Trading Security for Actually Being Alive

Submitted by Radreview on April 25, 2006 - 5:40pm

Nothing more painful than reading an obituary like this: "John Smith was an accountant for the City of Pixly for 45 years before retiring."

Damn. That guy missed a whole lot of life. Can you imagine living in the same town and having any job for that long? It doesn't have to be accounting (just the sound of that career option is enough to put me into a permanent sleep). It's just that the world and the people in it are astounding and anyone who is alive should see and do as much as they can.

I never regret taking as many jobs as I have, never regret growing up in a military family and moving all over the place, seeing a whole lot of life. And as I have grown older, getting fired from some job is actually good news.

Now I'll never have a big house in town (nothing with a fixed foundation can be trusted to protect you any more, what with home invasions now the most common type of burglary). Rather (and you've read this before) a scattered batch of mobile homes, so it would be easy to flee one tragedy and seek safety somewhere else.

Money? Gone bankrupt already (that's easy) and paying bill collectors has not often been a big priority.

Sure, my attitudes often have not helped people closest to me, but why depend on someone else? Why not be self-reliant, even if it means living out of a cardboard box?

I heard it best from a close associate, who said to me after we both spotted a homeless man on a streetcorner with a handwritten sign: "Homeless veteran, will work for food."

"Thay guy," said my friend, "is not homeless. He's just found another way."