Manifest Destiny: America from the Bottom Up - Day 12 - Milford, CT - Connecticut Rant

I woke up rather early in my soft hotel bed. I had the small sense of dread that I would have each morning that have to head back out onto the street. It is the desire for more comfort. The same thing happens when I'm really hungry. The inability to escape the uncomfortable truth is an aspect I never really did get used to.

I spent as long as I could hanging out in the room until check out time arrived. After handing in my key card, the first order of business was to get back to Walmart and return the crappy camera. The mile to the mall seemed like kind of a long walk. It really shouldn't have bothered me after 10, 15-mile days. When I got to Walmart I went straight to electronics. I realized that I just couldn't chintz-out on such an important thing as a camera. After checking out several ranging in rice between $50-$80, I settled on a $60 Polaroid...

 This camera would last me a long time.

I walked the mile back toward the section of town with the fast food places. First of course I visited Dunkin Donuts, having just a coffee, and worked there until late afternoon. Then for a more substantial lunch I went to Burger King, where I worked until the laptop battery ran low. For the very first time I used Google Earth to look for sleeping places nearby. The weather predicted that temperatures might drop below freezing.

I was in a particularly critical mood. Rhode Island had been such a friendly place, but Milford hinted at an issue with Connecticut that would remain relevant for the rest of my time in this state. I was also trying to figure out exactly what to do on this Journey, and was concerned about America in general. I was at Facebook and decided to try putting my feelings into words, and this is what I wrote...

* * * * * * *

There is such a different feeling here in Connecticut than in Rhode Island. Maybe (hopefully) it is only this city and not the state itself? I'll just tell it like I see it...

I find the people here half-asleep. They seem to hate their jobs and are just robotically going through life. They exude a sad kind of loneliness, even when they are with each other. I keep optimistically looking for a sunny point of view to come from. But...it's hard. No one has voluntarily talked to me. So I try to start conversations, but I can discern that it is artificial, like I am trying to force what I want from them. And that is not acceptable to me. It isn't why I'm out here.

The cell phone conversations I overhear are filled with angst and arguments. Much of language I can't understand though, since I only hear English about 60% of the time. So population is multiethnic and multiracial. The races get along just fine. That isn't the problem. I don't see outright cruelty either. It is more like submission to a sense of failure and loss of hope.

I can't stress enough how wrong people's perceptions are thanks to mainstream media. All we hear about on the "news" is murder, gun violence, drug problems, police brutality, political strife, racial and religious intolerance. But that is absolutely not happening; not at anywhere near the magnitude that we have been brainwashed into thinking. I've seen zero of any of those so-called problems from Boston to Milford.

People want to get along. But they are told that they "don't" or "aren't" getting along, so they give up dreaming of a more peaceful society.

People aren't hiding in alleyways waiting to attack others as they pass by. But you'd think every street corner in the nation was a warzone by what media projects (stabs) into you.

People aren't conspiring to keep one race or another down, and elevate their own. They just are not doing that.

People bitch and complain about the young Millennials only being interested in burying their faces in gadgets, or preferring not to socialize in favor of texting. The young people I've seen - the ones who aren't already defeated by being told they will never be anything more than menial workers - are bright-eyed and just as desirous of fun and togetherness as they ever have been.

I talked to a group of about 12 teens visiting from New Jersey (equal number boys and girls) last night outside Walmart. They were funny and courteous. They weren't rude or disrespectful. I asked for some directions (in order to open up a conversation) and they jumped all over each other to help me. The cell phones came out and through cooperation and with a lot of humor (no teasing each other or arguing) they not only found the place I was asking about, but agreed on the best way to get there. And neither they nor I were even from this area.

Kids are what make me know in my heart that a bright future is coming. Personally, I can't wait for them to take over, but you already know I feel that way if you've been a Facebook friend for a while.

I walked through the Combat Zone in Boston and then South Boston after midnight. I walked clear across the entire city of Providence after midnight--ME a goofy looking, naive Mainer just asking to be beat up and robbed. Not even the slightest danger approached me. I don't believe I am just lucky. I guess other cities may or may not confirm this glossy optimism--we will see. I promise you that.

To sum up tonight's editorializing: So far (and it is only so far) I see a political system that is divided in government, but not necessarily in our interactions as Americans. The only time discord arises is when people adopt the attitude and platforms of their so-called "leaders." Otherwise, they tend to agree on the personal views. It is advantageous to politicians for us to be kept polarized. Not to put too fine a point on it, I feel that that is treason.

I see a technologically capable civilization that has set up a system that could immediately spread the "benign virus of love" around the world, were someone to only show the way--in a different way.

I see an economic system where corporations have pressed, kneaded, squeezed and manipulated the average citizen into thinking that there is only one way to be happy: "...play the damn game that we built for you and shut up!"

I see a culture based on outside appearances. Musicians have to look a certain way--are you serious right now?!

Popular artistic standards are determined by out-of touch and pampered hyperconventionalists. Convention has nothing to do with art. Art should be creating what is conventional not the other way around. Thousands and thousands of creative people languish in obscurity and poverty, while mediocrity paints the picture of what "should" be painted, recorded and written. Then they pry open our heavy eyelids and insist that we only REcreate by gravitationally attaching ourselves to living room furniture while we sit there in our larval states, ladling consumerist crap into our minds provided by the glowing TV screen.

I watched TV yesterday in my room, because I wanted to see what it was like after nearly ten years of living without it. I was shocked by the plastic, duct-taped, low-standardized, bottom-shelf, non-quality of what I was seeing. I tried going up the stations and back down again looking for content that could teach me something without spin and without chintzy, greasy, plaid-panted used car lot-like sales approaches.

Do people actually take this form of entertainment as a legitimately worthwhile experience? Maybe I don't want to know.

How could any of this last much longer? Let that be rhetorical for now.

I am the result of a culture that has consumed its own children, sold away their futures just to stick the needle of power and greed into its veins. Now that it has gotten its fix, it is nodding off on its dirty philosophical couch, in a narcosis of artificial pleasure, while the scummy mold-infested building it constructed to last only for its own selfish lifetime burns down around it.

Maybe you say I'm crazy to be doing what I'm doing? Maybe you can't imagine why anyone would ever do it? Maybe you can't see anything on the outside of me or a motivation that makes sense to you, after a lifetime of being told that only doing nothing about the suffering and injustice of this system is the "rational" approach?

If that is the case I say to you that this bastard child of society was consumed by its own father and excreted out as a piece of detritus, because he didn't fit in. But when I hit the bottom of the trash can nothing was left but my naked soul. And even if I am embarrassing myself (I'm not stupid--I know I am looking like a fool) or trying to do the "impossible" I will wear that naked soul with pride. I will wear it on the outside. You will see it before I am gone.

Now it's off to find a spot to sleep with the peace of the animals, in the middle of a human jungle.

* * * * * * *

When I'd finished, I published it and interacted with people who were leaving comments. Realizing the temperature was going to continue to drop I packed up and left to find a spot. I'd never rough camped in freezing weather before, but was confident that I could do it, while also being a bit anxious.

Through the back streets I found the area I'd seen on Google Earth. I hadn't realized it was actually a steep hill and not just a field. Nevertheless, I waited until no cars were coming up and then climbed up the hill, locating a place near the back fence of someone's yard.

I laid out the tarp, then the rolled out the sleeping bag. Instead of removing my winter jacket I kept it on, as well as my boots and even my gloves. The sleeping bag zips right up to it's attached hood, and then drawstrings can tighten the entire hood down to a small breathing hole. It worked quite well and I fell asleep quickly.