Seeking

What do people want?

I think about this a lot.

I guess the answer is all around us. It’s the merchandise in stores. The cars on the roads. The services being offered. The rows of two-story track homes being built in yesterday’s corn and cotton fields.

But there has to be more, right?

I ask Google: what do people want?

The first article from forbes.com states that happiness is the number one thing people want. It goes on to say that many women (the author works with women in some capacity) don’t know what makes them happy.

Which, I guess makes sense to a degree. Marketers have long been here to prey on our insecurities; wave their snake oil around, plaster it on commercials and billboards. This thing, this product, this shiny new commodity will solve the problem, and make you happy.

 The car, the house, onward and upward we go. Never realizing the mountain has no peak. We’re never going to get there if we keep seeking it in places like these.

Chad’s got a meat stick hanging out of his mouth like a cigar. It’s his thing on long journeys; he slowly nibbles away at them while his hands remain fixed on the steering wheel.

I’m looking out the window at the cornfields. They’ve been a constant in every state since Colorado.

Green has been the dominant color. The shade of green changing, getting darker, as we move further away from the South.

Our destination is Northern Wisconsin.

The day before, we were in Illinois, and Chad’s friends took us on a tour of St. Louis.

Do you like shopping? They wanted to know.

Nope.

But I did like it when we drove down a narrow road, under a huge rusted iron trestle, built decades before. Next to that, the massive cement freeway overpass stretched above, chock full of cars no doubt, oblivious to what was going on below.

We pass a row of old abandoned brick buildings with bars on the windows, and a wayward corn stalk that’s already three feet tall, pushing its way through a crack in the cobbles.

From behind one of the buildings appears an elegant bay, at least 17 hands high, drawing a sharp black carriage behind it. It’s hooves clip-clopping rhymically. The carriage is adorned – dripping – with bright fresh cut flowers. The man driving the horse is wearing a tux and top hat, and has a cigarette in his mouth. He’s got the thick leather reins in each hand, and puffs away at his smoke – casually and hands free – like Chad and his meat stick. There’s no one else around.

We continue along the narrow road, then make a left, so we’re driving along the banks of the Mississippi. Its muddy waters have taken on an almost mythical quality to me, as it had shown up in stories I heard as a kid. Stories of another America.

This adventure has given us the opportunity to focus on what we want. Distilling life down to the things that are meaningful, enjoyable, and challenging in ways that inspire and lead to growth.

We haven’t slept inside a house in 5 months.

I’m slowly building up my freelance writing work, each month earning a little bit more than the month before.

Three years ago, I’d never even dreamed this was possible. I felt trapped. But now, all the things that were missing in my life back then have been found: novelty, excitement, adventure, and growth.

I guess the message here is, if there’s something you really want to do but you aren’t sure how it’s going to work, there’s only one way to find out.