On The Slow Tailing Off Of Involvement With Civilization

I am becoming increasingly mindful of the fact that by and large, I can get by without the bulk of civilization.

No, not materially really - not at this point anyway, and perhaps not at all to level I would wish.  But the longer I am here, the less and less reasons I find for wandering far from my home or going out on a regular basis.

Part of it, of course, is financial.  The less I leave the home the less I find I spend.  And part of it is simply that going anywhere (at least where we are now) involves a great deal of traffic, something I have never really been fond of (and find myself, in a curmudgeonly way, less so every year).  

But I think a great deal of it is simply that I find that civilization is rolling over me and passing me by.

There is a certain comfort in being a relic, a fossil, a thing which has suddenly lost most of the relevance of the civilized powers that be (and are trying to make the world in an image).  One can sink beneath the chatter of the ongoing events, ignore the breathless articles about how society is changing (always, seemingly, for the better) and the future is inevitably bright (although it never really actually seems to work out that way), and simply go about living one's life.  Good heavens, as I sit and think about it the very real possibility exists that one could, with a little it of effort, be completely oblivious to the world and its happenings.

But this is somewhat hard to do in the midst of civilization.  The world presses in on you in almost every way and at almost every level.  One can consciously concentrate on being invisible  (what would the modern version of The Invisible Man be? Someone who is completely off the Interweb?  Would they, too, eventually go mad in the world of the connected?) but the amount of time and energy spent on maintaining this level of invisibility is draining, like a Romulan cloaking device that draws some much energy you cannot use it all the time.

There are other things, I am sure, to be out away from it all.  Perhaps the press of needing to interact with someone can become overwhelming.  Maybe the disconnectedness of the world as it continues on would drive one to distraction.  

But how much more "terrible"  can it really be?   In the age of connectedness and control, the true rebel is the one who rejects both of these as the requirement of existence in the modern age.  The true counterculture, as always, is to not be part of the culture at all.

I am, for the moment, far away from this place and state of mind.  But even I am finding more and more reasons not to go out, not to tune in, not to plug in.  And perhaps, given my current life situation, that is what has to be at this point in time and space:  a certain level of involvement but with increasing levels of withdrawal.

As my hero Herrick Kimball would say, it is as much a place of mind as it is a place that is.