In which I share a little revelation I had last night.

While chatting with Mel over IM, I made an offhand comment containing that famous axiom from 80’s flick War Games: “The only winning move is not to play.”

And then I realized how very much I believe that.

If I find myself in a situation I do not like and that I think I can’t change, I just… stop playing. Quit. Move on.

This is why I didn’t finish my undergrad at MIU, and my only reason ever for quitting jobs or leaving relationships. Most of the time, the axiom protects me: if you’re married to someone you have nothing in common with, you can play for the rest of your life and never do anything but lose. Clearly, not playing is the only winning move. But sometimes, a more sticktoitive attitude would probably have served me better: it was hardly brilliant to drop out of college during my senior year just to make a political point that no one heard.

Is it possible that my very-low bullshit tolerance was fostered by a movie?

Eh, probably not. But maybe! I remember feeling such relief when Joshua realized that some shit was too stupid to waste one’s time (and/or processor cycles) on.

Today I live in a spare bedroom and can fit everything I own into the bed of a small pickup. I just plain don’t do or have what everyone else does. Is this because I’m a quitter, or because I simply have a different agenda than my peers?

The only person I know who has less property than I do is Corby; if his stuff is packed into his jeep he can actually see over it. (I should follow his example and get a tent and a 4WD vehicle, better to camp on your lawn with.) Everyone else, even my spiritually-inclined friends and my migrant father, have accumulations of belongings that indicate, to some degree, their stature. They own houses, furniture, Cuisinarts. They have deeds and titles and certificates. Most of them had a much higher bullshit tolerance than I ever did: they finished school, at least. Is that what enabled them to accumulate so much property? Or would they have done so anyway?

Even my father has a home full of objects, it just happens to be on wheels.

I can’t figure out what this means. I have no interest in buying a house and filling it with stuff. I remember really wanting to, once, but that desire is gone now, burned up. I don’t want to find a lover and build a life together anymore, either. It’s as if my brief stint as a married person absolutely finished any karma I had in those areas…

Oh. Hmm. Maybe I’ll be a renunciate in my next life. That’d be cool.

I wanted so terribly much to fall in love and get married. It was my primary goal as long as I can remember. I wanted to have the coolest house in the world. When someone finally proposed, I felt as if my life had finally done what it was supposed to!

Except being married and keeping house for yourself sucks. I didn’t like it. It’s like chaining yourself to the earth. Every new item that you acquire makes your soul heavier. I couldn’t find the desire to go into debt buying stuff to make my house nicer than functional. Who would that benefit?

But I have wonderful, inquisitive, spiritual friends who live in houses with spouses and possessions and it doesn’t fuck them up.

I don’t feel suited to the regular world any more, but at least I can pass. That’s something to be grateful for, yes?