"Get busy living, or get busy dying." - Andy Dufresne
Shortly after writing this last entry, I was overtaken by something of a financial windfall that came my way contingent on me working every waking hour to meet arbitrarily tight deadlines imposed upon me by some particularly difficult customers. I nonetheless performed, throughout September and October, because The System had me. I had a Honda Element to finish paying off, and more expenses to cut for a presumably tighter future. Yes, Master.
We did go a few places, but our outings were primarily restricted to parks and recreation. We truly came to discover and enjoy Bahia Honda State Park in early October. We walked the trails that run through No Name Key.
By the time November dawned, I had paid off that Honda Element and further cut monthly expenditures by almost $900. So began the acceleration of my divorce from The System, to which I had been wedded for some years now.
It would be a mischaracterization to say that I had spent freely; Indeed I had been chided in the past for not flaunting it, having gotten it. I preferred cash-and-carry in all situations. My car had been nonetheless financed, owing somewhat to the haste with which we had moved to the Keys in 2008.
I retain a few lines of credit, which I could use to purchase just about anything I could imagine. Fortunately for my own future, I no longer imagine owning more possessions, for with them comes the reality of unnecessary toil, which brings us more to the point: I love my life, I love my home, and I love my family. I don't enjoy working long hours just to get more gadgets and pay debts; As enviable as the revenue figures may seem, I consider this to be slavery to desire. Failure.
Aside from the purely financial aspects, other right changes were made in life, to include the rediscovery of baking bread,
The joy of clam pasta,
And, not just the discovery of blue crabs in Cudjoe Key, but much success in the dip-netting of same (you don't even need bait):
There's nothing in the whole world cheaper and healthier than free protein, that you hunted yourself, after riding to your blue crab honey hole on a bicycle. We also learned to identify the freshest green coconuts and drink coconut water, another free perk that comes with the zipcode.
We didn't stop there, either. Our lease is up in the springtime, and with its termination comes a great opportunity to trim even more fat from our monthly expenditures, if we have the courage. We began preparations by throwing out papers, books, optical media, bag after bag after bag of trash, including a Honda Element run to the dump which cost about $18 at 6 cents a pound. We've reduced close to half a ton of stuff, but we've only just begun. Nearly all of our furniture is likely to get the axe, being of the large, heavy sort. Relics, we would say, of a life we no longer want. There's still quite a few things that, having more value than trash, need selling.
Our plan for spring 2011 includes much smaller living accommodations, eating as much as possible by foraging for fruit and hunting seafood, with the end result of less dependence, on paid labor, on money, on whatever. Just less dependence. And if we should decide not to work, we'll not stay at home fretting over how we're going to eat. We'll go out crabbing and fishing all day and have a great time.
I suspect we'll be happier than even the most decadent day of 2007.