Year Two

04.MAR.2002

Two years have passed in a blur since I gave up television. During that time I built a wooden kayak, started my own chapter of the Green Party, and traveled to Turkey. I also developed a talent for photography, built a photo gallery web site, learned to play guitar, and helped convert a barn into a greenhouse insulated with straw bales. I have a lot more time to do these things because I am saving at least 365 hours a year (nine 40-hour weeks) by not watching television for an hour or more a day.

Many changes took place as a result of cutting television from my life. I lost 40 pounds, so now I weigh as much as I did when I started college ten years ago. Because I am no longer desensitized to the visual intensity of television content (especially advertisements), when I see a TV in a bar or at someone else's house I am much more aware of its intent to mesmerize the viewer. Program schedules dictated when I would eat or go to bed, but these days my schedule is set by whim or the activity in which I am engaged; the variety is refreshing. The need to "rest my brain for a while" used to be my rationale for watching television; today I feel a heightened level of awareness because my internal thought process never stops.

Despite the significance of these changes in my life, they are far outweighed by my recent decision to walk away from a stable and lucrative corporate engineering job.

For 5 years and 360 days I jogged on the hamster wheel of the middle class, earning a decent salary in return for devoting 40 hours a week to doing nothing particularly important for society. For the first 4 of those years I was just like most people: the cycle of Work/Watch TV/Consume dominated my life. I had no serious hobbies, I couldn't sustain an exercise regimen for very long, I was not involved in the communities in which I lived, and I never traveled farther than an 8 hour car ride away from home. When I wanted to get out of the house I would often go window-shopping. I was bored out of my skull and I didn't even know it, but if I had been asked to donate time I would probably have felt that I had none to spare. My life plan was nonexistent -- I just kept the cycle going without thinking much about my future.

After a year into my post-television life I was satisfied that I was no longer wasting my time. I was becoming an activist, exploring photography and music, and I was about to leave on a trip to Turkey. I finally had a plan: work for the company another three years until I was vested, then cash out my stock and do something truly worthwhile. Soon, however, things began to change.

During my trip to Turkey I met a lot of travelers from all over the world. Mostly my age or younger, they were doing amazing things with their lives. One was an engineer who wanted to construct straw bale homes. Another was an adventurer who was starting a career as a wilderness guide. Some people had been traveling around the world for 6 months or more. All of them were open-minded and easygoing, and none of them seemed to care much about material wealth. Turkey, and the people that I met there, helped me see how big the world is and how little of it I had experienced. The idea of three more years working in an office started to seem less palatable.

When a close friend, housemate and coworker suddenly lost his job, my attitude towards work soured even more. He accepted the situation pretty well: he spent the summer working on an antique wooden boat that he had been restoring for years. I was less happy, having to "go to the big white box and sit in front of the little white box" while he worked outdoors all day. Then I did some math, and found that exactly half of my waking hours in a 7-day week were spent preparing for, commuting to and from, and being at work. Meanwhile, my interests outside of work continued to expand and I found myself wishing that I had more time for them. The lesson was clear: it was not a wise use of my time to keep working for a big payoff that might not come, sacrificing years that could be spent doing things that I truly believed in. I started aggressively saving money and brainstorming ideas for what I might do next; 5 months later I walked out the door at my job for the last time.

Had I not given up television I might have never begun to question my job. As soon as the old cycle was broken, what was left -- Work/Consume -- could not last very long. I started to question my consumption patterns and found that I was much more satisfied by making things for myself or finding other ways to avoid buying something new. Now when I buy things it is only after carefully considering whether they are truly useful in furthering my goals for the future; for me there is no more drug-like high/letdown that usually occurs with impulse buys. Once I broke free from the mold of the typical American consumer, the last piece of the cycle -- Work -- stood alone for me to scrutinize. My analysis boiled down to this: I was spending half of my life under fluorescent lights breathing conditioned air, risking carpal tunnel syndrome through hours of sustained computer use, serving as nothing more than a cog in the vast machinery of Corporate America. It was simply not worth the money anymore, especially since my need for money had decreased considerably.

As I write this I am in the midst of packing most of my belongings into a 10-foot by 5-foot storage unit. I am about to embark on a 6-week journey by train through New Orleans, Austin, Phoenix, and northern California with everything I need in a backpack. After that, I will spend the summer in Wisconsin working on a small farm where I will have an opportunity to learn and explore sustainable building and renewable energy technologies. My experience there will help point me in the next direction that I take in life, using my technical and creative skills to benefit society and the earth.

At last I have a plan - and a life - that I can enjoy and respect.

An edited version of this essay was published in Issue 41 of Adbusters Magazine.

Deathbike.net

Year Two

04.MAR.2002

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