I work for student services at a local college. Most of the kids that come in here have legitimate learning problems. However, we frequently get kids with problems that lay elsewhere. Those are the ones I see. For some of them, it may be their last contact with mainstream society. They talk about life on the road as if it were religion ..and then disappear. I understand the appeal ..I love the outdoors too ..but sleeping on solid ground for too many days can be rough ..not to mention city streets can be dangerous. However, talking to them, I get the impression that life on the road feels less threatening than an adult-life filled with obligations, sadistic bosses and debt-collectors. Periodically they try re-entry. Haley’s father wired her money so she could enroll in college courses. She tells me her problems started in high school. She felt so angry that she’d cut herself .. medicate herself ..and lash out at practically everyone in sight. She wasn’t making friends. At age 16, they diagnosed her with ‘borderline personality disorder’ ..whatever the fuck that means. However, she found a cure of her own: drop out of a school ..run away from home ..leave the pills behind ..hop a train for the west coast ..and don’t stop moving. She’s been riding trains since 2006. Now, I have a theory. We’re all born with a mixture of genes from our ancestral past (if you believe in that sort of thing). Some may get more genes from our ‘rooted’ ancestors (like farming tribes) while others get a higher proportion from our nomadic ancestors ..those whose survival depended on moving from place to place. For these kids, stability is threatening ..home feels like a cage ..and city streets make them feel claustrophobic. I’ve learned that there is no ‘talking cure’ ..no amount of reasoned-speech will overcome it and I cannot offer any recommendations for it. I think there will always be a segment of humanity that prefers a nomadic lifestyle. Some may work out an accommodation (like foreign service reps, traveling salesmen or covert polygamists) while others remain in perpetual orbit.
8 comments:
Wow. Thank you for sharing that. It brings up such a range of emotions and thoughts in me. (1) I feel sad for them. (2) I envy them...(strangely). (3) Jesus and Buddha were drifters.
I always wonder if people who are so...free... have it better figured-out than I do, as I sit here and fearfully cling to all my...stuff and relationships.
It's a really good piece Bill. Draws me out of myself.
Thank you.
Thank you ..! I think we all have a little bit of it in us.
I love thee outdoors. Love camping and prefer land to city, any day of the week. But not to have a place to call home. That just gives me the heeby jeebys.
How I wish I could hop on a train and take off. When I was a kid I always dreamed of being a hobo... I think it is the love of adventure and the need for constant change, the lure of what new people and things that lie ahead may offer... could be rooted in genes... Idoes seem quite natural in some, and good for those who can find a way to balance it.
shimmerrings
The auto biography of Eric Hoffer is parallel universe-y. . but the borderline social symptom is "do what I say, not what I do. ." Mixing standards have brain hemisphere implications that develop acute behavior defenses . . just leaving could be the most therapeutic?
Red ~ Me too. For some people however ..home gives them the heeby jeebys.
Shimmerrings ~ I used to spend summer breaks on the road ..Portland ..Humboldt ..Eureka ..San Francisco ..San Jose ..Santa Cruz (for like 3 weeks) ..Big Sur ..San Luis Obispo ..met many drifters who made this their home.
Mixed messages, double standards, defensiveness, judgment and never-ending criticism would make the road a more attractive place for me too
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