Digital Sketchbook 3
The much belated third installment to my so called “Digital Sketchbook Experiment.” I have to apologize for the quick flashing text. It should be much slower, but it was just a side effect of the youtube conversion.
There is a War going on
For one year and one month I lived a life of absolute freedom. Freedom to live on my own terms however I saw fit. Freedom from worry and responsibility, but most importantly free from fear itself. I traveled far and dove to great depths learning along the way how far my own mental limits could be pushed. When I learned that I was going to be returning to the States I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to readjust to “normalcy”, but the longer I stay here the more I come to realize just how absurd it is to call this “normal.”
This time I return to gas shortage, economic crisis, government bailouts of private companies with taxpayer dollars and presidential race that is the stuff of Saturday morning cartoons. Much like a construction project, most people here see a progression so gradual that it is almost unnoticeable. They ask “How did it come to this?” I was born and raised in the United States, but I haven’t lived here for more than 1 or 2 months at a time since 2002. I come back briefly every year from wherever I happen to be and have found things in an ever-worsening state each time. Just as I suddenly see buildings where none used to be, I see sudden jumps in the state of degradation that our system currently propagates. Idly by, we sit.
Recently in Bangkok the people had a problem with their prime minister’s corruption. They took to the streets by the thousands, young and old, and they surrounded the capitol building. They closed the airport in Phuket and they shut down train travel within the country in protest. They took action and relatively mild action, given the region. Yet here, where your utterly corrupt government walks all over you, smiling and lining their pockets and their friends’ pockets with your money all the while, you do nothing. You complain in passing conversation before going home to sit in front of your television, mesmerized by the sensationalist media and empty promises that our next president will fix things. McCain is a horrifying joke of a candidate, but likewise if you truly believe Obama can change things within a system so far gone then I believe your naivety is boundless. May I remind you that two parties is just one more than a Dictatorship. Normal, you say.
This media has you distracted, striving for an impossible goal. Groping for the bigger house, the better car, the more possessions. Buy this, spend on that. After all, isn’t that what life is about? Stuff? I’m not sure you understand how disturbingly materialistic this society has become. Or maybe its just me that has changed. In Thailand I lived in a small bungalow where you could see light coming through the cracks in the boards on the floor and the walls. My toilet flushed by pouring a bucket of water into the bowl to wash everything down and my showers were cold because I had no hot water. I had no television nor stereo and the electricity was weak, cutting out regularly. But, the more things I got rid of, the more I realized how little I needed to be perfectly happy. Creature comforts are nice, I love having a computer for music, entertainment, writing and sharing, but in the end I didn’t need it. Having it didn’t make me any happier, it was just convenient.
It was to the point that I didn’t even realize just how austere I was living until I returned home and putting on tennis shoes felt like a new experience. Consistent electricity and hot water feels like utter luxury. But I can’t stand watching television anymore. A friend of mine tried to show me a program called America’s Best Dance Crew and when one of the judges opened her mouth it felt like my braincells were euthanizing each other. The “news” is depressing, biased and feels designed to make people afraid. I feel very out of place here now and I don’t know how to readjust.
I don’t know if I can, but moreover… I don’t know if I want to.
-Tyler
“There is a war going on for your mind
if you are thinking you are winning
resistance is victory
defeat is impossible
your weapons are already in hand
reach within you
and find the means with which to gain your freedom
fight with tools
your fate and that of everyone you know depends on it.”
Statesward Bound
So my laptop was a lost cause and I returned to the island empty handed. My luck has failed to improve since… so much for karma. I’m presently trying to claim the computer and camera on my travel insurance, but I place about as much faith in insurers as I do pixie dust and unicorns. The downside of not having a computer is pretty much everything. My t-shirt designs and writing are on hold, I can’t sort through any pictures I’ll take in the meantime and it was the only form of entertainment at my house. I have no TV nor dvd player, no stereo, nada. The upside to all this, which is always good to look for, is that I’ve started reading more. A lot more. I’ve downed 4 books in 10 days because when I’m not diving I hardly have anything else to do.
First I read Into Thin Air for no particular reason. It is the firsthand account by Jon Krakauer of the disaster that unfolded around him on Mt. Everest in 1996. Quite incredible. Then I read a stinker called Last Light, some thriller about a hired mercenary in Panama. To make up for I then read the very tiring Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. Actually I’m still reading it in the background of all the others because its taking me so long. So far he has some incredible things to say on many subjects, but curiously a few points of striking ignorance as well. “I have lived some 30 years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of value or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing and probably cannot tell me anything”, he says. Bullshit says I. The verdict is still out on Walden, what I have read is much more good than bad, but I can understand where Bill Bryson is coming from when he calls Thoreau “inestimably priggish and tiresome” in the next book I picked up: A Walk in the Woods. This is Bryson’s comical and throughly entertaining account of his attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. Its also peppered with lots of trail history, botany and the life; not really my bag, but the rest is grand and I would recommend it. Thus concludes this episode of the Tyler Capps book club.
Another up/downside of my smashed laptop is that I have to actually “write.” You know, with a pencil and this old stuff people are calling “paper.” I bought myself a little notepad to write my entries (or whatever you want to call them) and record thoughts and things that pop up whenever and that’s nice. I can foresee it becoming just as indispensable as my camera, but the problem is this: My typing is nearly fast enough to keep pace with my thinking, but my handwriting is utterly hopeless. My hand has to scribble as fast as it possibly can to keep up with my head and I still have to stop and let it catch up. This leads to my speedy scribbles being hard for even myself to transcribe unless what I have just written is still fresh in my mind. God forbid anyone else ever has to try to read this notebook.
With the loss of my computer and my ever-dwindling money supply the time has come for me to return to the States, if only for a while. With the slow season on the island approaching many people are leaving and I could probably walk into a job pretty much anywhere, but it is so slow that I wouldn’t be able to sustain myself regardless. With the riots in Bangkok making international headlines people, sheepish as they are, are canceling their trips to Thailand. 90%, in fact, of the people traveling to Thailand have canceled and this is going to amplify the quietness here until things fall eerily silent on the island. The sad part is that Bangkok is completely traversable with hardly any other areas of the country being affected. Why must people in the modern world let the media hold such sway over their fears?
I have to say, though, I’m rather looking forward to going back at this point. I miss my family, I miss cold weather and mountains and snow. I’d like to stay over the winter and save as much money as I can, do some hiking and skiing with my brother and perhaps make a trip out West for some real skiing before I depart on my next adventure. What that adventure will be, I’m not too sure yet. Right now my thinking points me towards South America. All of it.
-Tyler