Careful what you wish for

In 2017, I finished writing my novel while living in what I learned is called a "shotgun shack" at the foot of Mt. San Jacinto, out in the California desert. Plenty of people were worried I wasn't coming back from that shack.

There was an old claw-foot tub in the yard, and because of the unbearable heat, I got into the habit of sitting in that tub and experimenting with various plant medicines. One night something mixed with something — or I was dehydrated — and as my body slipped into the darkness, I asked the universe, or God, or whatever you'd like to call it, what was the point of me being here.

I watched my mind move through all the essential relationships in my life. I turned each one over and thanked each person, knowing I would soon have to say goodbye to most of them. Or at least that is what I thought.

And then, quite simply — no blinking lights, no levitation, no fuss whatsoever — the question I had been seeking for twenty-five years became clear: How shall I live, now that I'm dead?

The answer came as two wishes.

First: I wish to live close to nature. I could no longer live in cities or crowded places. I wished to be as self-sufficient as possible.

Second: I wish to cultivate and engender authenticity — to demonstrate, by my own life, what it is to live truthfully and unapologetically, in non-resistance to evil and out of the transactional matrix that has so many people's heads up their arses.

As a younger man, I thought this life required me to become a renunciant. I'd have to find a community of like-minded people to look after my needs, or renounce my own will and follow the path where my feet were placed. Both paths could turn out to be the same. The point was that I had to give up a sense of control and learn to accept what I had been given and where I was headed.

That was six years ago. I had no idea it meant moving back to the frigid Northeast. I had no idea I'd quit corporate life entirely. And I had no idea what a frost-free hydrant was. They're meant not to freeze or crack. But they do. So you dig them out of the mud in winter.

This is living the dream, folks. Right here. In the mud.