Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom by Ken Ilgunas Page B
Authors: Ken Ilgunas
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world will be forgotten, carried away like crumpled leaves from autumn limbs. Stare—really stare—into the womb of creation, and it will be impossible to dedicate your life to mindless accumulation. When you see the aurora, the only logical choice you can make is to spend the rest of your life seeking the sublime.
It never failed: When I’d gaze at the stars and the aurora, I’d see my problems for what they were. I always told myself that I’d been under the control of other forces: parents, school, work. And I’d convinced myself that my debt was to blame for everything, and me, for nothing (as if I had nothing to do with contracting the debt in the first place). I hated my job even though I worked for a wonderful company. And I told myself that, because of the debt, I couldn’t travel, couldn’t go back to school, and now couldn’t even leave my room.
Part of me liked being in debt. Part of me even wanted to stay in debt, to keep going on random and expensive three-week trips to places like Ecuador so I could spend my hard-earned dollars on halfhearted adventures, instead of staying focused on what should have remained my true goal: busting out of the great American debtors’ prison, steadily chipping away at its walls with each paycheck.
Part of me liked being in that position of submission, tied up in leather, willfully cowering beneath a ruthless whip-wielding Sallie Mae. Life is simpler when we feel controlled. When we tell ourselves that we are controlled, we can shift the responsibility of freeing ourselves onto that which controls us. When we do that, we don’t have to bear the responsibility of our unhappiness or shoulder the burden of self-ownership. We don’t have to do anything. And nothing will ever change.
I’d gotten too comfortable with my predicament. I was doing what the tourists and my Home Depot coworkers had done: I was placing the blame on my obligations and not on myself. If Iwas going to become the free person I wanted to be, I’d have to do more than pay off this debt.
When I got back to camp that night, I didn’t know what to do with all this ambition. I needed some lofty goal to commit to.
I turned on the camp computer and did two things. First, I found ten graduate schools (six history Ph.D. programs and four creative writing programs) that I’d apply to. I did this on a whim, completely disregarding my goal of getting out of debt. I knew I needed to get away from Coldfoot and surround myself again with people who could help me elevate myself. I could justify that my year in Coldfoot was a gap year between undergraduate and graduate school.
Grad school was the logical, well-worn path I could take. But I also found the website of Bob the voyageur—the motivational speaker I met in Valdez—and learned that he really was going on a two-month-long canoe voyage across Ontario that summer. I remembered how I’d approached him after his speech, yet I’d forgotten about it soon after. I sent him an e-mail, saying, in so many words, “I’m still your man.”
7
.............
MAINTENANCE WORKER
Spring 2007—Coldfoot, Alaska
DEBT: $16,000
I SPENT THE REST OF THE winter focused on accomplishing one of my two new endeavors: getting selected for the voyage or getting into grad school. For the voyage, I started a rigorous exercise regimen. Every afternoon, during the few hours of twilight, I forced myself to leave the toasty confines of my room to endure the cold outside. For grad school, I stayed up late, filling out applications and memorizing a stack of 1,500 flash cards with a vocabulary word on one side and its definition on the other. I was preparing for the GRE—a test required for students who wish to enroll in most graduate programs.
My social life all but vanished when Avery was asked by camp management to leave because he’d decided to start inhaling marijuana as if it were oxygen again. Because most of my other Coldfoot coworkers did nothing but drink and fight
It never failed: When I’d gaze at the stars and the aurora, I’d see my problems for what they were. I always told myself that I’d been under the control of other forces: parents, school, work. And I’d convinced myself that my debt was to blame for everything, and me, for nothing (as if I had nothing to do with contracting the debt in the first place). I hated my job even though I worked for a wonderful company. And I told myself that, because of the debt, I couldn’t travel, couldn’t go back to school, and now couldn’t even leave my room.
Part of me liked being in debt. Part of me even wanted to stay in debt, to keep going on random and expensive three-week trips to places like Ecuador so I could spend my hard-earned dollars on halfhearted adventures, instead of staying focused on what should have remained my true goal: busting out of the great American debtors’ prison, steadily chipping away at its walls with each paycheck.
Part of me liked being in that position of submission, tied up in leather, willfully cowering beneath a ruthless whip-wielding Sallie Mae. Life is simpler when we feel controlled. When we tell ourselves that we are controlled, we can shift the responsibility of freeing ourselves onto that which controls us. When we do that, we don’t have to bear the responsibility of our unhappiness or shoulder the burden of self-ownership. We don’t have to do anything. And nothing will ever change.
I’d gotten too comfortable with my predicament. I was doing what the tourists and my Home Depot coworkers had done: I was placing the blame on my obligations and not on myself. If Iwas going to become the free person I wanted to be, I’d have to do more than pay off this debt.
When I got back to camp that night, I didn’t know what to do with all this ambition. I needed some lofty goal to commit to.
I turned on the camp computer and did two things. First, I found ten graduate schools (six history Ph.D. programs and four creative writing programs) that I’d apply to. I did this on a whim, completely disregarding my goal of getting out of debt. I knew I needed to get away from Coldfoot and surround myself again with people who could help me elevate myself. I could justify that my year in Coldfoot was a gap year between undergraduate and graduate school.
Grad school was the logical, well-worn path I could take. But I also found the website of Bob the voyageur—the motivational speaker I met in Valdez—and learned that he really was going on a two-month-long canoe voyage across Ontario that summer. I remembered how I’d approached him after his speech, yet I’d forgotten about it soon after. I sent him an e-mail, saying, in so many words, “I’m still your man.”
7
.............
MAINTENANCE WORKER
Spring 2007—Coldfoot, Alaska
DEBT: $16,000
I SPENT THE REST OF THE winter focused on accomplishing one of my two new endeavors: getting selected for the voyage or getting into grad school. For the voyage, I started a rigorous exercise regimen. Every afternoon, during the few hours of twilight, I forced myself to leave the toasty confines of my room to endure the cold outside. For grad school, I stayed up late, filling out applications and memorizing a stack of 1,500 flash cards with a vocabulary word on one side and its definition on the other. I was preparing for the GRE—a test required for students who wish to enroll in most graduate programs.
My social life all but vanished when Avery was asked by camp management to leave because he’d decided to start inhaling marijuana as if it were oxygen again. Because most of my other Coldfoot coworkers did nothing but drink and fight
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