The Weight of Questions

I have an awful lot of questions. For example...

Why is that many people can admit money runs their lives and yet they still submit to its domination? It's like people have a direct doublethink going on, they say money is no object and profess that it doesn't matter to them, that it inevitably makes people greedy and selfish, and then without skipping a beat, they go off to college or work hard to get that raise. They judge me as a "wayward adult", a "drifter", a "bum", but these words don't have any real meaning, just a negative connotation. All I am is a person who happens to have no money but still stubbornly seeks life.

So many people tell me they are jealous of what I've done. That I had a dream and went and did it. This fact astounds me over and over again, it seems like whenever a ride picks me up and we get to talking, they reveal their life dream to me in mere minutes. Like I'm a travelling confessional booth. And I always say the same thing which never helps, "Well, why don't you?" And they cite some reasons, but something indicates they are aware of the lameness of their excuses. Cowards in martyr's clothing. But one bigger question looms in my head, "Why can I follow my heart and chase my true desire, but all these people cannot?"

This is the split. I get told one of these two things, just after a new aquaintance asks my age. "Twenty years old? Isn't about time you went to college and/or got a job, son?" or else they say, "Twenty years old? Oh, you've got plenty of time! Keep doing this as long as you can, for many more years even." Never any middle ground. Get a job or follow your dreams. I always sensed this was an important question in my life at this age, but never suspected it to be the question. Which do I bow to? Reason or passion? Safety or freedom? Comfort or experience? Structure or spaciousness? Inside or out?

The great gift of my walk was not really what I suspected. I suspected to gain strength. Strength to persevere, strength to withstand fear, strength to go whereever I wanted to go. But what I found instead was perspective.

I had a dream one night during my walk. I was a dirty man in ragged clothes, standing on a snowy street, looking through a big glass window in on a big party. I watched the people laughing, dancing, arguing, gossiping, some looking depressed or out-of-place, with only the sound of muffled music reaching my ears. I realized the party I was looking in on was society and that I was now seperate from it, a distance detached, and seeing things from a different viewpoint.

I came back and was plunged into a world of worry. No wonder my thinking was so unclear, how could someone choose what is important while under such a bombardment? Scheduling problems, financial difficulties, social injustices... it all seems so trivial to me, so very mundane. After months without a schedule, money, or companions, all I can do is be filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for whatever it is I got.

So, I didn't come home enlightened. I don't have very many new answers. But I do have a new way of looking at things, one that I hope doesn't get drowned out too soon. And while I still lack the answers I seek, I feel that I now have a firmer grasp on my questions, and that may be the greatest gift I can carry.