Acadia & Newfoundland by RV

Divorce at 75 MPH While Answering The Call of the Void

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My wife Jennifer and I have been scheming about how to step off the gerbil wheel for at least five years. Our Exit Strategy is what we spend the most time talking about. We both enjoy what we do to make money (more or less). Jen has an actual career that she’s worked hard to build up to what it is now. I, on the other hand, have never had any career aspirations other than to become a rock star, which unfortunately didn’t quite work out back in the nineties. I only have one criterion for whatever it is I need to do to earn money. And that is that I not have to answer to anyone ever. Since leaving the film business, in 2006 that goal has so far been reached. And I’m more thankful for that than I can express.

But, we’re also angsty Gen Xers and we’ve been doing the same thing for too long now. We’re on edge. We want something different, but we don’t know exactly what that different thing is or how to get to it. We’re also feeling the tick-tock of the clock that constantly removes the time we have left to do what we want to do in life. (Clocks are assholes. So is gravity.) We’ve talked about selling our house and getting a smaller place. We’ve talked about living in Hanoi for 3 months out of the year. We talk about Tuk Tuk races in India and hanging out in Bali and Costa Rica. We talk about shutting down parts of our businesses. We occasionally talk about shutting down all parts of our businesses. We talk constantly about the different ideas we have, but when the time comes to implement any of these things, we start to fall apart. We fall apart because we’re unsure and afraid. Freedom is at odds with safety.

We need a change, and we need to prove to ourselves that we can tell work to fuck right off now and then. Yet, we still need to survive. That’s the big issue, right? You’ve got what you want to do on one side of the scale and what you have to do on the other. Tipping the scale toward what you have to do is considered responsible. Tipping it the other way is considered reckless. We need to tip it the reckless way. We’re in that head-space right now that gets people into trouble. We’re in that mood where you are apt to make rash decisions that are surprisingly permanent and can’t be undone. I can’t speak for Jen, but for me - that’s a great state to be in and it feels good. I love being unsure if I’m headed in the right direction. It’s a place I enjoy being right up until the tide of repercussions starts coming in.

Unfortunately, as we look down to see what’s below the gerbil wheel, all we can make out is a deep dark pit where shapes are so undefined that we can’t even guess what’s down there. So the choice is, to keep running on the known entity of the gerbil wheel, or jump off and see what happens, knowing that we might not be able to climb back up again.

I recently heard a podcast that put a label on something I have always experienced. That feeling some people get when you’re on top of a building, and you feel a strong urge to jump. The podcast called it the Call of the Void. Sartre and Kierkegaard wrote about it. Kierkegaard called it the “dizziness of freedom.” And that’s partly it. Too much freedom is scary. Knowing that we could do anything we want to do is terrifying. We don’t know what to do with that. We’re more docile when we’re under the constraints of time and money. For me, the Call of the Void is more about control. I’ve talked about this on the motorcycle channel many times. I’ll be riding on some mountain with an impossible cliff off to one side, and I’ll think to myself, “If I really wanted to, I could hit the throttle and fly through the air and that would be that. There’s no one stopping me.” But of course, I don’t. But I could. And knowing I could gives me an amazing feeling, however false, that I am in charge of my destiny, which truly makes me happy. Feeling like I truly have that choice is something I cherish. I’ll never take advantage of it, but I could. I could!

The point is, I don’t have any issues with tentatively answering the call of the void. “Hello? Void? How are you man?!” (Man is meant to be a term of familiarity with no gender implications.)

This was all a dramatic and overblown way to get to the point which is that we’re doing something that isn’t all that risky and that I doubt will have any tides of repercussions attached to it at all. Although as self-employed people, when we don’t work, we don’t get paid. That’s a thing that sucks about being your own boss. We’re getting into a 150-square-foot RV where we will live on top of each other for the next thirty days. We’re headed from Asheville up to Acadia National Park and then will cross over into Canada and end up in Newfoundland. That’s the plan, anyway. Hiking and goofing off will be the order of the day. I’ve spent weeks at a time by myself in the RV on work trips and I love it. It reminds me of my past days spent touring in a band. You learn what you really need. You learn how long you can go between showers. You learn that life really doesn’t need to be all that complicated. Now it’s time to see what Jen thinks of it and to see if we can live together in such a small space for a prolonged period of time. If it works out, I’m hoping we can go West next year. If not - maybe we’ll make a stop in Las Vegas for a drive-through divorce. This is a test and only a test.