Fur Jake

I chose to come to New Zealand for 2 reasons. The first being that in order to open my NZ work holiday visa, I had to enter the country before July of this year as I had applied and was approved for my visa last year. The rules are simple – apply before you’re 30 and enter before you’re 31. My time was running out.
Now that I am 30, I chose to come to NZ for 3 months in route to my next destination, and set of travel. Originally, I was going to go back to the states for these 3 months, where I knew I would be able to find work and hope that I would be able to save up enough money.

However, like any good traveller, I found an amazing flight deal which would fly me from Melbourne, Australia to London, England for about $550 Australian dollars. I knew this was a once in a lifetime offering from the universe showing me what I needed to do.

So here I am, down under and slightly to the right. I’ve been looking for full time work for 6 weeks, but have really only come up with the odds and ends jobs of temping. This upcoming week I do have full time work lined up as a receptionist in a corporate office.

My assignment is only 6 days and I started on Friday. It being Sunday afternoon and me knowing I have this work ahead of me for the week I only feel one thing – rebellious. I, as well as a good handful of my friends, know that working a job one hates is perfectly acceptable as long as that person is working towards a goal. Hopefully, a travel goal or at least one that gets you the fuck out of the current situation.

My brother called me last week with a similar sentiment. He wanted to get the heck out of his current situation. Obviously he called me – his travel bugged, wanderlusted, cut all ties from conformity little sister for her blessing. However he caught me off guard and I argued for him to stay.

This came as a shock to him. For me, I had alterior motives. See, my brother moved into his current apartment last year. He himself had made a huge change from leaving his business and his lady to pursue something new. It was not necessarily his dream that he was pursuing, but in my eyes, it was the first step in getting him there.

My brother is a very talented, but more so incredibly intelligent man. He has a lot of traits that I don’t, but the one of two that I am most jelous of is logic. I have the logic of a cup of jello, he has the logic of Aristotle. He is a very cause and effect type of guy. Whereas, for me, my favorite part of math was the If/Then statements. (Obviously because that was the closest math ever intertwined with English, my forte.)

If/Then statements are so simple. There is an “if” statement (cause), which must be followed by a “then” statement (effect). For example: If you quit your job, then you won’t have a paycheck. Even though I enjoy these, I never saw them the same way as others and remember having several talks with my nameless math teacher in the 800 wing of my high school, arguing that a then statement such as the example above could never be proven as the SOLE answer, so I took liberties with my answers. For example I would write: If you quit your job, then you will be happy.

Both examples [can be] facts. And a person can not prove one way or the other about either. Check, and mate, math. Because, like in math, also in life, there are these things called variables. Let’s face it if you loved your job, you wouldn’t quit it. In a way it proves itself, so these variables come in where we need to pad our lives with random bits such as full time work or money in order to move us to the next part.

I am a big advocate for selling all your shit and moving, or better yet traveling. Above all though, I believe in following your heart and your soul. It is hard though. Seems like it should be easy, doesn’t it? But some people are so buried in their own bullshit and the bullshit that society, parents, media, peers, or blah blah blah shovel on too.

You have to ask yourself what you believe the point of your life is. If you don’t know, that’s fine, a lot of us don’t. How can we? What is there to know? Really, really know? We can’t prove anything – so it is important to remember that no one else can prove anything either. Humans created society, and since then have managed to ruin the world directly thereafter.
I read an article the other day about why humans are the “controlling” species on Earth and the answer was that we are the only species that can be directed in such big groups. The example the article used was chimps and how one chimp verses one human would likely result in the loss of the human and the chimp triumphing. Yet, if you put 1,000 chimps together it would be chaos wheras with 1,000 humans there would be, at some point, order.

It’s fun to break it all down and realize we are just an overgrown species that has dominated for all the wrong reasons. For me, it really makes me place value on the day to day activites of my life and how getting wrapped up in a bad hair day, or being skint until pay day really means absolutely nothing. Like, even beyond nothing. It is so inconsequential as a whole, but to me it’s such a deciding factor in my behavior and actions.

So tomorrow – I go to an office. I will sit at a desk, in work appropriate clothes that I piece together from my backpack and I’ll wait. I will wait for the phone to ring or an email to come through or for someone to ask me something. I will then act on these requests and improvise “business being handled.”

When I clock out at 5pm tomorrow, I will be owed some paper (which we have forced value upon), the clients will have been contacted and the business will still be standing, doing business-y things. Will I be fulfilled? Nope, not in any way shape or form. Except for this promised paper, which isn’t even what fulfills me, but rather what I will spend it on that brings shades of fulfillment.

Enough paper to travel the world = potential fulfillment. Enough paper to pay for groceries, rent and a few drinks or a movie on the weekend = meager survival.

I think I figured out if I believe in god or not, thanks to an episode of Criminal Minds. There was an episode where there were looking for a killer who believe in the devil, and our love Agent Morgan said he didn’t believe in the devil only God, and our bestie Dr. Reid countered with something like ‘in order to believe in one, one also must believe in the other.’ I liked that because I don’t believe in the devil. I do believe in evil, but that’s a discussion for midnight, not 4 pm.

So I have never lived my life afraid of the wrath of satan. So what keeps us — or me — from committing ultimate sin? I don’t believe in heaven either, and the promise of a white, fluffy paradise never really encouraged me to act one way from another. I think it’s simpler than religion, and the threat of religion. I think it’s community. I think as animals, we all want to be connected to one another and to share our experiences, yet we have been taught, generations ago to compartmentalize, individualize and separate.

Imagine if they bulldozed over the USA, flattened everything, kicked everyone out for a while and then announced that it was starting over and it was a first come, first serve country. So land, business, trademarks, copyrights, money, economy, community and society were all erased from our physical lives and we were given the opportunity to start from scratch… what do you think would happen?

Do you think when we were allowed back in that everyone would return orderly to where they left and try to rebuild what was? Do you think some would take this opportunity to level up? Do you think some would trample over others to get what was never rightfully theirs, but could, by technicality, be now? Do you think thousands of foreigners would join the race to see who could get sea side land and who would be the first to rebuild Google or Apple for the opportunity to capitalize on something that had proven itself fiscally successful?

Or would we be at a standstill having no food, shelter, protection or hierarchy? Would we take the opportunity and the care to build a society that valued each member and did not segregate into the 1% vs 99%, would we ensure that all humans were socially valued enough to be provided with food and shelter if they could not afford, provide or build their own? Would we take the chance to build a country that we were all proud of, a mash up of citizens who celebrated each other and their lives and their opportunities to live how they want?

So when my brother asks me for my blessing so that he can sell his furniture, give up his apartment and follow his dream – what should I say?

I said no because he has a couch. I’ve always wanted a couch. I’ve never had a couch with the exception of the horribly ugly and uncomfortable one we had up until I was 5. Then when my parents split it was always arm chairs or love seats. All I’ve ever wanted was a nice, big, clean preferably 1st hand, fabric covered couch where I could lay and rest. That is what my brother has and is willing to trade in for a shot at living his dream.

So, ask me again, Jake. Should you sell your stuff and go follow your dream because your soul is crying for it? Abso-fucking-lutely yes. Sorry I didn’t say that sooner. I was thinking about your couch and not about your soul.

If I had $5,000 in my bank account I would leave Wellington tomorrow. However, I need these next 5 weeks to re-pad my savings. Remember, you don’t have to live every moment of every day with your heart so full of love, gratitude and joy that it’s about to burst. But, if you don’t remember the last time you felt like that – then it’s time to make a change.

Go out there and be a 12 year old boy in make up and a shiny one piece jumpsuit.