The ways of trout and men

"I sit in happy meditation on my rock, pondering, while my line dries again, upon the ways of trout and men. How like fish we are: ready, nay, eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook. Even so, I think there is some virtue in eagerness, whether its object prove true or false. How utterly dull would be a wholly prudent man, or trout, or world!"
--Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

As I read these words, I couldn't help but think about the two weeks (was it really just two weeks) at a start-up commune outside Des Moines, IA. With almost no time spent pondering pros and cons, I quit my job for a chance to put my thoughts of self-sustainability into action.

In less resume-leaning words, I've wanted to escape the capitalism-induced rat race for roughly a year. Once while trying to fall asleep, I thought about all the hands my bedsheets, pillows and pillow covers must have gone through to comfort my insomniac self. Where was the cotton grown? Who harvested it? Where does polyester come from? How much were the various human laborers paid? Who drove the materials via semi to the retailer? What was the clerk's name who sold it to me? What happened to those dollars shoved with efficient fingers into the cash register? Like water molecules in the Misssissippi: impossible to know.

The questions piled on top of me, weighing me down. So many invisible hands (no pun intended). Is it perverse to turn up my nose to it all, like a picky toddler? A fan of post-apocalypse fiction, I'm worried. My role in society is to consume. Economists assume we are all rational (as opposed to emotional), self-interested (as opposed to we-interested) individuals (rather than part of an interconnected web of global citizens).

***

Once on sightseeing trip in Laos, we stopped at a village. The huts emptied and a makeshift booth of wares quickly appeared. I found myself haggling with a woman etched in wrinkles for a few dolls. She wanted two dollars, I only had one. My friend gave me a ten, which soon disappeared into the woman's purse. Furious at being "cheated," I stormed back to the taxi, where everyone gave me and my preposterous anger a wide berth. This is what rational self-interest got me: a transaction that left me frustrated and alienated.

Soon I repented. For the price of Ann Coulter's How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), the woman's windfall was enough to feed her family for a week. A bit sick at myself, I gave away the dolls to a few girls at a school for children born with H.I.V. in Thailand. Seen in this light, a point of view wholly alien to the self-interested rational consumer, the trade was a good one, a tithing of sorts for the general we're-in-a-mess fund.

***

And so, with thoughts of anti-capitalism whispering through the hallways of my mind, I'm looking for a way to opt-out. I didn't choose this system. If I had any choice in the matter, I'd choose something much different...right? Armed with a college education I shook off that musty job and headed for the woods.

My dreams collided with reality, and there were no survivors. With autumn approaching, I was living in a non-winterized cabin with no running water, no harvest, and a coterie of washed-up hippies who kept most of their belongings at their parents' house a few miles away. To me, this was a lifestyle change; to them, it was a cheap vacation.

None of it was dull, so Leopold was right in that respect. Is my eagerness a virtue, as he intones from the warm spring banks of Wisconsin's Round River circa 1966? To decide that, it's time to pull out its antonyms: reluctant, loath, unwilling. Thank you very much, no. I'm siding with eagerness on this one.