The Rules

These are the rules.

- Whenever possible, you cannot hurt others.

- You must avoid that which will cause irrevocable harm to yourself.

- Be free. Do as you will, and refrain from doing that which you would not like to do.

- Be creative. Find a way to live your life successfully. Assess your wants. Re-evaluate your needs.

- Repeat.

This is very radical thinking, and it is lovely. It sounds great.

It will be isolating. It will be illuminating. It will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.

At least, it was for me.

People will try to tell you that it isn’t possible, that it can’t be done. Everyone has do to things they don’t want to do, they’ll say. It’s part of life.

They were wrong. Trapped within the prescribed lives that were fed to them, these people simply did not know.

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3 years ago, I lived in residence at McGill.

I was in the final year of my Master’s Degree in Library Science. A lesser-known but rather respectable degree, I was on the right track (so to speak) and would likely get a decent job upon graduation. With the prospect of a 9-5 Mon-Fri career looming on the horizon, I had a little melt-down.

It all started with the inspirational videos.

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I didn’t like library school. I found it boring, tedious, and easy. The monotony and dullness of it all was something I spent much of my time seeking to escape – enter inspirational videos.

Watching Gossip Girl is not productive. Watching Gossip Girl is a “waste of time” and probably turns my brain into mush. However, if one must watch some form of visual entertainment, inspiring videos are just the ticket!

Enter Randy Paush.

Randy is one of the many genius individuals that gives absolutely wonderful talks. He was a professor (as many of these geniuses are) but the Amazon guy, the Apple guy, and Bill Gates left the world of academia and followed their own path. Common link: They become wildly successful. Other common link: These men emphasize the importance of following your dreams! “Do what you love!” is a common refrain. Find a way to do it! If you’re passionate enough, you’ll find a way.

It’s sentiments like these that turned that snowballed my musings into a snowman with a jaunty hat. I was hooked.

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As I was saying, I was nearing graduation. Having been in school since the age of 5, the prospect of beginning a career was… unsettling. Would it mean the end of learning? Would it mean settling down, stability, responsibility? Would it mean lots of money and no time to spend it? Or would I find that elusive balance, and master the work/play dichotomy?

Rather than facing these interesting yet daunting questions, I chose to be unemployed.

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Enter “The Rules”.

I devised the rules one night when I was up late from having a shot of coffee 14 hours earlier. My caffeine sensitivity combined with a newly-cracked-open-Nietzsche book created a monster – one with a desire to learn! And do! And make every second of my life count.

“The term “free spirit” cannot have any other meaning here, but that it is liberated, a spirit that took control of itself once again.” – Nietzsche

I sought to liberate my spirit, my soul, my intangible sense of being. Watching Randy (a dying man) explain the importance of time made it seem URGENT to seize the day (carpe diem!) and free myself now. A part of me had waited for this moment, and waited years.

And finally, with school nearly over, and no children, pets, or ailing parents to care for, I was free. The world was my oyster. I would be a pearl.

This took some plotting.

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Unsurprisingly, as a student, I did not have a huge amount of savings. So as I suffered through the remnants of my final term, I concocted some money-making schemes:

I sold everything I could bear to part with.

I sold the regular stuff, like furniture and appliances - the easily replaceable big stuff that didn’t really have that much sentimental value anyways. I sold clothes I hadn’t worn in years, CDs and DVDs that could be accessed virtually anywhere (they’ll be outdated soon anyways, if they aren’t already), I sold technology (laptops, ipods, phones) and jewelry from old boyfriends. I sold my blood plasma.

(I kept the accordion.)

When I had tricked other people into spending their hard-earned money on my useless possessions (root “possess” because they end up owning you) – I had provided for myself a nice little budget of about $8000. This had the potential to be a lot of money. I felt rich! Flush and fat with money, I dreamt of the things I could buy, but they were no longer the things I was “taught” to buy.

I wanted more than material things. I wanted adventure.

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I brought a knapsack with me to graduation. I stretched the truth by telling my parents I was going back-packing in Europe (who knows? I could end up there). I was going to cross the stage, grab my exorbitantly expensive piece of paper – and hit the road like a ton of bricks on roller skates.

I had with me what I deemed to be the bare essentials (and I soon learned that there was much more I could do without):

- 7 pairs of underwear
- 7 pairs of socks
- 1 pair of skinny jeans, not too tight
- 5 shirts of varying colour, thickness, material, length, and design
- 2 bras
- Toothbrush and floss
- Deodorant
- Little curved nail scissors
- Chapstick
- Pen, pencil, notebook
- $200 cash and a bank card
- My library card

I wore sweatpants and a t-shirt (and the appropriate underthings), a hair-tie in my hair, a silver necklace that was a dragon pressed into molten silver, 2 friendship rings and a watch.

For the first time in 5 years I would be parading around the world without make-up.

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Make-up is a very interesting thing.

- guys don’t and/or can’t wear it
- we all look better with it
- it can cost a fortune
- it’s damned heavy
- sometimes tested on animals, sometimes causes eye or skin infections
- really a fucked up idea with polarized consequences

Bottom line: it’s heavy.