Being

On Sunday morning, I went hunting with Fin. He’d recently procured a used 20-gauge shotgun and was eager to ruin a couple of squirrels’ day. Me, being not particularly fond of squirrel, was silently hoping the fool things would be hunkered down in their burrows, masticating acorns or whatever the hell squirrels do when they’re not out being squirrelly.

We’d been in the woods about a dozen minutes when Fin leaned his gun against the base of a birch tree, fell to his knees, and stuck his face in the snow. At first, I assumed he’d dropped something, but it soon became apparent that he was sniffing the ground. “What’re you doing?” I asked, which is something I find myself asking Finlay with some frequency, since he’s one of those kids who does curious things, often at curious times. “There’s some pee down here and I smelling it to see if it’s a fox.” He pointed to a dull yellow patch of snow, which was surrounded by a set of tracks that might as well have been fox as about anything else: They were quite old and faded, and the melting snow had rendered them pretty much unreadable, at least to my inexperienced eye.

Now, if my boy knows what he’s talking about (and when it comes to this sort of stuff, it’s not wise to bet against him), fox piss smells like skunk. Therefore, he deemed, the urine at our feet had not been deposited by a fox. A feral cat, maybe, or perhaps a raccoon. But not a fox. Thus informed, curiosity satisfied, he hopped to his feet, took up his firearm, and returned to the hunt.

The second part of this story occurred this morning, as I was motoring into town for a few errands. I almost never listen to the national news anymore, except for when I’m driving. There’s something about the mindlessness of driving that is a perfect fit for the drivel and despair that passes for newsworthy in contemporary America. In any event, the story that caught my attention was a segment on NPR about car maker’s attempts to create a more “office like” environment in a their latest offerings. I’m paraphrasing here, but the essential take-away was that since people spend so much of their time (which is to say, their life) in their car, and because it’s so incredibly important that they always remain “productive,” it only makes sense to wed the two. Driving and working, working and driving. Ah. Two great things that go great together, kinda like pizza and beer. Or, if Fin is to be believed, roast squirrel and dijon mustard.

Let’s get the obvious irony out of the way right up front: I was, um, driving when I heard this story. Like most Americans, we are incredibly dependent on internal combustion for innumerable aspects of our well being. I don’t feel great about it, but I suppose I don’t feel badly enough about it to endure the inconvenience that not driving would entail. But I’m not convinced this truth disqualifies me from remarking on the obvious tragedy inherent to what is, according to NPR and numerous car manufacturers, the latest trend in motoring: That people spend so much of their time (which is to say, again, their life) in their vehicles that it has somehow become logical to bring the workplace into the car.

One of the things I think about a lot is how much (or, more precisely, how little) of our contemporary economy and way of life has to do with what it actually means to simply be human.Which is to say, when you get right down to it, we don’t need very damn much to survive and even thrive. Food, water, shelter. Ideally, someone to love, and all the better if that someone actually loves us back. It might be nice to have some music or art, but of course we can always make our own, and for free, even. Really, that’s about all one needs to live a good life, and it ain’t much. Which makes me wonder: Why do we feel the need to fill our lives with so much stuff and so many expectations to defend, to the point where we need to bring our office into our cars just to have time to for it all? Does that sound like good living to you? Because it sure as hell doesn’t to me. And it is not just our cars: Just think for a moment of all the things that fill our lives and capture our attention, that cause conflict and war and destruction. Think for a moment of how much of it is actually essential; not just “nice to have,” or “convenient,” but flat out essential. (And no, your stupid friggin’ smartphone doesn’t count)

In some ways, I am no different. I look around our little farm and our humble, self-built home, and I see how we’ve developed infrastructure and expectations that we feel compelled to maintain. I see how a portion of this infrastructure and certain of these expectations may only serve to distance us from the simple essence of being human. We do not need a 2000-square foot home, no matter how cheaply we built it. But now we have it, and so we maintain it, which demands of our time and money and simple energy. We have a car, a truck, and a tractor, all things that are, on some level or another, entirely unnecessary, but still we pay thousands of dollars each year for the “privilege” of owning them. It is not that we could do everything we do now if we didn’t have things things; it’s that, if I’m to be entirely candid with myself, we don’t need to do everything we do now.

We talk, sometimes, of finding a vast piece of wilderness and disappearing into it. Just the four of us, with only the most basic tools essential for our survival. The boys think this would be keen; in their youthful vigor and inflated, almost arrogant sense of what is possible, they want nothing more than to take to the woods, to spend their days tracking game and sniffing animal piss. I love this about them. It is, I think, emblematic of their simple humanness, as yet uninformed by the stories of our contemporary culture, stories that are so often spun by corporate entities or political forces with an agenda.

As much as any other reason, like simple fatherly support, I think this is why I suffer through my boys’ squirrel pot pie. This is why I rejoice that they know what fox pee smells like. They are expressions of humanness undiluted by artifice. They are just… being. I sure as heck don’t want to sell my boys short, but in so many ways, I want absolutely nothing more for them.