I have in the past been very reluctant to engage with the defined structures of our society and culture, I have fostered anger towards cultural codes, symbolism and bureaucracy and have had an unwillingness to engage in a career or material success. The material trappings that numb the spirit.

Last night I watched the 2007 film “Into the Wild”. It is based on a true story of Christopher McCandless who, without giving too much away, leaves behind his family and materialistic existance to journey on the road. He eventually finds his way into the wilderness of Alaska to live in solitude with just a few provisions.

I have never been brave enough to let go and leave, I think I probably need people too much and I’m not as strong as I wish I was. The closest thing to this is 3 weeks a year wandering.

But somehow over the last couple of years I have begun to choose to partake in the social structures, holding my ideals and dreams close to my heart but allowing myself to engage. I was challenged by a friend about a year ago that I was talking of rejecting “the man” when I in fact I was “the man”. I don’t think I began to engage because I was not brave or strong enough not to. I think I began to engage as I recognised it was the only way to find genuine freedom and completeness - not running away from the trappings and mess but seeing myself as part of it and freedom coming from within.

But I am often stirred by the call of adventure, and I still find the frustration of being caught in a job and the things that bear weight in my life ultimatily being meaningless. But it is not one of the other - life in wilderness or life caught in the rat race, but is something greater. It is not just somewhere in between, a balance of both but it is the fullness of both, it is one inside the other. It cannot be about pure consumption versus pure expression, it is about breathing in and out.

I read this yesterday in a book by Zadie Smith and I do like it:

“It is like this, there are two aspects of Hashem, Alex. Hashem as He is in manifestation and as He is in Himself. The first formed a covenant with the Jewish people and they must try to walk together towards Him. That’s the point of community. That’s the point of Hasidim, for example. But the second aspect - Ein Sof, Ayin, the unknowable, the infinite nothing - this can only be approached by the solitary traveller.”