I was recently turned on to Human Being Journal, a bi-annual print publication put out by a small studio housed inside the Richmond-based clothing and lifestyle store Need Supply Company. While browsing the website, I came across an essay called "The Aesthetics of Wandering," whose sweeping first line swept my imagination right up with it. Essayist Kate Fowler writes: "Embedded within the history of Western literature, cinema, and theater is the tale of the wanderer--a spirit guide or reverie that has functioned as an outlet for our repressed dreams and vestigial desires for abandon, disconnection, and self-discovery."
Interestingly enough, it wasn't the content or style of this carefully-crafted sentence that sat with me. It was the hollow it left behind, the suggestion of something lacking. If we long for and desire abandon and self-discovery and look to something external to fulfill those desires, then as a people we are either being denied or denying ourselves something essential.
In fact, this is exactly what Fowler's essay goes on to discuss: to her, the act of wandering has been so aestheticized in this increasingly media-saturated world that we can't find the impetus inside ourselves to be our own compasses and start our own deeply personal wandering journeys. And this argument makes a lot of sense--if we are constantly bombarded with media that seeks to define "journey" or "self-discovery" (think blurry photographs of camping trips on Tumblr, or "Girls"-like coming-of-age stories) then we feel increasing pressure to model even something as volatile and shifting as self-discovery after someone else's narrative.
Of course, as a young artist who appreciates beauty and who also has no clear idea where my life is headed, I am as drawn to these images as the next person. I am just as baffled and paralyzed by the seemingly endless wealth of options in front of me. Should I move to New York City and live on nothing or awhile, or should I go and live on an arts colony, or get a residency, or apply for a grant?
In the essay, Fowler also writes about folk Icons Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, and how they were in many ways responsible for starting the wave that led to our current obsession with wandering and its reflection in the media. But if you think about Dylan and Guthrie themselves and their initial decisions to hit the road and, in Dylan's case, change his entire identity, the impetus was pure impulse. Simple, satisfying human impulse.
To be frank, I think that my generation has lost its ability to act upon and trust gut instinct. And this is true for many reasons that extend beyond Fowler's aesthetic argument. Many twenty-somethings are paralyzed by poverty and a job economy that makes it impossible to just up and leave. Many feel the pull of their baby-boomer parents' instincts toward job security on one side, and the pull of endless possibilities on the other. In a world with increased visibility, we feel a constant need to define and defend ourselves, our communities, our families, and our own identities in the moment, right now. In many ways this is a good thing, because it allows us to advocate for ourselves and form communities, but it also leaves little time for inward self-reflection and physical exploration.
I'm not sure where this leaves us, but I know that personally I have felt freaked out in the year since graduating college about the fact that I don't feel like I want to go back to school right now, and I don't have a certain kind of job in mind for myself right now. But I am realizing that there are a lot of places I want to go, and a lot of interests and passions I want to explore. And it might be a much more valuable use of my time to trust myself, take a leap and try new things, and know that if I own my wanderings they will teach me something.
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