Ahem … The Meaning of Life (Part Next)

As I type these words, I’m sitting on a gray carpeted floor in Central Virginia, wrangling with both a toddler and a newborn, endlessly watching a YouTuber called Ms Rachel (who despite having millions of views, is absolutely horrible on-camera), all while pondering the questions of my life (and possibly yours).

What’s the problem, you ask?  

Well you see, I’ve struggled over the years with my own YouTube channel and what it should represent.  The one thing that I have always known is that I want it to mimic my own knowledge and lifestyle.  And yet, I have no special skills that I can teach (unless you want to learn how to solve business problems using a programming language called perl) other than the knowledge that I can pass on to the masses about how to live an unconventional life.

But (and this is a big but!) … I’ve struggled with what that lifestyle should even look like.  It’s hard to teach an elusive thing.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably in the same boat as me.  Either you’ve found your own path and thus enjoy hanging out with folks who share your random sense of peculiarity, or more than likely you’re still looking around to see how others have broken free.

I’m kinda both.  Well … I was.  
Because I think I’ve found the secret.

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There are so many more “alternatives” to the typical American Dream than one can possibly envision.  Yea, I know there is a loud and vocal minority here in the states that wants the return of the lifestyle of 1940s America where religion, race, and culture were simpler (at least to those that got to enjoy that version of Americana).  And if that’s your thing, then great.  Glad you found something that fits you.  

But I’m guessing that if you’re reading my words or watching my videos, that lifestyle is not something you either want or desire.  And you have issues with them as well.

My only problem with that minority is that they will stop at next to nothing to force others to live their dreams as well, and that simply isn’t cool.

There are 57,308,981 square miles of land here on Earth.  (True number, I didn’t just make up fake facts!).  And that’s more than enough space for everyone to jump and spin around without bumping into others who don’t dance.  

My doing the cha-cha-cha in no way impairs your ability to gently nod your head while listening to Lawrence Welk.  Capiche?

But that very statement is also where I have gone so wrong over the years.  Not in pushing my lifestyle on others, but in learning to not listen to those that scream that I should adopt theirs.

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BACK TO THE BEGINNING, WHO IS RICK HIGGINS?

In my sixty-two years of life I have been seriously challenged. 

I have been physically paralyzed, I have won and lost fortunes, I have married, loved, and divorced (multiple times), and it’s only now that I even have an inkling of what life may actually be all about.

I grew up in the 1960s in a world that honestly hasn’t changed all that much from today. Back then societal norms shaped who we were and who we would become. Most of us didn’t stand a chance of striking out in different directions, so we blindly followed the path already laid before us.

In my case it was based in a blue-collar, all-white suburb of Washington DC. I am the son to a plumber and to a housewife who followed the standards of the day, and who passed those beliefs on to me.

Only … those beliefs are not who I am. More on that later (it’s the important part, and why I’m teasing you into waiting).

The Early Years

The Standard American Upbringing is to have a career, get married and have children, plus acquire a house and hopefully upgrade to a larger one. I dutifully did all of those things. I married at the age of 25 because “I was supposed to”. I had children, played the real estate game until I acquired the proverbial single family home in the ‘burbs, and I also spent a lot of time climbing the corporate ladder at increasingly more lucrative and well-known technology companies.

I made my father proud because all he wanted was for me to outshine him. To make more money, to have a larger house, and basically be an extension of the life that he started … only extending it further until I could pass it forward yet again to the next generation.

And somehow all along I knew that I wasn’t following my own path. And I also knew that unless I had unlimited confidence and strength, I wasn’t going to be able to break free of expectations and discover what truly made me happy.

The Crisis

That first marriage failed after thirteen years, along with another serious relationship immediately after. And then I hit the jackpot. I married into the world that I had been told was the epitome of success.

I had reached the apex.

Suddenly money wasn’t an issue. We had more than enough. I was rubbing elbows with Governors, Senators, and those who had even more wealth and funded the former into power. I traveled wherever and whenever I wanted. Stayed in the best hotels. I had reached the pinnacle that my father had set as my target.

And I was miserable.

This was not my then wife’s fault. Nor was it any of the people with whom I socialized. It was just that I was living their lives and not my own. The problem was … I had no idea what my life was supposed to be. I just knew what it wasn’t.

In the end, after ten years of that “successful” marriage, I fled a thousand miles south to a city where I knew exactly no one. A city that I knew virtually nothing about. There to try to discover who I really was … and what I wanted to be.

Introspection

Back in high school I was in the drama department, mainly to meet girls and participate in the inevitable cast parties after a show’s premiere. But what I didn’t know at the time was how important that activity was to become forty-some years later.

When graduation time came I had to make a decision. What was I to do with my life? College? Business? Something else?

I was leaning towards the latter when my father stepped in. I wanted to explore my options. Find what ticked with me. He pointed out that I would be a minimum-wage bum who had no hope of making it in the world unless I took the job that he had pre-arranged for me.

Decisions, decisions. Go down the corporate path and strive for financial success? Take random jobs and spend a couple of years exploring the world beyond my limited upbringing?

And so … I became a bank teller.

That job quickly led to computer automation (it’s hard to remember a time when banks didn’t have computers, but there I was). I learned everything possible about programming and moved up through a dozen companies, honing and expanding my skills. America Online, WorldCom, Capital One, just to name a few. I was respected and my salary showed it.

Dad was proud.

But I also could never shake the fact that I wasn’t living a life that fit me. It wasn’t until the pandemic and its multi-year lockdown that courage finally found me.

In late 2021, I burned out. Couldn’t take it one more minute. So I quit my career of over forty years (calling it a sabbatical in order to make it more palatable) and decided to go out into the world to find my answers.

Which brings us to today.

Is It Too Late?

Looking back, those days in high school drama were indeed some of my happiest times. But not for the parties. Rather because I got to be creative. That unholy notion that horrified my father so much (“artists can never make a living!”, he once told me). 

Whatever path I would eventually walk had to have creativity at its core.

I love to write. To craft stories and mental imagery out of words. So I took that and extended it to visual media and started my YouTube channel, where I found even more creative energy and pleasure.

I currently live in a converted school bus (a “skoolie”) with my girlfriend, traveling wherever we want. Technically unemployed, surviving on savings, and generally having the time of our lives. I have discovered exactly what makes me happy and I’m doing everything I can to embrace it with everything I’ve got.

And yet, life always seems to find a way to challenge you.

My life savings, all of the retirement money that I squirreled away, is almost gone. And diesel fuel is seriously expensive. At some point I know that I’m going to have to return “to work”, whatever the hell that means. It will probably wind up being some form of what I was doing before because YouTube and Patreon certainly aren’t all that lucrative, at least not yet.

And despite my statement from just three paragraphs ago … I also still don’t quite know who I am.  Well, at least I didn’t yesterday.

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All of which brings us back around to this moment of carpet sitting with babies.

I am currently in Virginia helping out my daughter with the latest addition to her family.  My life of world travel and also of living inside of a bus are on temporary hold.  And strangely that’s exactly where my inner discovery has come from … because it’s not the place and surroundings that define a unique life, it’s what’s inside your head.

Being in rural Virginia tells me that I should be living what that life typically entails.  Fitting in and being a chameleon.  Dreaming of being free in my bus and wandering out west while counting down the days here in ever increasing sameness.  

But that’s not truth.  The one thing that I will always have with me is … me.  My discovery is that I need to be free within myself, and not just my surroundings.  It’s my mindset that defines who I am, and that’s the simple notion that has been eluding me all these years. 

So perhaps THAT is what I need to bring to the channel and here on Patreon.

Living my life as a shining example, sure.  But also discovering who we could each be.  Understanding how humans actually work and using that to our advantage.  And above all, knowing that life is a journey without end.  That it’s only my inner self-image that matters, not the things and places that I surround myself with.  

For you see, freedom comes from within.  And that’s EXACTLY the message that I want to bring to you.