He was only 22 when he passed away. He looked older, and he carried an ancient wisdom that many attributed to lives and memories from worlds long past. But in many ways, he was just a child, wide eyed looking at the world, still seeing wonder in a sunset or a mountain stream.
He never asked me to write this eulogy. He would have thought it pretentious -- or that it would be seen as a not-too subtle attempt at making others feel guilty. It's neither. No, this was my choice. My way of honoring him for the wisdom and laughter he had shared with me over the time that I knew him.
I started writing a story once, based on a concept from a book by Orson Scott Card, called "Speaker for the Dead". In the books, the Speaker for the Dead had told the stories of those who had died, brought to life the truths that otherwise would have been buried with them. He helped others to see what had been going on inside the minds of those who had passed, to ease their pain in the light of understanding.
I'm not that good. I cannot speak for him, and he wouldn't have wanted me to. But I can speak for his dreams, for his beliefs. I can tell others the things he never achieved that mattered to him, helping those ideals to find a new home in those who might also cherish them. In his own way, he too was a healer, a storyteller, a prophet. So, this blog is for him and for his dreams, because I understood both.
Memories and Dreams
I asked him not too long along what he was feeling. He paused a moment, trying to put it into words. Then, as he often did when he realized that language was inadequate to the task, he used a metaphor: How does it feel, looking through a one way mirror at a world that doesn't even realize that you're not there?
Then he quoted part of a poem: When cold fills your days, and emptiness your nights, what reason do you have to continue to the fight? If it feels like you have nothing to gain, so much effort, just to stay the same, do you keep striving, attempting to win? Or do you let the darkness settle in? What is the point of hoping, when the hope is that it will all end. What can you see in a ghost town, that even the ghosts have have forgotten? Just how tired do you have to be, before, finally, you can sleep?
I think that was his main problem. He was just too tired of this world to go on living. He asked me: How long someone can be expected to cling to the edge of a cliff, hoping to be rescued, knowing that they long ago passed the point where they had the strength to save themselves. That's how he saw himself, long passed the end of his rope, or past the point where he could save himself. He mentioned that he had long ago give up hope that his life could be saved, and that he was convinced that life was futile and empty -- but that he hadn't (yet) killed himself because he allowed for the possibility that he was wrong. I think he wanted to be proved wrong, that he wanted someone to show him that his life could be saved. But nobody else could make that choice for him, and in the end, he was right.
As we talked, I realized that he truly didn't blame anyone else for his weakness -- that as much as he hoped someone would rescue him, he never felt that others were somehow obligated to do so. It was part of his strange libertarian dichotomy -- he held himself to a high standard, expecting himself to help others, but at the same time, always granted others the right to choose a different path, even if that meant choosing not to help him in return. I struggled with that concept for a while -- how he could hope to be saved, but not expect anyone to do so. Until I realized that for him, the choice was what mattered.
If someone had chosen him, or chosen to save him, out of some sense of duty or obligation, that didn't help. That wasn't what he wanted or needed. He needed to feel wanted -- and he wanted to feel needed. Not because someone felt they should. But because someone freely chose to do so.
He used to joke that he "wasn't from around here" -- his way of saying without explaining that he didn't feel like he belonged to this world, that he was just a traveler passing through. It took me a long time to understand that all he ever wanted was a place to belong, a place to feel like home. We were too alike, he and I, for me to offer him that. Both of us have moved far more than our fair share of times, so all I could offer him was my friendship and someone to talk to, someone who like him would never judge. He told me on several occasions that he liked that about me -- it was an attitude that we shared, and that gave him the freedom to open up to me in ways that he would to almost nobody else.
Over the years, as we'd talked or emailed at various times, he told me about fragments of his life here. I won't go into the details, because the details wouldn't matter to anyone else. Besides, I've always respected the rules of confidentiality in my various professions, even though I'm bending them now by telling this part of his story. I hope that in whatever world he has gone to, he forgives me for that. But he was too unique a soul for me to allow his life to go entirely unremarked. Hence this blog.
Freedom and Frustration
Over the years, he had told me things that he had done, or that he had tried to do. And throughout all his tales, there seems to be two threads. More than almost anything else, what he wanted was a place to belong, a place where he could stay and stop wandering. And more than even that, he wanted to be respected for the things he had done for others, and remembered for what he had offered the world. It is that wish of his, unspoken until now, that has prompted me to write this blog -- because as much as he didn't like being in the spotlight, I think deep down he was terrified of being forgotten.
So, in a world where dreams are patented, people folded and spindled, this is the story of a man who sought freedom, and in the end took his own life because there was nowhere else he could feel free.
I mentioned that I considered him a healer and a prophet. We met when I was studying and teaching holistic healing back east, many years ago. Despite the difference in our ages, I never treated him as a child -- and that was one reason we became friends. But while healing was part of his life, he had done so many different things, that one of our mutual friends had once remarked that he was "far beyond human ability to classify, or comprehend". To understand the true meaning of that, you'd need to realize that in the circle of friends we shared, "human" was a pejorative, like "muggle" in the world of Harry Potter -- someone who saw only a fraction of what was there, and didn't want to see the rest. Because of my own beliefs, I never sought to classify him. But I would like to think that I did comprehend him.
Over his few years, he had tried many different jobs -- seeking, as he put it, to be useful to someone. I mentioned before that as I got to know him, that feeling of being wanted by others was more important to him than anything else. It was the only thing that allowed him to feel like he belonged in this world.
Personally, I think he tried too hard. I think he was almost desperate to belong somewhere, and that caused him to push his way into situations. He meant well -- he really did just want to help. But his passion for that, I think, caused many people to be afraid of him. They assumed he had a hidden agenda or that he was trying to take over. He wasn't. I knew him well enough to know that he really did not have an ego to the extent most people around him thought he did. In some ways, he was like an eager puppy, offering so much affection and trying so hard to please others that be became annoying to those around him. I felt this way from time to time, myself, but because our friendship was not based in those terms, that effort to please was never pointed in my direction. We just accepted each other for who we were, and had nothing else other than that companionship to offer each other -- so, there was no pressure in our friendship. We just talked, when we ran across each other in our mutual circles of friends and hobbies, or sometimes just when one of us needed someone else to talk to.
He wasn't much into politics, but we talked about some issues. In the political and social arena, there were only two things that he really cared about -- integrity and personal freedom. For him, his own integrity, adherence to his own personal code of ethics, was the cornerstone of his life. Hypocrisy infuriated him. He once said that he didn't care what someone believed, or how they chose to live their life, but the least they could do was to follow the rules that they laid out for themselves. He avoided politics because he believed that politicians inherently had abandoned that concept -- that they held out beliefs that they refused to follow, and that in doing so they had betrayed their own integrity.
He told me a couple stories from his own past of people who had questioned his integrity, who had accused him of lying and betraying others -- and I watched tears drip quietly from his eyes as he talked about how much those instances had hurt him. He knew that he couldn't control what others believed -- but the fact that many of his friends and colleagues believed he had violated his own ethical integrity -- I think that caused him more emotional damage than everything else that had happened in his life.
We had shared stories of loves lost, moving too many times, even the periods he had lived homeless, but in none of those stories did I see the same type of heartache as when he talked about how others had believed him capable of betrayal. Like I said, I cannot speak for him -- but for myself, to those people whoever and wherever they are -- I think you were wrong. I think he would have died rather than betray his own ethical code. And now that I think about it, that may just be what he did.
I mentioned earlier that I think his main problem was that he was just too tired of living. Part of that, I'm convinced, came from those earlier emotional scars. From long and pointless fights to get people to believe that he had never violated his own code of ethics. It was one of the few cases when I could have called him a hypocrite -- because, even more than I do, he fervently believed that it was wrong to attempt to change someone's mind, or to convince someone of something when they choose to believe otherwise. But those beliefs fell by the wayside unnoticed when he tried to convince others to believe him, when he said that he had not lied to them, or when he said that he had done his best. I can forgive him that small hypocrisy, because in his own way, he was quite literally fighting for his life.
As I mentioned, that feeling of being wanted and accepted by others was more important to him than anything else. He measured his life in terms of the lessons he had learned, and the service he had given to others. But more than that, he defined his life by his own code of ethics, and by his own integrity. And I think that for him, the feeling that others believed him capable of betrayal cut to the very core of his self-identity. Because I think that for him, his own integrity was the only identity that he really had.
So, after having to defend his self-identity so many times in the past, I think he was just exhausted. He quoted a Blue Oyster Cult song: Wounds are all I'm made of -- referring to himself. He would have died rather than betray his own ethical code. And I know that he was facing that kind of battle again, against someone he referred to as a "delusional geriatric pitbull" -- someone who had created an imaginary grudge against him, and wouldn't let go. He had lost battles like that before, from what he had told me, each time losing one bit of his world and circle of friends to judgment and gossip and animosity from former friends who didn't believe him. I think he feared the world judging him harshly one more time, and since he didn't believe he had the strength to fight against this latest challenge to his identity and integrity, I think he choose to leave this world rather than live with that shame.
He rarely talked about his family, or his background. I had picked up some bits and pieces over the years, but those details aren't really important -- and again, confidentiality. He traveled around a lot, even more than me, and in our last conversation he talked about the fact that he'd been living homeless for the past year. Now, I'd lived without a home some time ago, back in New England. So, I understood a bit about what that was like. But for him, not having his own house wasn't the same as being homeless. For him, home was where he could be of service, where he could contribute and through that feel a sense of belonging. When he said he had been homeless for the past year, he meant that for at least that long, there was no place that he felt he could be useful, no place where his contributions truly mattered to others. And for him, that is like going a year without eating or sleeping – it deeply exhausted him to the point where I think, in the end, he was simply too tired to go on living.
The Price of Homelessness
I said this would be the story of his hopes and dreams, but before I wrap up his tale, I'm going to digress and go on a short political rant, because this was an issue that we shared, and somehow I think it's appropriate in the context.
I mentioned that he was homeless, and what that meant to him. But in the mundane meaning of the word, he also did not have a house to live in. He didn't have a job most of the time -- that at least would have given him some sense of belonging. But despite that, he refused to accept welfare or govt aid. I think he might have accepted charity if it had been freely offered, but the sense of govt obligation or the concept of 'entitlements' were both anathema to him. So, he never asked the govt for anything, except to be left alone. That's where our common interest in politics and personal freedom ties into this story, and why it's not too much of a digression.
He was deeply upset by the changes he saw happening in the world. When we talked about the concept of freedom, his voice would grow passionate and his demeanor intense. He had a deep belief in civil liberties that would give even a fundamentalist libertarian pause -- he believed absolutely in the right and freedom of the individual to live their life as they chose, without interference from others. I asked him one time why he didn't become an anarchist -- trying to eliminate govt so people could be free. He told me that he would never take govt away from those who wanted it -- because that was their choice, and he had no right to make that choice for someone else by removing govt and rules entirely. I remember smiling at that paradox, but it was consistent for him based on what he believed.
What does freedom have to do with being homeless? Time for my digression and political rant.
We live in a world that is slowly stifling itself, trapping itself within a web of restrictions and limitations, until the concept of true freedom has become only a memory. Not even a hundred years ago, people could pick up their belongings and head off into the wilderness to make a new home for themselves. No money, no travel permits, no permission required. They could leave behind rules and governments, and create a community based on what they believed and the way they wanted to live their lives. In modern society, we cannot even sit or sleep without govt approval.
Did you know that in most cities, it is illegal to sleep in your own car? You can park your car in any public place, but you cannot sit in it and go to sleep. As I mentioned, I went through my own stint of being house-less and during that time I talked with many other indigents, people who had nowhere to call their own. Many songs have been written about how society ignores the homeless, but that's not true. Other people ignore the homeless, either because they don't want to be bothered, or because it would be too frightening for them to contemplate what that kind of life is like -- in the same way that many people refuse to go to funerals because they don't want to contemplate death.
But society doesn't ignore the homeless. It punishes them for their poverty. Can you imagine what it is like to never get a good night's sleep, because every sound you hear might be someone trying to steal the few meager possessions that you have managed to hold onto -- or worse, it might be the police telling you that you're not allowed to sleep there, and that you need to go somewhere else. But in this world, there isn't anywhere else to go. The govt has laid claim to all the land, and you cannot even sleep somewhere without their permission. Even the vast wilderness of national forests and deserts, hundreds of square miles of nothing but trees and sand and rocks -- the govt imposes a two week limit on camping, unless you pay them lots of money. So, even if you can find someplace to sleep, for just a little while, with nothing but wild animals to fear -- it's still only a temporary respite.
I've commented on political forums that I think the govt has become irrational in the number of restrictions it imposes. And I have lamented in the freedoms we have lost. Many people -- and I'll take one of my rare partisan swings and say, mostly conservatives -- have laughed and said they don't notice any lack of freedom. They are correct, but not for the reasons they think. It's not that the freedoms aren't gone -- it is that those people don't notice the freedoms are gone. They live in their own complacent little worlds, where they do what they are told, and think that is the same as being free.
You see the slogan "Freedom is not free" used to justify unconscionable govt intrusion into private lives, all in the name of security. But while that may be acceptable for those who choose security over freedom, that's still a choice that I believe everyone should be entitled to make for themselves. But it doesn't work that way in this world, because the govt is too invested in control to ever allow people to be free.
Freedom is not free. But the price for freedom is that we need to take responsibility for our lives, make our own choices, and not depend on others. That conscious effort at living, and supporting ourselves -- that is the price that we should be paying for freedom. Because what the govt offers us in the name of security isn't freedom -- it's a straight jacket so well tailored that most people forget they are wearing it. Try it some time, if you dare -- try taking off that straight jacket and ignoring the govt, and just trying to sit and sleep in abandoned corners of the world, without bothering anyone else and without asking anyone for anything. The govt won't let you do it. Which means, truly, you are not free.
End of rant. I include this here because it ties back with what my friend believed, and why in the end, he chose to leave this world. He spent a year being homeless -- not having anywhere to belong, not having any purpose to his life. But he also spent a year being homeless -- sleeping (or trying to) on the streets, and in outskirts of civilization, desperately wanting nothing more from the govt than to be left alone. And in the end, he found that he could not do that in this world, because society wouldn't let him be alone. There was no place in the world that he could call his own -- and no place he could find that the govt would allow him to borrow -- even if all he wanted was to use a few square meters of ground out in the wilderness to pitch a tent and rest for a few months.
And So Passes A Weary Traveler
Most of us can remember pulling an all-nighter in school, or at work, or at a convention. And most of us can remember that surreal quality of being past the point of exhaustion,when the world starts to lose it's consistency and the edges of reality start to blur. I tried to imagine what it was like for him spending a year or more in that condition, bone weary and clinging to the edge of sanity in a world that he didn't like and that seemed to have no place or use for him.
He was too exhausted to continue dragging out a life that no longer held any meaning for him, and too frustrated at a world that didn't seem to value what he was offering. And faced with a world that wouldn't even allow him to sleep quietly in a corner of the wilderness, he chose to leave. Because in the end, that was the only way that he felt he could rest -- and he was just too tired to keep going.
As he drove away, that last time we talked, he left me with one more bit of a poem.
Never more to float away on the river of doubt, or see see the blinding darkness of uncertainty. Even when you're done, how you make your exit is important. This time, it is the actor who tosses roses to the crowd, thanking them for his performance. Good bye, ya'll.
He left this world as he had lived in it -- falling off track in a quiet blaze of passion, unnoticed by those around him. I'll end this blog with a short excerpt from that story I had written, because the words I crafted for that fictional character would apply equally here (with edits for the proper pronouns).
He never wanted anyone to feel guilty... So don't. All he wanted was to bring value and joy to people's lives. And that is what he would want you to remember of him -- just the good times. Love him and remember him, for who he was, and who he wanted to be. And forgive him for the one thing he never said enough: "I am sorry." ... Don't hold it against him, or yourselves, that he never shared his pain with you. Accept that all he ever wanted was to help, and to bring joy to people's lives. And that when he had no more happiness within him to give, he took himself and his pain away, rather than inflict it upon those he loved.
In my story, the fictional character sought to forget a world she could not face. My friend, he sought to find rest from a world that required too much effort to go on living. Different reasons, same motivation.
Rest well my friend. I hope others remember you as I do.
Rest, at last, in peace. 1966 to 1985 to 2007.