Since Coming Back

I went camping in Algonquin last long weekend. Tried not to talk or think about the urban life we all live. Not a hard task when you're the only soul save a few loons swimming in a lake still as a sheet of glass, the fading light of dusk glowing purple. Nothing but trees, water and sky. Who cares about Youtube or Entourage when all you can hear are embers crackling on the fire, when darkness envelops everything except the stars.

But it's no way to live, just a holiday from the real world. You can't live in the wild like that, it's not an option unless you want to go 'Into the Wild' and even that can't last that long. The few hundred dollars of supplies we bought had run out completely by Monday and there was no ATM or Sobey's close by.

I've been struggling with a dilemma ever since I came back from South America, mentally dealing with the excesses of this society, full of useless and insignificant clutter that takes up all of our time. There's no escape from buying into it. You need money just to eat and breathe on this continent. And I feel so hypocritical, uncomfortably settling into the comfort of this developed world and scared of being consumed by it, swallowed up whole. Do I want to follow the path that this society prescribes? Do I want the life I see in shop windows, movies? Is it really so bad anyway? What's the alternative? Nothing feels natural but I need to decide. I need to go out on a limb, take the plunge. Suck it up and get on with it. Be the change I want to see in the world.