Into the Wild

So this movie recently came out on DVD, and we rented it. I had read the book by Jon Krakauer on which the story is based when I was in college, and I was fascinated by the true-life tale. It's a pretty well-publicized story, but basically, this college graduate dude from a wealthy but dysfunctional family decides he's had it with society. He gives away and/or burns all his money, ceases all contact with family and friends, and goes totally off the grid for two years before ultimately going on a seriously under-equipped trek to the Alaskan wilderness where he lives in an abandoned bus he finds out there. And then some moose hunters find his 67-lb. corpse.

People generally fall into two camps in evaluating this kid's situation. Either he was a hero for bucking the system and doing what he wanted to do despite his demise, or he was a freaking moron who grew up with everything and thought himself invincible enough to survive in the Alaskan wilderness with a 10-pound bag of rice, and is therefore the biggest fuckwad on the planet. Either way, the movie has some sweet original Eddie Vedder tunes in it, and it's worth watching just to listen. It's also probably one of the truest true stories you're ever going to see on the screen, since Sean Penn had the full cooperation of the kid's family, despite the fact that the film exposes some seriously heartbreaking badness that went on behind their closed doors, and essentially makes it pretty darn easy to see how this kid could go the way he went on account of it. It does meander a bit, but it's about a meanderer, so you'll have that.

Now, not to get all philosophical on you people when you come here expecting tales about projectile vomit and Big K's most recent mishaps that have landed him in an O.R., but this story blows my mind. As in, it makes my mind spin around until it projectile vomits and then lands itself in the O.R. You see, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about money. Mainly, I'm freaking out about not having enough of it. When I found out we were actually getting a tax return when I'd spent weeks worrying that we'd have to pay in, I stood in the kitchen and sobbed like a bastard for a good 15 minutes. Every time I start my old van, I swear I hear the sound of my savings account diarrheally blowing some of its eternally shrinking contents up towards the mechanic. In short, I get upset a lot, and don't tell anyone about it.

So watching this guy choose to live without anything makes me question myself awfully hard about the way I look at possessions and wants vs. needs. I'm not saying that a growing family can choose to forgo healthcare, grocery shopping, and reliable shelter. But I do wonder why it's so hard for me to make ends meet. It seems to me that some people naturally trend toward frugality...it actually makes them uncomfortable to spend and therefore they find it easy to squirrel away their money. I'm not one of these people. I am a spender at heart. When I made a good income after college, I wasn't a total moron about it. I saved some, reduced debt, and put some in a retirement account. But I also blew absolute shit tons of money on whatever the hell I felt like buying. Lots and lots of sweaters. Many, many restaurant meals. Christmas and other presents for loved ones on an unreasonable scale (although that is not something I can actually claim to regret, even if I try). A general disregard for prices...there was a time I couldn't tell you the cost of a single grocery item, because I just bought whatever the hell I felt like eating. I still struggle with an addiction to fancy bar soap. (One wise friend suggested I start making it myself...so that option is on the table.) Anyhow, I wouldn't say that I was spending money I didn't have, but I definitely misused the money I did have. If I had focused on the matter, I could have pretty easily done away with the student loan I still pay for now; if I didn't have that payment, it would make a significant difference in my family's current monthly financial picture. At the time, it was chump change and paying it didn't phase me. Shit.

I could claim that I graduated from college at age 21, and it takes a special soul to be financially responsible at that tender age, just as you come out of the post-college Ramen era. I could claim that those first years of employment are intended for spoiling oneself, because it's unlikely that such a luxury can last for more than a moment in the grand scheme of a life. But it's not how I feel, because it has been a disgusting challenge for me to reign it in over the past year+ of the experiment known as "Ditching 2/3 of the Family Income, Now with 50% More Human." I remember when Phook became the recipient of Big K's cousin's hand-me-downs. His cousin has a little girl a few years older than Phook, and decided it was time to get rid of the little clothes. She gave me hundreds upon hundreds of garments for free, and said she'd continue to do so as her daughter continued to outgrow things. On the one hand, this was a tremendous windfall for us. On the other hand, I sat there and bawled like an idiot while I sorted the mountains of clothing on my living room floor. This emotion has since waned considerably as I've borne witness to the speed at which children's clothing becomes too small and too stained, but at the time, I just felt like a pathetic bastard charity recipient, and that was a slap in the face to my view of myself as a person who made herself a nice little income for a 20-something with an English degree. It is a revision of self that is not insignificant to transition from a role as the giver of charity to the recipient of charity.

So March 2 was the one-year anniversary of my resignation from my job. One of the major projects I've been working on, far more significant than revolutionizing my housekeeping, has been my attitude towards money and possessions. There have been victories, and there have been defeats. One moment of victory that stands out in my mind is when I had this home party at which I was to earn free merchandise on account of my hostessing the event...you know the drill. I had this catalog full of tons of high-quality items of the houseware variety. I love this kind of shit. Had I simply gone to a party for this stuff in 2005, I could have easily dropped $150 on whatever caught my attention, written a check, and not have ruffled my own feathers in the least. So I was sitting on the couch one night, browsing through this catalog knowing that I would likely be entitled to some of its contents for free. And although I found many things that I liked and wouldn't have minded owning, I just kept thinking, "I don't need that. I don't need that." I wasn't forcing myself through this exercise either; it was just happening naturally. When I got through the book and realized there was nothing in it I could really justify "buying," I had an epiphany and realized what had just happened. I had had what was to me a relatively profound experience in which the angel on one of my shoulders had soundly kicked the ass of the devil on the other. Of course I ended up coming up with some shit for my garden to buy with my fake money, since I'm not the one burning my cash and moving to Alaska to prove a point about consumerism, but it was huge for me nonetheless.

The thing is, although the kid in this story took things to a deadly extreme, I think he was right. He knew that so many things we consider "needs" are actually "wants," and he set out to live that out in its rawest form. In this house, if we evaluated our monthly bills, we'd probably have a conversation in which one of us classified high-speed internet as a need, because we both use it so much and rely on the interwebs for so much of our entertainment, "business" use, and general consumption of the world's information. And that is just fucking hilarious if you think about it, in a laughing-so-I-don't-cry sort of way. Needs are really only the things that are essential for survival, and I'm kind of doubting that the ability to instantly look up weather reports 10 days in advance for any location on the planet is really a valid addition to that category. Just thinking about how far I allow my wants to creep into the needs category makes me feel like a dick. If it weren't for brand preferences, forays into Target when I know it's a freaking gauntlet of disturbingly powerful impulse buys, the yearning for the occasional meal made by someone other than myself, and the godforsaken and seemingly unconquerable urge to have some new shit every once in awhile that I can use or wear or whatever, well, life would be a whole lot easier. What's the deal? Why can't I go all the way "into the wild" myself? Why can't my knowledge that these are just things ever fully beat out my desire to have that lovely new scent of candle my nose just happened to discover while my ass was spending time in a mall on account of me knowingly walking my own broke ass into said mall? Dude, I can really beat my own ass over this, obviously. (Okay, enough about my ass.)

And then there is the anger. For some reason, when people find out I am a stay-at-home-mom, a lot of times other women will find the need to justify their own decision to work to me. I find that phenomenon odd, because I don't really view my own decisions as a challenge to those of anyone else. And yet, a lot of moms feel the need to make their case for working to me. While I am no judge and jury when it comes to the choices of other families, my mind is not a flat line when people choose to tell me their own story of why they work. When people say that they'd go insane staying home with kids, I think that's pretty cool that they can admit that that's the case. It's a lot better to be a happy mom who can enjoy her children in her hours at home than a desperately unhappy one who resents every minute of her existence...quality, not quantity, man. When people say they work to provide healthcare for their kids, I say that's a good call. When people say they know they couldn't be happy living off of one income, I'm pretty down with that too, because it's an honest statement and if you have the capacity to come to terms with that for yourself, it's all good. The trouble I have is when people say, "I have to work," and then go on to list the reasons of the mortgage, the car payments, the kids' high-priced preschool, etc. I'm not saying that everyone who says they "have to work" is lying, but a more accurate statement could often be, "I have to work to afford my current standard of living." It seems to be such a rarity that people actually acknowledge that they are working to support the level of possessions they like to hold. Somehow the need for shelter has turned into a "need" for shelter than includes a bedroom for each kid, a furnished basement, an office, a two-car garage, a full stainless-steel kitchen, and a great location near parks and schools. I don't have a problem with wanting those things...if you want 'em, go get 'em. Seriously. I have a problem with people translating those requirements into needs in their own mind. That, my friends, is a delusion.

The thing is, it's not cool to purposefully throw your own socioeconomic status in the gutter. Your friends go on vacation and send their kids to this or that lesson or class and live in your nice neighborhood and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various retirement planning strategies...choosing to dial your own life back and opt out of the lifestyle you have come to enjoy is not something that many people do. The real problem, I think, is that this whole system causes so much unhappiness. So many of the people who say they have to work and then list the classic bills that stop them from quitting follow it up by saying, and meaning, "I wish I could stay home." So many people are working themselves into illness and unhappiness in jobs that they hate because they feel that their financial obligations are absolutes, rather than choices. So many people think they are trapped, and suffer mightily for it, when the door is right there. That makes me so sad. And mad.

Man, this has accidentally turned into a bit of a diatribe, and I apologize that this is not your regularly scheduled programming. But, dude. I can get really worked up about this shit. I can get mad at myself. I can get mad at everyone I know. I can get mad at The Man for brainwashing our asses into this mess in the first place. I am not making an argument here for extreme frugality, for disgust in the face of all human comforts, for quitting your job and moving to a shack, or for any change in anyone's lifestyle. What I am making is an argument for honesty. If you are honest about what is really a want and what is really a need, then I think you're in the right place to make sound choices for yourself, whether that is working three jobs to fuel your handbag addiction or investing in a 10-pound bag of rice and going off the grid. It's when we convince ourselves that the homes, the cars, the clothing, and the extracurriculars are necessities that we get all wonky in the head. All of a sudden 20 years are gone and you never sniffed a single rose because you laid in bed at night thinking it an absolute that your child's college fund be plump, regardless of the undying demand for pizza delivery drivers in every college town in America. Where is the comfort, the supposed security for which you are working, in a whole life spent running on a wheel? Dude.

I don't have the answers. My house is decorated for Easter when Easter has nothing to do with decorations. My closet has maternity clothes in it when my husband has plenty of sweatshirts in size XXL that would fit me just fine. My kid does not go without much of anything. I'm going on vacation in 3 days. I will continue to panic on the inside every time I click "transfer" to put more savings into checking, knowing that it is an unsustainable situation and that I will likely be cleaning houses or working in a convenience store on weekends as soon as Circus Act is weaned. I will try to make further improvements in my own quest for frugality. I will try to get even better at walking away from the wants that tempt me. I will try to evaluate my wants versus my needs honestly. But the one thing I know I won't ever be able to do is stop wanting. And that, my friends, is a real bitch.