I travel far from the city. I leave the colony. I am moving away from this community of people. They all struggle as I do. I am apart of them in their world. They are wired like me. There’s no escaping the machine. Yet, every trip away from the colony becomes one little victory over the machine.
If you head to the mountains, alone, and stay out there long enough, it starts to change you. I’ve gone into the wild enough that I have many stories and experiences to share with my children, and grand children, if I am still around. There are things that busy city dwellers will never understand. They cannot hear it, or see it, because it is withdrawn to the shadiest and most secluded areas of the planet.
Where I go, there are no others except the sparse few that share the relatedness. On occasion I have passed them by and give them a finger wave from the steering wheel, or a shout from the top of a ridge. The isolation communicates with us. We know who we are. Gather round, sheep herder, hermit, recluse, hobo, you are welcome here. We are learning each others’ thoughts and dreams.
I am fighting the machine, because it does not have control of my life. I am free, truly free. Even the coyotes and ravens are dependent; they eat the rabbits killed along the road. Like them, I adapt and use the tools that benefit my survival. But I am sovereign from the machine, it doesn’t infiltrate my mind. I am a different from those of the popular culture. My existence is real; I am not like my captors.