Bootstrapping Independence

My wife is out of town this week, and I am home alone. Recently, I decided to stop doing things to distract myself: I stopped working on startups, talking on the phone, reading anything, watching TV. I stopped doing anything except sitting and being with myself after work. Since I am home alone, this is a rare chance to do it and see what develops, but something crept up on me, a sudden great fear clutching my chest.

There are many ways to avoid being alone, to avoid fear and discomfort. At the beginning of the week, I gardened late into the night, and then focused on cleaning to distract myself. The next night, I told myself I would be silent, but I called my family for hours and watched a movie. The following night, I removed the TV, but read an old favorite book. Tonight I am writing.

When I was a child, I would sometimes feel the same fear. I would go into the woods, camping alone, a few miles from home. When the fire was out, and I was alone in my tent, under the stars, I could hear the crickets chirping and the wind howling overhead, shaking the tent. At first I would sigh in relief and relax, but before long a creeping fear would overcome me. Some darkness out in the woods was watching me, waiting silently for me to relax so it could make its way toward me. My imagination ran wild – a force of nature was outside my door, silently approaching under the cover of wind and darkness, slithering closer on silent wings, standing over the tent. Inside, I would stare at the ceiling, trying not move, trying not to breathe, waiting with a beating heart to see a handprint appear on the tent, push in gently to notify me of its presence, then disappear again, daring me to act – trapped. I was certain it would happen at any moment. The shuffling of an armadillo was the slow pull of his leg, the howling of the wind his laugh, the chirping of the cricket his soft touch on my tent, the darkness of the night waiting to swallow me whole.

Now I know the fear well. It has been a long time since it has visited me. Perhaps because I have silenced my mind with a plethora of work and distraction. Now that I have awoken somewhat, there is something lurking inside, a truth I know but do not yet see. I fear to see the truth waiting in my heart – but tonight I am sitting by the fire, I will put down my laptop, and I will invite the darkness in for a chat.

Like most people, I have tried my hand at a variety of jobs. While planning my career in college, I dabbled in University research (robotics and motion), market research, programming, sales, and IT. At the end of my junior year of college, the best offer came from a Fortune 10 IT department – it paid well, had a good career track, was a respected company, and would help me avoid the senior year job search stress. So I took it, knowing at the time that although it wasn’t the ideal job, it had much to say for it. Nothing else had inspired me either way anyway, so why not?

Over the following years, I grew in my business and technology skills. I moved several times for the company – away from my friends, away from my family, away from my girlfriend at the time – always away. I was promoted several times, eventually becoming a manager. My salary doubled every few years. I could buy a new Prius in cash. I lived in nice apartments. I ate out a lot. My hours increased accordingly, taking up some evenings and weekends, though in the past year I have eliminated that.

As a result of this lifestyle, I slowly, almost without noticing, became estranged from the people around me and different from the man I once was and the man I had hoped to become. I stopped talking to my friends on a regular basis, and didn’t find time or space for new ones in new locales. My girlfriend moved in, then moved out and we went our separate ways. I entered into a weekly rhythm talking to my parents over video every Sunday. It was clockwork, and destiny. My energy went into the company and my career. For what, I was never certain but it seemed that if I could move up the ladder, I should. I came home tired, and wanted to relax in quiet ways – reading books, reading the news, watching movies, or going out to eat with my new girlfriend and soon to be wife. Those times were the best times, but they were all too rare – an hour a day perhaps. Sometimes less.

I came to realize after my first year of work that work-life was no life at all. Perhaps some people are lucky, and they find work that is part of them, flows with their personality, and improves them. But not so for me, and I could see no evidence of such in my friends, co-workers, or people I met on the street or read about in books or papers. It seemed everyone was the same – we all worked for something, but none of us were quite sure just what it might be. Houses, cars, food, or wealth? I don’t think anyone works for those things. I certainly don’t, though they become a byproduct. Like a drug, once you have them, trying to eliminate them becomes life changingly hard. We become entangled.

I climb the ladder because there is only one path laid out for us by society, a straight and narrow path with cliffs on both sides. One step out of line and you risk losing everything your life has led to – being ostracized and labeled immoral. But when I stop to rest along the way, and gaze up at the mountain top of corporate achievement in front of me, at the people who made the climb to the very end, I don’t see happiness or fulfillment. It seems to me that the people who have gone the farthest – the business leaders, CEO’s, movie stars – look the most unhappy of all. I can see it in their eyes and the way they act. The black hole inside of them has gnawed away the humanity, and all they can do to feel alive anymore is drive a fast car, buy a speedboat, or have sex with a beautiful young person.

Is that what everyone is working towards?

I stopped being an honest person within one week of starting my life as a corporate lineman. Long ago I had a MySpace page with a blog that I wrote in pretty regularly. I kept a journal. I didn’t do things I thought were foolish just because other people did them, like watch sports and drink alcohol. I had opinions about many things, and was interested to hear others thoughts. My first week on the job, someone found my MySpace page and point blank told me I should not be writing anything there. So I didn’t. Later on, my girlfriend read my journal and we had a bunch of big fights about it. So I stopped doing that too. We broke up, but the habit I started when I was 12 never returned.

My interests never changed, but my behavior did, so if you asked someone who knew me what I was interested in, they probably couldn’t tell you anything. I take an unusual interest in other people’s interests. My boss likes football, so I browse the game notes and scores so we can talk about it. I find football completely boring and a waste of time, but to him I am a fan of an opposing team. I don’t drink alcohol ever, but at company events the big man up top jests at my iced tea, so I carry around a glass of fine red wine occasionally, sipping it from time to time without joy but a smile upon my face that even my wife can’t always tell is forced.

Over time, the lack of honesty in my exterior has leaked inside of me, polluting once clear waters. I have such a lack of personality now I don’t have anything interesting to say to anyone. My friends have drifted off into their own paths and I have not replaced them. To escape, I have floundered like a drowning man, trying one thing after another. A series of escape attempts each ending with little to show for it but a notch on my belt of failures. I can talk business and startups and technology and marketing and management all day long. I am better at those things than most people, though every company I start turns to dust in my mouth. But they don’t matter to me anymore and they haven’t brought me anything worth having. I thought they mattered once, but they don’t. What matters to me more now than ever is authenticity and freedom, two things I have been lacking for many years. I want my life to align in all its spheres. Today it is a fractured picture made up of many small decisions and life currents I never swam against, or perhaps only swam without direction.

This blog is no different. Until today, it was largely a collection of highly moderated pieces loosely relating to startups, technology, or my life, with the only exception being the Mundane Existence.

I am making a change, and I no longer care if anyone likes it. From now on, I will be honest here if nowhere else. I won’t commit to writing more frequently. I have proved over the past 2 odd years of hosting this that even when I try I have trouble writing regularly, though maybe honesty will alter that. No one really reads this blog – my name is mostly anonymous, and my family only tunes in when I encourage them to. Feedburner shows 133 subscribers, and I get about 1500 visits a month, though 85% go to read about Drupal Performance or startup launches.

I am done self-promoting for awhile.