I'm a gay guy who was raised by hippies in Provincetown, MA, USA - a small beach town on Cape Cod that's since become a thriving gay resort. I'm pushing 50 now so I remember when it was more an art colony nestled within a Portuguese fishing village, before wave after wave of gentrification forced most of those folks out.
Gentrification has followed me my whole life. The apartments rented during my teen years in places like Cambridge and San Francisco are now million dollar condominiums. The neighborhoods in London, Amsterdam and Manhattan I once called home are now swarming with bankster types and their attendants. While most folks in this world have seen economic stagnation or worse, I've watch this gang of thieves grow and prosper and reorganize communities to their liking.
In many ways, the move out here to Southeast Vermont was an attempt to escape that monied culture. And after half a decade I can call this effort successful on several fronts. Certainly the big corporations have less of a hold on the zeitgeist here - we don't even allow them to post billboards! And while Vermont has the largest number of one percenters per capita, they can be safely avoided by staying out of the ski towns. I was lucky to find a small, working class village right on the river with a functional downtown and local farms all around.
From this placid and wholesome vantage point, the wider culture looks quite insane... The American Empire seems to be unraveling now and responding like a wounded animal that's cornered itself in for the fight of its life. I don't zoom in on much of it, but television offers many caricatures of the psychological traps folks are falling into - the widespread denial, bargaining, scapegoating, etc. that exposes our collective failure to come to terms with our new situation. Hard to know where it's all ultimately heading, but it doesn't seem a healthy or balanced place.
As a double Libra, balance could hardly be more important to me. I also rank as an INFJ on the Meyers Briggs personality test so am particular sensitive to injustices and generally protective of what I see as wholesome and authentic. So I guess it's no surprise that I recoil from much of what I see in this world and seek to insulate my life from its ill effects. It's also little surprise that others don't feel the same since I am a rare bird, statistically.
What might be surprising is that I stuck in there for as long as I did, living in big urban centers and filling my awareness with all that entails. But that's where the other gay guys were, so I had to wait until the sex drive waned a bit and other matters could become more important. I'm thankful that day finally arrived and like other men my age I've since focussed on building a life and career more closely aligned with what I value and enjoy most in life.
For me it was small town living, like I experienced growing up in that funky seaside village. It was getting my hands into some dirt, tending a small flock of chickens and taking a hike in the woods each morning with the pooch. It was programming a browser based video editor, but then giving the code away open source so as to build a consulting business around it. It was sacrificing my place in the gay urban community for the joy of knowing my neighbors and having a vote at town meeting. It was taking a few steps along a path I'm still following, curious where it might lead...
No comments:
Post a Comment