that "there are no alternatives" to misery. For those who accept the "end of history," the world is indeed flat. Pragmatism, utilitarianism, "realism"--all of these are forms of despair. they are the reduction of reality to actuality: the world deprived of meaning/The Marvelous.
Whenever such reductionism begins to crowd in around me I start itching for the open road where anything is indeed possible (even death).
And why should I not believe in the soundness of such reason? I recall the archetypes of my delirious wilderness visions when I listen to stories of hope and desperation in the houses of the destitute--both were about a different place, and a self almost too magnificent to believe in. A new world. Salvation. The name for that place and that self are forgoteen. Yet we all make fools of ourselves grasping for a word or a phrase to commincate our experience of them to others.
The vagabond is the one who decides to utter nonsense, collect "supersitions", to take every map, every scrap of information, every hunch, dream, legend and story and set out on a search for the longed for place and self: the human being and the just society. S/he soon discovers that it is not one but many places, not one, but many selves; holy sites where various peoples have imbued the world with dreams and hope and courage. The vagabond thus becomes a pilgrim to the holy sites of wo/men and communities, an initiate to humanity's charished dreams of dignity.
For some just the taste of the possible is enough. But the vagabond is drawn to something more, beyond journeys and the holy sites. From each mosque/body/university/landscape that is holy s/he has gathered a hint of something deeper. Each experience of tranquility and understanding, each thrashing moment of terror and mercy, each desperate or grateful prayer--all of these are but single intimations of something greater.
A whisper of grandeur rends his heart with beauty. It may sound absurd but the experience of a landscape, of poverty, even the smell of ginger compel her to ask "by what principle do we continue to live?" "why doesn't the earth relent and fall out of orbit?" "for whom was the human soul crafted with such endurance?" "why, oh why, do i still dream of freedom?"
Searching, wandering. I believe that people, places, and answers are connected. Travelling is a way of moving between ways of living, which is another way of saying ways of asking questions.
When I first met Mingus he said that he could tell that I wasn't going to "stick around". When I first befriended Foressa she said that something about me told her not to get too close, because I wasn't going to stay in Raleigh. I suppose my search for something beyond wherever I am has always shown on my face or in my personality...
For those who don't know, I'm moving again. It's becoming a way of life for me. (I already hear the rumblings of the landlubbers: "why don't you settle down?" they say. To that I reply "avast ye scoundrel haters!"). I've made two big moves in my life. The first from Michigan to NYC, the second from NYC to Raleigh. Now I'm making it three with a move from Raleigh to Philly. It's an interesting experience, being a vagabond. For one, you learn who your friends are and who you really care about (by learning whether you/they are willing to do the work of love across distances). And you find out the amazing tenacity of the human soul. But really the vagabond life, for me, wasn't really about wanting to always be on the move. It's one of those "choices" that only makes sense if you know what the constraints are.
I have lived nomadically ever since I can remember. That is, I have always lived in someone else's world and on someone else's terms and, never wanting to accept these terms, I have been constantly (internally or externally) on the move. And this because I am different, because I dream and my dreams are demanding, making me irredemibly convinced of their objectivity.
[Radicalism, after all, is the ability to see the possible in the actual, the courage to announce the presence of Marvel, and the conviction whose strength allows us to sacrifice everything in order to make the possible a reality.]
Some men today announce that the world is flat. This is an inaccurate depiction of the state of social relations; inequality is rife. Yet it accurately describes the radical despair of an age in which the pharisees announce that "there are no alternatives" to misery. For those who accept the "end of history," the world is indeed flat. Pragmatism, utilitarianism, "realism"--all of these are forms of despair. they are the reduction of reality to actuality: the world deprived of meaning/The Marvelous.
Whenever such reductionism begins to crowd in around me I start itching for the open road where anything is indeed possible (even death).
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds thatIt is my refusal to accept an adaptive/accomodationist approach to life that started me wandering. And it has also been my rejection of the idea that "idealistic dreamers" must live on the periphery of society because everyone else is happy with mediocrity. No, I sense that there is something stirring in all of us longing for Marvel, Wonder, Awe. There is something brave and daring at the root of being human and I mean to learn its name so that, in speaking it, I may stir the hearts of others to reject inheritance and embrace creation.
would hold me. (Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road")
And why should I not believe in the soundness of such reason? I recall the archetypes of my delirious wilderness visions when I listen to stories of hope and desperation in the houses of the destitute--both were about a different place, and a self almost too magnificent to believe in. A new world. Salvation. The name for that place and that self are forgoteen. Yet we all make fools of ourselves grasping for a word or a phrase to commincate our experience of them to others.
The vagabond is the one who decides to utter nonsense, collect "supersitions", to take every map, every scrap of information, every hunch, dream, legend and story and set out on a search for the longed for place and self: the human being and the just society. S/he soon discovers that it is not one but many places, not one, but many selves; holy sites where various peoples have imbued the world with dreams and hope and courage. The vagabond thus becomes a pilgrim to the holy sites of wo/men and communities, an initiate to humanity's charished dreams of dignity.
For some just the taste of the possible is enough. But the vagabond is drawn to something more, beyond journeys and the holy sites. From each mosque/body/university/landscape that is holy s/he has gathered a hint of something deeper. Each experience of tranquility and understanding, each thrashing moment of terror and mercy, each desperate or grateful prayer--all of these are but single intimations of something greater.
A whisper of grandeur rends his heart with beauty. It may sound absurd but the experience of a landscape, of poverty, even the smell of ginger compel her to ask "by what principle do we continue to live?" "why doesn't the earth relent and fall out of orbit?" "for whom was the human soul crafted with such endurance?" "why, oh why, do i still dream of freedom?"
Searching, wandering. I believe that people, places, and answers are connected. Travelling is a way of moving between ways of living, which is another way of saying ways of asking questions.
4 comments:
"At home, or at least having been guests, in many countries of the spirit; having escaped again and again from the musty agreeable nooks into which predilection and prejudice, youth, origin, the accidents of people and books or even exhaustion from wanderings seemed to have banished us; full of malice against the lures of dependence that lie hidden in honors, or money, or offices, or enthusiasms of the senses; grateful even to need and vacillating sickness because they always released us from some rule and its “prejudice,” grateful to god, devil, sheep, and worm in us, curious to the point of vice, investigators to the point of cruelty, with uninhibited fingers for the unfathomable, with teeth and stomach for what is most indigestible, ready for every craft that requires a sense of acuteness and acute senses, ready for every venture, thanks to an excess of “free will,” with fore- and back-souls into whose ultimate intentions nobody can look so easily, with fore- and backgrounds which no foot is likely to traverse to the end, concealed under cloaks of light, conquerors despite our resemblance to heirs and wastrels, organizers and collectors from morning till late, misers of our riches and our crammed drawers, economical in learning and forgetting, inventive in schemata, occasionally proud of tables of categories, occasionally pedants, occasionally night owls of work even in broad daylight; yes, when it is necessary even scarecrows—" (from Beyond Good and Evil, FN)
you rucksack romantic;} keep going, but master something, solidify your relationships, seek the living concrete truth, and don't die young!
ah, such a beautiful quote sr. tempter! and yes, yes i am oh-so-very romantic. but don't let that fool you. it's not haphazard. and perhaps it is for me to master the art of searching, of living life as a search. and those relationships that solidify will be those that grow stronger despite (and because) of the rhythms of my life/movement.
as far as dying young, who knows? i do my best to take care, but the point of life is living, which also means dying, verdad?
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