Friday, January 30, 2009

A few cats and a dog

I did one of those career tests again. It told me I should be a forensic scientist; a live CSI member. That would be awesome, I did consider it long ago, but it takes a lifetime to get there, and I'm not really that patient.

Looking at it, there's a whole load of things I do the same thing with. I would love to be a forensic scientist but i would hate the road to getting there. I would love to be a dancer, or a machine technician, or a psychiatrist, and a lot of other things. I really believe I would like it. But the roads there are so intimidating. Most of all, the whole "protocol" about it bothers me. How I have to study one exact thing in exactly the way everyone says and write essays containing exactly what other people think they should and stuff like that. It bothers me so much, that most things I never get started on, and those I do get started on I fail because I can't focus. Being a writer is easy, in that sense. You do what you do and see if it works. With other things I have to do it the way others say I should. Some protocol is necessary, of course. But it's not the protocol of the subject but rather that of the studies that hinders me.

I dream sometimes of becoming one of those hermits living in the forest, surviving on what they can make themselves. Absolutely free and separated from the claims and rules of society. Alone to make their own mistakes. Responsible for their own life only. I'd have a few cats and maybe a dog, and it wouldn't matter if it was sunday or monday because vegetables grow on both days and the deers don't care. Is it possible? Would I be happy? I think, and this scares me, yes. I would. But something, most likely my own cowardice, keeps me from trying. Or is it the spirit of the pack that whispers in my ears and warns me from the path of no return? To turn your back on society is the crime society cannot bear, is that not so?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read about a woman from Germany some weeks ago that had been missing for many years and now they'd found her living in the forest under an umbrella. She told the finders that she'd rather stay in the forest but the authorities were going to try and bring her back anyway. So, I'd say society will forgive you if you turned your back because they'd think you're crazy. But to be honest, that hermit kind of life sounds very tempting.

Yeonni said...

I actually think that society will not accept this crime, and therefore decide you're crazy, which as punishment takes away not only the right of free choice from you (because crazy people should not be listened to and should be taken care of) but also excludes you effectively from society until you "come to your senses" again.

Kat said...

Being labelled crazy has never been a good thing in societies, as far as I know, and I would consider it a pretty harsh punishment.

ShadoWolf said...

Yes, the crazy label is a hard punishment and a way to tell everyone it's strange and wrong. Because firstly most people bound by society can't come up with any sane reason to want to live alone in the forest and therefore it must be crazy. And secondly, society don't like freethinkers who want to step outside the control of the society because it'll lose taxes, and labour and stuff like that. Big no-no. So instead of just condemn those who step out of line we can alianize them, make them weird and call them sick and crazy.

ShadoWolf said...

Well, what I mean is, I guess, that since society consider you as a crazy person you are forgiven since crazy people don't know what they do. So, I'm not refuting that it's a punishement per se, I just refrazed it a bit...

Yeonni said...

But alienising someone and calling them weird and crazy does sound a lot like condemning them to me. The "compassion" you get from being "crazy" is only another face of it, I think.

Rik said...

It is one thing to willingly choose a hermit's life, another entirely to be forced into it against one's own inclinations.

What we want is the ability to choose, not always the actual outcome of said choice.