August 24, 2005

• I often wondered what it would be like. Frightening, yet fresh. Throwing the security of friends and family, leaving your job if you have one. Just picking up and leaving to start over somewhere else. Like the antithesis of Cheers... where bnobody knows your name. Still, I don't think I'd ever have the balls to do this unless I was running away from something worse, in which case at best I'd be fleeing from a bad marriage, debt, or child support, worst case, I'd probably be falsely accused of something, or a fleeing felon.
• But if I did run away, hopefully, wherever I ran to... I would learn how to construct legible paragraphs....
• I like to hike, and strolled outback when life got tough -- they thought I'd fallen through a crack but I had quite enough of this marriage stuff
• Met a girl. Both wanted to leave the city Put the names of 15 other cities in a hat. Pulled out San Francisco. Sold everything and bought a van. Arrived a week later. Started a new lives. Do it, it's fun.
• It's a lingering fantasy, sure. Usually happens to me on vacation, when I think "all I need to do is NOT step on this bus", and then start calculating how much cash I can squeeze out of my MasterCard before I dump it and start over. Or it's a little daytime fantasy at work -- where I would go, who I would become, how I could pull it off. But in the end, it involves far too much planning for it ever to be a spur-of-the-moment thing -- planning which matches the drudgery of my daily life. Allright, now I'm depressed.
• I did run away.
• with regard to these examples (in the FPP) i'm a little amazed that these people thought it would be as simple as a bus (or plane) ticket to somewhere else. Moving may be one thing but ditching everything to start over sounds like something else. We're so intertwined with mailing addresses, debt, career contacts, etc. (hence the last link)
• I always thought that running away would be a much better solution than suicide. If people were so burdened by their problems, then they could just run away and all of their problems would be gone. Sure, they would have new problems, but the old ones would be gone. I realize now that there is more to suicide than that and that running away would solve nothing. Suicide also is not necessarily about logic. But I like to think that if things ever got so bad for me that I would just take off.
• My problem is that I'm a complete fuckwad.
• In 1985 I packed what I could fit in my car and drove 2060 miles away from home to a place I did not know. I knew no people and I had no job waiting. I had 800 dollars to work with. I left a go no where town, a go no where job and a bunch of go no where friends behind. I went to work with in a month and started college a year later. I met some wonderful people who had no preconceived ideas about what I could and could not do. I made good friends and learned something about life that I wouldn't have learned if I had stayed at home. Best decision I ever made. I made that decision on an impulse. I needed to get away from the all the crap that was my life, and the family who always put me down because I would not just settle for marrying the pig farmer's son next door. You know be the good little girl, become the good little wife. Have babies, no need for education or life experience. Just settle. Sometimes it works and you can rub it in the faces of all those who thought it was a stupid move. Bwaaahahahaaa
• I think this happens frequently. But you do bring up an interesting point pete, with regards to being intertwined. "Dropping out" and running away is nothing new. However, as the world in general has become more technologically advanced (especially with respect to security), doing so successfully is more challenging than say it was 100 years ago. Running away is just another means of dealing with depression or escaping a situation that has become intolerable to life. I'm reminded of Gauguin and his exodus to Tahiti (nice choice btw). Perhaps society enjoys these stories because it allows us to briefly indulge in the fantasy...
• Wasn't Zelig more or less about someone who would create a life, then run away from all the resposibilites, and do the same thing over and over again? Hmmm, just checked IMDB and it wasn't quite that story. The problem with running away is that no matter where you run to, you are always going to be stuck with the very person who got you into all the trouble in the first place, you. Or as my mom puts it, "no matter where you go, there you are." Unless you made a complete mess out of it, it's better to settle where you are and make the best of it.
• Nonsense, squiddy. A lot of the time, it's not you. It's the environment: whether that's the place, or the people, or your family, or whatever is bothering you. Loading yourself with the responsibility for other people's interactions with you just denies their own agency in the matter - that's both wrong and deeply unhealthy, it turns out. If leaving a bad environment allows you to flourish, you rather owe it to everyone to be gone already. Otherwise what? Martyrdom?
• Zelig is one of the finest satires one could ever hope to see. It would be impossible for me to recommend it more highly than I do.
• A lot of the time, it's not you. It's the environment... Loading yourself with the responsibility... Well, in a case like that, I think it's prety clear that it's an individual's reaction to his/her environment. So really, it's a little bit of both. An individual can be in a not-so-positive environment and still react to it in a positive way. It's true that that's a difficult situation to be in, but I don't see that, in any of the three examples posted, leaving a bad (or, from my point of view, merely stressful) situation really allowed the escapee to "flourish". *Goes to Google Maps, eyes upstate Vermont like Spencer Tracy did to Mexico in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World!*
• I think you have a point Danger, but if anything, most people have a bad habit of always blaming the "enviroment, people, job, family or whatever" for their problems. Then they go out chasing that "enviroment, people, job, family or whatever" that they think will make it all better, and often end up in the same place where they started, with the common denominator, themselves. And often they hurt a lot of other people in the mean time. As I said, you have a point, you shouldn't just "blame" yourself, but isn't this society set up to feed that infantile need of "If I just had this JOB, or CAR, or GIRLFRIEND, or whatever? Ballance is what we need. That "problem" that you need to solve outside yourself is often not a problem at all.
• I ran away when I was a kid: I set up a tent in the backyard and spent the night in it. (Guess I showed them!) Nowadays, I frequently entertain fantasies of fleeing the country to Whistler -- a lovely ski village north of Vancouver, Canada -- and becoming a snow bum. / sigh....
• Balance, aye. That might be it, actually, Squid old chap. Whether you're running for positive or negative reasons, or a mixture of both. There's a big difference between "starting a new life" and "ending an old one", and too much reliance on either one of those reasons could be really bad. Also, there's relocation, and there's disappearing. The two are quite different. But a well timed and thought-out relocation can be just the ticket.
• An individual can be in a not-so-positive environment and still react to it in a positive way Yes he can, but WHY?? I moved 3000 miles to LA and it was the best thing I ever did in life. Should I have stayed in Baltimore and knocked up a local white-trash girl, raised 6 kids and been miserable like my friends from high school, just to prove some bizzare point about "an individual's reaction to his/her environment"?
• A friend of mine, Rex Anderson, used to live here in Los Angeles. One year he roped myself and my friend Marc Convertino into helping him move FIVE TIMES. His excuse was always that one place would be more conducive to his creativity that the last. That he "would write more" at the next place more than the last. Oddly enough, he now lives in Mobile Alabama (like Paris, Berlin or New York, noted for it's art, history and creative community). He's still a great writer, he just doesn't do it enough. But that's not the fault of "where he lives", more "what he does".
• Yes he can, but WHY?? Well, in the context of at least one of the original links, because of existing commitments brought about by the individual's previous actions. Avoiding knocking up a "local white-trash girl" and moving to LA and having a frikkin' wife and kids, trying to commit insurance fraud and popping smoke for Australia are two very different things.
• BTW, this is not an either/or type of question. There are times when it is perfectly appropriate to skedaddle, and other times when it makes more sense to stay put. We have a tendency to want a firm, black and white answer to a question like this and there just isn't one. Person, place, time, amount and history should be taken into account. Also, it's good to check with an unbiased source (therapist, councilor, etc.) to see the situation from another's eyes.
• It's interesting that lots of you have good stories about getting out. In the FPP, its only about people who not only have bad stories, they didn't get out (mostly because it was illegal or poorly executed). Maybe the lesson is get out while the gettin's good? or maybe it's how to properly get out.
• There's a big difference between "starting a new life" and "ending an old one", and too much reliance on either one of those reasons could be really bad I think this is a great point. The cases cited in the post all strike me as immature and childish reactions to the real world. Unless your life is at stake because of the mafia or an abusive ex-husband, there is little need to simply "vanish", and leaving chaos and pain in your wake. I also picked up and moved away, leaving a relationship and a career. I knew that I was going to leave about five months before I actually told my boyfriend (I did give him two months notice). As difficult as it was, I did tie up my loose ends before leaving. And I never lost touch with my family. What these folks did is really wretched.
• /watches sprawling city from window pane, recalls tear-filled goodbye, wonders 'what if'...
• Kimdog beat me to it, pointing out the difference between starting over (perfectly fine in the right circumstances) and simplying vanishing. Has anyone here actually ever vanished without telling anyone at all where you were going? I mean, really truly started over?
• "I did run away." "...trying to commit insurance fraud and popping smoke for Australia..." So THAT'S what Chy's story is! All is revealed in the fullness of time...
• Kittenhead, yes. I'm actually Elvis.
• Sometimes the decision to move comes from a reaction to both a less than positive environment and a possibility of a better one, coupled with the knowledge that it is within a community of similar minds where it is easier to thrive and flourish. I complete agree on that it is the person the most important factor here: Nobody will save you from yourself, and if what you look for is simply escapism through blaming the place or the people, hey, surprise, you are going to find exactly that in your new place. On the other hand, there are people that allergic to kittens, notwithstanding their cuteness. In the same vein, a harsh environment can be detrimental and toxic to a particular individual. As DangerIsMyMiddleName points out, a balance is ideal: yet it is that person's duty to acknowledge when that situation arises: to move or not? It is also that person's responsibility to understand clearly and completely that any situation in which they might be is a result of their actions and choices, as well as any action they take to improve said situation. Maybe the lesson is to get out knowing that wherever you go, you will always take what you are and know with you. If you want out, the time is now.
• Squiddy, tell me something I don't already know.
• Does anyone know the spng "Mr Bad Example" by Warren Zevon? This thread reminded me of it. Brilliant song, brilliant guy.
• spng = song
• You ever known any grifters? Con artists? I got conned once, back in the 1980s, when I was just out of college, by an Englishman who roomed with me in NYC. Who, if I ever see him again, I'm going to make a bloody pulp of his face. But I digress. I also edited/ghost-wrote a TV news guy's book about scams and cons in the 1990s. And grifters, con artists -- the guy who conned me, plus all the people whose stories I dealt with in the newsman's book -- they "move on" again and again and again. It's an aspect of their lives that I find fascinating, and don't really understand -- even though I managed to live in 8 different places in 4 different cities in the first decade out of college.
• I actually was able to meet Warren Zevon just before he died. I work out at a pretty thrashed gym called Beverly Hills Health and Fitness and we will get a couple of b and c list celebs every once in a while. There was a guy who looked like he was trying to look like Warren Zevon working out there for about a year and a half before I actually asked him his name. "My name's Warren. And you are...?" Anyway, he was very gracious and we would nod to each other as a way of greeting when I would see him there. Ironically enough, a couple of months after we introduced ourselves it came out that he had cancer and didn't have long to live. In most of his interviews he mentions that he remembers getting some odd pains, he just chalked it up to a new regimen of working out daily. Life’s funny sometimes. RIP Warren.
• I am haunted by the run-away-from-it -all fantasy on a daily basis. I cope, I manage, I've been modestly successful yet I long to live in a simpler environment. Not surprising says Robert Wright, author of a terrific book on evolutionary psychology,The Moral Animal who suggests that our minds are best adapted to village life and an existence where we only know about one hundred people; an existence where success means doing something modest like being the village miller like your dad was before you. Our current society is obsessed with "success", fame and celebrity. Sucess in a country like the US means competing with everyone else in the land and sets most of us up for failure if we buy into that value. For instance, it's not enough to be the best weatherman in the tri-state area, you haven't "made it" unless you're Willard Scott, to cite a faintly absurd example. Our lives are filled with endless details to attend to, unfinished to-do lists and crushing responsibility. We feel somehow lessened by our failure to be completely on top of it at all times. Also just dealing with the monumental piles of junk we accrue is exhausting in of itself. In short, we are all living lives that our brains have not yet evolved sufficiently enough to cope with. So I/we want to run away. Even though I know all this and I also know that the running away poses almost as many problems as it solves, I still feel that urge on a daily basis. I suspect this is part of the "quiet desperation" that Thoreau's famous quote alludes to. Even in his simpler time, he was drawn to Walden Pond. Oh well, enough of this procrasturbation, I've gotta do my expense reports, fill out my kid's application for preschool, clean out my studio, make an appt. with the accountant, call my parents, return a stack of emails, bring the inflatable pool in from the yard, update my ipod, install SoftWindows on my laptop and make tomorrow's to-do list.
• another proponent of simple village life
• Once during a particularly grueling quarter, my friend the psychology major ran into my dorm with the DSM IV and told me about a "disassociating" order where people just got up, walked out the door, and forget everything about their lives. Over the next several weeks, we fantasized about disassociating and becoming traveling Hot Dog on a Stick girls, traveling from mall to mall, making people's lives a little bit better in our wake. I even wrote a Hot Dog on a Stick song. I think that was slightly more constructive than my previous idea of starting to lick furniture in hopes "they" would lock me up and take me away from it all.
• Lucky for you, squid. Mr. Z. had his moments, din'ne? Interesting theory kamus. Otherwise, I suggest a bath and a book. drjimmy11, take a lap!
• Interesting, kamus. Because when I was in college, the idea human beings evolved to function most successfully in a hunter-gatherer group of about twenty folk was current. Seems to be more of the same, only the group's been enlarged.
• The papper to which you are referring is Co-evolution of Neocortex Size, Group Size and Language in Humans, in which the author, RIM Dunbar, states that our ideal group size depends on how our neurocortex functions, and thus we primates (humans) are pretty much restricted to around 100-125 people in our groups. I disagree. Still, you should be able to leave everything and everybody behind, shouldn't you?
• I recently ran away. To another country, another city, another life basically. And it's been though. Not speaking my mother tongue, having to learn and improve languages (2) and missing references like television shows and shared childhood experiences is hard. Making real friends is also hard when you're older and work from home. I meet plenty of people but haven't found the really nice special ones with whom it instantly 'clicks'. Still I'm a bit happier in general here than I was during the last days there. I don't miss my family very much, and also I don't miss my country although it is, according to many, one of the best countries to live in. It certainly is rich and well organized, but also extremely limiting with its fake tolerance of looking the other way. But I do miss my friends, some of them I know for 20 years. And thanks to the Internet and the phone (and sometimes an airplane) I do stay in touch with them, but it still is different. /why am I writing this?
• Aw, mare, we love ya! And remember -- you can always get your low-country fix with a quick trip to Frites Alors -- and you don't have to deal with all the posers! Gelukkig, eh?
• Rick James ran away from the Navy to Canada and joined a band with Neil Young. So there's that too.
• The other thing that strikes me about the cases in petebest's post is that these people gave some forethought to running away, and in the case of the Utah guy, made elaborate plans to do so. But they had no freaking idea of what to do once they had "escaped". Then they came back home with their tail between their legs. Idiots.
• oh, mare, that was me. After some time I met some wonderful people, and they became my closest bestest friends in the whole world. And then I moved again. Don't ask me why. I do mis them. But I also know now that I will make great friends wherever I am. It only takes time.
• Wasn't it Mike Brady (of the Bunch) who said "wherever you go, there you are!"?
• I thought it was Buckaroo Banzai.
• GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Truck driver John Withers says he "cried like a little girl" when his dog ran away. So the Georgia man didn't hesitate to make the 1,050-mile drive when he heard his beloved pet had been found eight months later. "I didn't cry, but I was very, very happy," Withers said of his reunion with Sir Charles Nugget, a 4-year-old chow mix. Nugget ran away last summer when Withers was making a delivery in Lena. Since then plenty of people spotted "a brown dog in a red collar," and many left out food for it but no one could catch the dog. Then Withers got a phone call from Judy Fuller, the animal control officer in Little Suamico. She told him local folks were sure Nugget was the dog that had been hanging around town lately but nobody could get close to it. So Withers made the drive, bringing Moose Edward, his a 55-pound lab shepherd mix. Withers spotted Nugget Thursday lying motionless under a parked truck. The dog wouldn't budge and instead watched Withers and Moose play in the snow for 25 minutes before emerging. Except for a few briars and an extra-shaggy coat, Nugget looked the same, Withers said. Local residents had left everything from hot dogs to cooked venison to help the dog keep its weight up. Yay!
• "Runaway Bride" Ad Recruits New Cops