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The beast had already begun turning it’s back to him when he finally returned his attention to it. Slowly, it wheeled about in place, heavy thumps vibrating the earth. But BEN turned his focus back down to his finger and again smiled at the aphid, which continued to dance in ignorance and bliss. He then raised his hand to his shoulder, to allow the insignificant bug to go dance freely there for a time, and then to disappear somewhere down the back of his shirt.

The beast completed its turn, breathing deeply as it took a few steps forward, and then halted. It stood in place, its head lowered. BEN could see from his position that it had stopped at a crossroads. To the left led a steep and narrow mountain trail. To the right, a trail led down to the bank of a river. Up ahead lay the trail he had been walking all this time. And behind lay the broken down coop, and the other objects to which he belonged.

With a smile and a skip, BEN moved forward to take the lead.

In the quiet moments – the truly quiet moments, in which he had already been violently stripped of all desires and daydreams (be they rooted in passion or fear) – BEN would often find that he had but one simple request to ask of life, at the root of all his desires. And it indeed seemed a humble request at that: he asked that he’d be able to live as an animal again, for as long as his body would allow.

BENJAMIN had, at this point in his life, been raising chickens and rabbits for well over a year. And he loved them…well, the rabbits he loved. The chickens, he endured. But all told, it had been a wildly influential learning process, and he enjoyed studying them all. Their interactions, their habits, their personalities. But the thing which struck him most was one particular realization which he felt was far too profound to have gone so wholly unacknowledged by him for all of this time – it was as though he had been shielding his eyes from this fact for all of his life: His animals never did one singular thing that they didn’t feel inspired to do. Every action which they ever took was somehow internally driven, from some wellspring of wisdom located deep within themselves. In fact, the more he pondered it, the more he realized that, outside of human beings (at least, those living amidst the civilized world), few, if any, living creatures were even capable of taking any action which they did not feel internally driven to take – the only notable exception being pack animals, as compelled by human beings. But a draft horse can only be worked to exhaustion when trapped in a yolk, with a man behind it to whip it. Free it from the yolk, and it will return to doing as its instincts instruct – for instance, kicking the man in the head.

Not even dogs are able to be trained to do anything that they don’t want to do. They can be trained to not do certain things out of fear of pain or punishment. And they can be lured into doing things that they might not normally wish to do, like dancing on their hind legs. But every time that they perform that action, it is in genuine pursuit of the treat which is on offer – there is no force or compulsion involved. You simply cannot force most creatures to do anything which they otherwise would not be compelled to do themselves.

How greatly did this contrast with everything he’d been taught about his own human existence! How many times had BENJAMIN been reminded that it was “a part of life” to do that which one did not wish to do? “You need to work to eat!” people would shout at him, whenever he questioned the merits of spending a third of one’s waking life in a yolk – of course I need to work to eat, that’s not what I’m questioning!

All of the animals of the world obviously ate…if they did not, then they would have already gone extinct. And thus, one could argue that they work. No, correction: they absolutely do work, spending their days foraging and hunting and migrating, doing as their instincts and souls direct them to do. They work towards goals which feel right and natural to them in each moment, and they pivot and change course as new stimuli are presented to them. They don’t loathe waking up early to go forage in the cool morning mist. They don’t bemoan having to root for delicious snacks to graze on. They don’t roll their eyes when their instincts tell them to run from a potential predator, or to fly south for several thousand miles. And they don’t suffer thoughts about schedules, deadlines, hours or wages. Somehow, the animals of this earth have all been managing to thrive, with their every single decision being spontaneously derived from a deep, internal mechanism – and BENJAMIN marveled at how foreign this concept had become to his own kind.

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It seemed, at least to BEN, that humanity had come to define itself by how well it could sever itself from its internally-driven desires for freedom, discovery, and playful creation. He saw that he lived in a culture in which men ranked themselves against other men by how much they suffered each day to keep themselves and their families stable and secure – or, better put, by how many times they were able to suppress their own instinctual desires that day. At the top of this ranking is the man who wakes up at four, drives an hour to a job site, does twelve hours of self-destructive labor, and then goes home for barely long enough to say hello to the wife, interact with his four children, eat dinner and then go to sleep. And he does all of this every day so that his family can live a standard American lifestyle in an (un)affordable suburban house. Alternatively, at the very bottom of this scale of manliness, lies the long-haired, unshaven wanderer, who walks barefoot through the forest with a backpack because it makes him feel alive, and who only works for money when presented an opportunity to do so in a situation that feels right and true to his spirit. That individual might not even been seen as a man at all – more like a boy who hadn’t yet figured out the purpose to his existence.

BENJAMIN had been trying for so long to force himself – by his own hand – into so many molds into which he simply did not fit. It began early on, when he made his brief and feeble attempt to fit into his society as a career man, going to school for audio engineering and business. Thankfully, it hadn’t taken him long to understand that a chicken would be more likely to achieve success behind a desk than he. And so he began his journey to find an alternative route towards a position in which he would be cherished and embraced by his society for his contributions, without having to do anything which he found to be quite so taxing on his soul.

This new journey began with his attempts at becoming the entrepreneur. He would make a number of respectable tries at launching his own businesses over the course of a decade, in a self-proclaimed endeavor to attain both financial freedom and an internal locus of control (which, he thought, would afford him the ability to follow his heart’s guidance on a more frequent basis). But each time, he was thwarted by the eventual realization that he did not actually want to provide the services that he was offering. At least not in a long-term sense. He simply wanted to learn and to be creative in whatever field he was currently dabbling in. For example, in his most recent endeavor, he had wanted to learn how to raise chickens, rabbits and potatoes, and wanted to explore the concept of self-sufficiency. But he did not really want to become a chicken, rabbit or potato farmer, even though he had told himself over and over again that it was ok for him to be spending the time and precious resources on such endeavors, as they would eventually earn him an income (they never would).

BENJAMIN had also sought a role as one of the world’s next great designers and craftsman (of tiny houses, of course, along with quite a few other things in the years prior) – it had taken him over five years to build his tiny house, with a neurotic perfectionism that had caused him nothing but persistent panic attacks and disdain. And in the end, he had come to the searing conclusion that this was not to be his best work. It was not of the quality that could be expected of a great designer. In fact, he didn’t even like the space which he had created – it hardly reflected his own layered, creative, wavy-lined soul. This was not to be the way in which he would fulfill his desire to both prove his value to his society, while crafting a life that would feel slightly more truthful to his internally-driven instincts.

And then there was his attempts to be seen as the writer, which…well, allow us to pause a breath to reflect on the words presently presented on this screen, and ponder: where hath the story gone hither? That fictitious account, which ought to have been found on the pages herein, having mysteriously dissipated, and furtively replaced by this inapt diatribe. Nay, BENJAMIN was not a writer, either. It was simply another desperate bid to convince those around him that he was worthy of his keep, in a way that might still remit to him a trace of internal sovereignty.

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BENJAMIN reflected on all of these molds into which he had attempted to fit, as well as a number of others throughout the years. And in most instances, his efforts had begun in an earnest, passionate bid to try something which he genuinely wished to do. But he made the mistake of persisting, long beyond the point at which it stopped being inspiring. And while some might consider this to be an admirable quality – the ability to persist through trial and internal agony – his maturing eyes saw it as a foolish use for a life. For Life is such a beautiful opportunity, to playfully learn and grow, which, yes, can often require persistence through trial and hardship. However, one must be willing to persist for the right reasons, and willing to let go and move on once their motives become tainted by thoughts of duty, opulence, security and recognition. There was nothing on the line, holding him to the creation of that tiny house for those years. And no life would be lost, were he to willfully walk away from the creative endeavors which he was attempting to transition into a means of income.

And oh God…he thought back to all of the years before and in-between such attempts, spent forcing himself to work jobs that he loathed – to fill the mold of the dutiful, diligent, responsible, reliable, low-level employee. It was a role which he was particularly unsuited to, beyond much longer than a few months, regardless of the topic or field. This, in fact, was the main driving force behind his repeated attempts to start his own businesses. But as he sat and pondered some more, BENJAMIN wondered if he really even needed the money that he’d earned after all? Every bit of it had gone towards services and wants which could have been fulfilled in much simpler, inexpensive ways – ways that might have been more truthful to his own soul’s desire for freedom and connection, had he just been willing to set aside his fears and respond to life with a more fluid willingness to the unexpected and the unknown.

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BEN thought back to his animals. If he were to ask any of them why they were doing something, he was certain that their answer would be, “I dunno. I wanted to? That’s a stupid question.” Their lives were wholly guided by instinctual urges: Want to find food. Want to lie down in the shade. Want to run this direction away from strange man who feeds me every day. Want to run that direction away from strange man. Wait, does strange man have food in his hand? Doesn’t matter, run away.

And they prospered by this code. Yet here BENJAMIN sat, trying his best to suppress and deny his instinctual desires, in favor of doing things which he thought he ought to be doing, though with no evidence to suggest that such actions would ever lead to his own prosperity. Years of working for dollars had led only to more poverty. Years of building had led to a sense of imprisonment – chained to the wheeled, wooden structure of his own design, which he for years now had felt a burning desire to walk away from to regain his freedom.

At the time of writing, BENJAMIN sat scribbling next to a river in Mohican State Park, after having gone for a long, barefoot hike – because he wanted to. “He wanted to.” He liked those words. And he wanted to say them more. He wished he could spend a year of his life, doing solely those things to which, when asked why he was doing them, his only response could be, “I dunno. I wanted to? That’s a stupid question.” He wanted to earn money, if and only when the job or action involved was something which he would want to do, despite the money it earned. He wanted to find/secure/purchase/eat food, only when his body told him that he needed to eat, rather than according to a schedule, a clock or a scale. He wanted to wake when his body told him to wake, clean when he felt it was time to clean, work hard when he wanted to work hard, walk when he wanted to walk, and rest when his soul was pleading with him to rest.

Admittedly, he was close to achieving this lifestyle already – much closer than he had been in the years prior. But there were still bindings in his life, preventing him from fully adopting the philosophy: responsibilities and duties for which he had willfully signed on the dotted line, and had yet to release.

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BEN remembered a moment in a graveyard. Walking with a puppy who had, himself, passed on, little more than a year ago. BEN thought about what it was that he truly wanted. The painted wings of the butterfly would constitute a truly wondrous life, for which he would be profoundly grateful. But until those scenes decided to become realized, BENJAMIN understood that his desires were much simpler. So what, in this one particular moment, did BENJAMIN feel that he wanted to do?

He wanted to set aside, sell, give away, or find temporary homes for every belonging in his life, aside from those which he could use right now. His tiny house, his animals, his vehicles, his belongings which he couldn’t carry with him. He wanted to buy an aluminum canoe¹, and put it into the Allegheny River where it begins, near Coudersport, PA. Then, once he had paddled down to the Gulf of Mexico, he wanted to start hiking towards the California coast, then head up the Pacific Coastal Trail, and then back across the country via the network of interconnecting trails that line the northern United States. And while he did this (at his own pace), he wanted to do whatever his heart told him to do in each moment. And in some of these moments, he would, he was sure, write.