This is a little essay I put together to answer an honest question from a great guy and strong supporter of my IWALLK efforts. He has only been following along for a relatively short amount of time, but his excellent question has given me the opportunity to attempt to clear up a bunch of misunderstandings that have happened lately.
At the IWALLK America - Journeys Facebook group, I mentioned that I had been distracted by writing a business plan. And this is what he asked...
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Are you not content with what you do have? No problems just some, like wish I could just walk and meet ppl, simple is better. I think
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Here is what I wrote back...
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Sorry, not exactly sure what you're asking? Do you mean starting a business? I guess I can understand why you might see it that way.
First of all, the grass is always greener in someone else's yard. I wish I had a bunch of property (like you have) to settle down on and put all of my dreams for selfsustainingproperty.blogspot.com into action.
Secondly, if you or anyone else, wishes they could walk around the country and meet people, living the ultimate simple life, the only person stopping you is yourselves.
Rent out your house, buy a backpack, stuff a tent and sleeping bag in there and take off down the road. Seriously!
And, now with all I have learned and reported on from every possible situation you would run into, you have the perfect manual for becoming a Modern Nomad, camping in every single urban, suburban, and rural scenario known to man. Different weathers, climates, landscapes, regions, creatures large and small, people nice or hateful, my blog has it all, right at your fingertips.
Why young people who tell me they live vicariously through my travels and say they are jealous or would do it too, "if only..." don't, is way beyond my understanding.
If an overweight, 46 year old man, with heart disease, social anxiety, a umbilical hernia, iritis, psoriasis, depression, thoughts of suicide, a family who didn't support him morally or financially, an expired license, no credit or debit card, no job, no savings, and only $6 in his tattered wallet can cross the country - twice - and do all that I did.....? Why the hell can't you...or ANYONE? :-D
You personally have come rather late to all of this, so you didn't see just how intensely difficult the IWALLK life was. There was nothing simple about it, except for my living arrangements--primitive is more like it. It was a stressful struggle, every single day. It finally got old, and stayed old.
I no longer have the traveling life I am showing here at the group. I did the traveling thing for two years. It was never meant to go on and on. Heck, it was never meant to happen at all when I left Maine back in 2014.
And by the time I felt forced to go back out on the Maine Journey? No, I wasn't content at all. I was miserable, but trying to put a good face on it.
Now, I'm a 48 year old man who is tired of sleeping outside like an animal. For a young man like yourself, a decade could be spent doing what I did.
But, I had a heart attack (my second one), while rough camping, and am not able to keep doing this. I have no money (people don't donate anymore, because I'm not traveling).
If you actually have the chance to read each of these posts from the last two years, you will clearly see that it was not a romantic walk in the park. Every single day I struggled just survive. There would be stretches of four and five days when I'd have nothing to eat. That isn't fun. It sucked...badly.
It seems like a romantic adventurous life, until you have no idea when the next donation is coming in or whether there would even be one. Or, when you spend two weeks sleeping in a smelly soaked tent, while every single day it rains.
I leave a testament of what I did on the blog, and soon in print, because I think people should know what it is like to leave a conventional life and wander in uncertainty. I wanted to show the extreme of ultimate simplicity.
But, I have never wanted to do what I did. I did it because it happened to be a way to make a living. I enjoyed it because people supported me financially and the story spread enough to feel like I was reaching a larger and larger audience.
But, by the time I had gotten back to New England, and instead of reaping the fruits of working 24/7/365 with some kind of book deal, or grant for my self-sustaining property (what I worked on before having to leave Maine in the first place), I faced fewer and fewer donations to survive on.
People lost interest, knowing that I was about to finish up. They thought I'd be all set, or they just didn't give a shit either way. I imagined - fantasized - about all of the accolades I would receive; all of the newspapers and TV stations who would be falling all over themselves to get an interview with the guy who traveled 10,000 miles, slept outside over 400 times, kept up a daily blog, complete with pictures and videos, essays, inspiration and commentary, etc. These thoughts literally kept me going through the longest, loneliest and most dangerous days and nights on the road.
When June of this year came, and I realized just how badly I'd deluded myself about my coming fame and fortune, completely understanding, all at once, just how unlikely it was that anything at all would come back to compensated me for risking my life (perhaps foolishly), I couldn't stand the idea of returning to Maine.
I became more and more broke, and less and less relevant. I looked to people who had followed every footstep to be thrilled about my success in completing this unbelievable feat--and what I got back was a collective......YAWN.
This got to the point where I literally had nothing to eat for the last three days in Boston. That was my reward for all of the work I did. My triumphant return became an embarrassing ordeal--the ultimate let-down. I depended on other people to validate what I had done. But all they told me was that I should be happy for myself--that should be good enough. But, that was never the point. I was in this thing to improve my life by being seen as a winner--not return as big an apparent loser as I was when I'd left.
When I finally did return to Maine, I wanted to find a way to buy my acre of land and build the little house I've planned for - having dreamed of nothing else - for the last ten years. But, instead, there was *nothing*--zero - no money - and I essentially starved for *another* month, until I decided I had to get back out on the road again--literally, in order to survive.
That worked pretty well until that heart attack forced me out of the IWALLK life.
Rubbing salt into my scraped and raw ego was the fact that I was now saddled with $70K in medical debt, with no insurance. I HAD to rejoin the game that I despised so much and criticized so vehemently as IWALLKed.
I would have no choice now, but to become a hypocrite and join back into a game that made me sick--had stressed me out to the point of giving me my first heart attack back in 2006. I hated everything again, just as much as I'd hated it in 2014 when I left Maine as an alternative to slitting my wrists.
So if you are wondering why I'm not content with what I have, you should understand that it is because I have NOTHING. And, I no longer have the option of living like a homeless vagabond for everyone's amusement and entertainment anymore.
I have other dreams and ambitions--like this business I'm seeking to build. That is my next-best way to keep control over my own life, rather than working for someone else, and contributing something to society.
The lifestyle I demonstrated in IWALLK and have very carefully documented is something I am proud of; something I will never forget, but also something I can no longer do, nor want to do.
Everything I've just explained above has been written about in the blog, in much greater detail. I wrote it there so that I wouldn't have to re-write it for every person who hadn't yet had the chance to go through it with me the first time, by reading it.
I don't mind summarizing what I'm doing now in this way though, because *you* honestly asked. There was no way you would have known otherwise.
I have found that a few people still don't know why I am doing or not doing things now.
Another long time reader asked me a couple weeks ago if I was still camping out. I have been living at my sister's house for the last two and a half months since being discharged from the hospital, and wrote all about where I am now. She had no clue, though we had interacted on Facebook many times during that period.
Another long time reader told me she thought that I shouldn't live such an "isolated life," and told me that if my writing isn't working out anymore, I need to stop banging my head "against the wall" and "make a change." Then gave me all kinds of advice about how to re-enter the conventional world. Ha!
Someone else was "worried" about me, because of something I posted last night--a thing taken out of context. She thought I didn't have anyone to speak with "one on one"--again, there is the implication that I am somehow camped out in the woods somewhere, or live in isolation, or have no one to talk with. Ha!
People don't read CAREfully enough, and they get "concerned" about *my* life, without even investigating what that life is now.
I guess someone will now tell me that I should be flattered that folks are watching out for me. But, if they are really paying attention, I should say that I would be much more flattered if people actually took the time to READ what I've already written about it all; whether in the blog (just go to the archives and read the last few recent posts) or on Facebook (look down my profile page--it's all there).
I love attention. Don't get me wrong! Ha, ha! But, if anyone really cares enough to freak out about how out of touch they think I am with reality or whatever, I would really prefer that they do a bit of research before assuming, then drawing conclusions, or worst of all *advising* me on my life plans.
It amazes me that with the enormous effort I've put into telling nearly every single detail of my travels I still get the same questions and misunderstandings about what I did, what I'm doing now, and the reasons behind all of it.
It is fascinating! My life could not fit the literal meaning of an open book any better than it already does. It used to really bother me how clueless people are, but now I just have to laugh. And, write occasional, long winded essays like this.
I'll probably need to write another one in December, after I'm told that I should get a "real" job, or sleep in a ditch reporting about it with no expectation for money for my trouble--be a martyr so they don't need to be, or give up on my dreams, beliefs and philosophies just because I don't fit into what they understand about life, or complain that I'm this or that...
Honestly... I happened to run into a friend a few weeks ago who told me I should get more exercise--do more traveling--get out and see the world. ?
I don't mean to make it sound like you [xxxx] should understand all of this already. Like I said, you've just begun to get interested in my story. But, your question is a good opportunity for me to - once again - try to tell folks what is up with me. So, I thank you for that.
For other people who are just realizing some of this, I encourage you (if you are actually interested in my current situation) to check in at my profile page--which I update my living status at at least once a week. I do love you guys!
Well, I'm going to repost this at the blog itself, because I think it might help clear up some misunderstandings that have still been swirling around lately, and some folks don't "do" Facebook.
Keepin' it real. Milwaukee's Beast style.
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