Besides, things evolve. And I suddenly realized I felt a need to tell someone that I’m – and here’s where I realized I needed a better phrase than “old hippie,” and I hit upon – a “minimalist activist-artist” (MAA).
Here’s my definition of a MAA: We were swept up by the inspiration that life was to be lived.
But some of us were blown off our centers, fragile as we were as young adults in mind-controlled America. We met up with cons and other dangerous people. We had experiences that changed us forever.
My memoir, RattleSnake Fire – and my life – is filled with disturbing weirdness like this. And a few events are so terrifying I’ve never told them to anyone or even written them down. (Having my children stolen, as shocking as that is, is not the scariest thing that’s happened to me.) All together, it’s blown my life sideways and made it difficult to accomplish either my own dreams or social demands.
Besides not being inspired to follow the rat race, I wonder if I’m at fault in other ways. Psychologically speaking, I know my parents never had any expectations of me except that I marry a college-educated man. When I ran away from home and eventually became a divorced single-mother back in college (in Radio-TV, hoping to do radio reporting for a radical news station), their greatest hope was that I’d graduate to be a weather girl.
All my life I’ve been drawn to defend the oppressed, beginning in kindergarten where I defended the child who was being bullied. As an adult I took an active role in the first Cincinnati Peace Conference and teachers’ peace workshops as an organizer. I attended a church that welcomed all races and sexual orientations, and supported peace and environmental issues. I played a major role in saving Tucson’s downtown inner-city grade school that anchored a large multi-generational Hispanic population in a large historic district coveted by business developers (we saved it!). And I worked to save a sacred mountain from a huge astronomy development.
All this cut into income-earning, but it was far more satisfying than any job – and seemed more useful. And I really didn’t believe the economy would maintain itself this long.
So, I was wrong. Now what?
I still don’t expect the economy to last long, but as long as it lasts, we’ve got to last. And I still have the same attitude toward work, now with less energy and physical strength (at age 62). I believe I’ve given enough of my heart and soul and sweat to make the world and my community a much better place, and as an older person I think I should be supported. Unfortunately, our laws are more complicated than that.
I wish we’d been able to create those utopias, and had our farms paid for, and our gardens feeding and healing us, but we weren’t. And we’ve all been herded back to town, like sheep.
We never had a chance, really. We’d been educated to believe anything was possible (even outside the rat race), politics and economics were honest, and hard work would get a person anywhere. And we believed it. MAA.
I totally agree! Hope I don’t sound like I’m complaining. I’m just working with a home refi agent and reflecting on my financial situation from the long view. ;}
MAA – I like that! My husband and partner is just that…a partner. We recently celebrated 10 years of marriage and seventeen years of love. We both take the path of fulfilling work over money. We’ve not been trapped in cubicle jobs with the paycheck to bribe you into staying. It all costs. Financial “security” costs, too. I guess it comes down to which cost you want to pay. I’ll take freedom and willingly pay the price.