Freetime vs. production

Free time vs. productionRM

#prose, #subtleradicalism

The least productive human on earth would go on a pilgrimage. He would know no hours, minutes, or seconds. No breakfast, lunch, or supper. No alarm clocks or daily shows. No expiration dates. Only sunrise and twilight, hunger, pain, and sleep. He would be dubious of the media as well. No trends would dictate his taste, no ads would pollute his desires. He would respond to failure without a feeling. He would empty the drawers and turn them upside down; the contents would spread out across the floor, not piled or arranged or classified. The least productive human on earth would wake up and stare at the ceiling.

The least productive human on earth would be an empty vessel; a reborn who knows no time distinctions. He would carry all histories, all tenses. Forever being and becoming, an embodied contradiction. On the road there would be no schedules, no careers, no goals. He would forget every expectation, whether his or his family’s or his friends’. He would bring along only what would help him survive. A water flask, a change of clothes, good walking shoes, protein bars, and toothpaste. No books to read, no music or podcasts to listen to. The pilgrim would place a heel on the ground, followed by the arch, finishing with the toes, and repeat on the other side. He would walk without direction, without rhythm. The more the path would stretch, the more he would forget, the less he would think. Not even knowledge could be reclaimed as his property. He would not write diaries or carry a sketchbook. His blisters would be his only evidence. In his mind there would be no shortcuts. All paths would be main and never alleys or backstreets. With every step the rules disintegrate and blend into new associations. Logic would abandon time, deeming it unquantifiable. Progress would be liquid, time in no shape or form, equal to humans and gods alike. An incommensurable thread as long as the fibers that had ever protected a species from the threats of nature and age. A thread that stabs and sews, repairs in asymmetric patterns. A humid clay that glues and fills ruptures and fissures.

The pilgrimage would not start nor end. It would only branch and swallow. The more pairs of legs it swallows the more it becomes ceremonious, a march of an army that carries, attends, responds, and supports. The wind and water would scour the marks of their steps. With some luck the sun would come and its heat would settle the mud. A pilgrim’s path can erode, but his steps are a fossil, an evidence.

The pilgrim carries his home on his back.