Chapter 7

There were times when he couldn't remember his life as a mundane human, and his farthest memory was that of leaving his house and beginning again. And then there were times when all he could think about was what led him to this point, and what had caused him to be where he was. Where he was actually felt like a place that he had painted in his mind, a Utopian existence hidden beneath sky and tucked behind mountains and desert. He had spent little time traveling around the east, and instead focused entirely on trying to uncover some hidden beauty, some place that had yet to be discovered and destroyed by modern influence and society. And in the middle of an inevitable nowhere, he found it. There was a gathering of people that took up residence in Southern California, just enough away from the confusion and impatience of the city, but not far enough into the desert that survival would be a task. He had read about the community before, and had thought about these people often, in passing fancies of cross country road trips, or dreams of a more adventurous life. It felt strange to approach them for the first time, a sort of converted drifter, one that wasn't born into a life of adventure or ultimate freedom, but searched for it. These were people that either were born with nothing, or quickly found out that there was nothing for them in their present lives. A lot of outsiders would see them as failures, a group of people too pitiful for their own good, but he liked to think of these people as the idols of his generation. They took control of what they were given, instead of letting people tell them where to go, and what to do. So in a way, he admired them, while at the same time using their settlement as a further motivation to strive for ultimate happiness before settling for the first signs of it. But for the time being, he spent time there, occasionally visiting the city or spending time alone in the mountains, but often returning to a community of comfort and also for the time being, happiness.