Act I

Another walk round the park, more of a saunter, though with Nature never a drag. The forest morphs each visit. Even today I came across some five-petaled flower as a lighter violet, sprouted amongst the clover patches.

Lately I’ve fantasized to follow the same as Thoreau. Between the pine trees so some farsight mind channels an invitation: here you must make a cabin, live off your beans, chart a plain text accounting file, assent that everything else is a scam. Reclaim some dignity…

After all, the essence of land ownership is a fight to the death, no? Our current system is vaguely enforced (if we shy away from squatters, or is that all over now?) and that is the buy in: the state guarantees your deed. Even if property taxes assert that, well, the government technically owns the land nevertheless one can stay at ease, there are no commando batches waiting to capture your piece of suburbia (unless, again, dealing with squatters, but maybe that’s done with, I don’t know).

Though to the more practically minded, what is gained? There’s the HOA fee, then the endless triple blade grass to maintain, furthering our lawn mowing GDP. A pool rarely swam in, a porch rarely sat in. A fashionable hiked up smeared grey dinner table most commonly used for tossed mail and takeout. What use is a property if you refuse Nature’s bounty?

So sometimes I fantasize about going into the woods near here, swampy as may be, and begin humbly. After all, most of the stagnation in the world is due to men’s psychological crippling and inability to realize they can create and destroy anything. Today you most certainly can take the sledgehammer and section off a road, adorn a hardhat and fluorescents and suggest you are on some Official Business, and the rest of the crowd will nod most readily. “Ah, well, yes, I heard about this… they need to demolish these sidewalks, of course!” — when you indulge it becomes intoxicating; it’s partly why I’m so delete-happy.

The lemonade stand was supposed to act as a mild deterrent, but such humoring customers could also leave one misled. Social media may suggest the same, but whether it funnels to reality is a certain coin flip chance. Because, again, rarely may one come across another feeling capable enough of demolishing or building anything; and it’s partly a scam anyway.

You could build the most beautiful town, but won’t the jackals come in and raise the property values, invade what you built and raise their own offspring, stare at you blankly? Who wouldn’t feel like a shmuck? One’s creations aren’t always up for sale, but in this market, they may as well be. I don’t want to live with jackals… or maybe you accept you always were one.

It is this mobility which drives the GDP and, a positive correlation most intended, misery. There are a few good answers with some Game Theory, but I’ll take liberty and select one: fly yourself away toward the most inaccessible places. Endure mosquitoes, some brazen Sun, isolation fun, insanity maybe — live in Siberian parts almost untenable. Or not.