When I was 13 I went through this phase where I read books by and about Che and writings from Subcomandante Marcos and Noam Chomsky . I didn't quite grasp the "practical" (as practical as Che or Marcos or Chomsky writings could be) ideas that these icons solicited but I did understand one thing-- these guys were revolutionary because they were fighting "the system." Now, I didn't exactly know what "the system" really meant, I just knew that my parents were working their asses off day and night between work and owning their own business and the results were disillusioning. It just wasn't fair to me that one could work so hard, be such a good person, and be slapped with such cruel luck throughout their life. I attributed this "cruel luck" to "the systems" lack of compassion and inability to distinguish between those who work hard and patiently await the fruit of their labors and those who scum their way through life.

I wanted to be like these guys. Not in their way but in mine. I wanted to disconnect myself with the commercial reality. I slept outside under the stars. I'd refuse to have my parents drive and pick me up from school. I wanted nothing to do with technology. It lasted only a week. Maybe two. The thing was that I didn't really expect it to last. When I did wake up on the last day I was keeping with my ritual, I knew it would be the last. It just felt right to stop. I think my parents thought I was on drugs.

I don't know why I stopped but I did. I think a part of me knew it was just an experiment. But there would be no way to feel what I wanted to feel without going ahead and doing that. In the end, I realized there was no use in pretending I wasn't born to a family that loved me. To a home where I was lucky enough to have breakfast every morning (well, that's kind of a lie since I don't really remember ever eating breakfast) and dinner every night. To the luxuries that other folks were not lucky enough to have. And I say lucky because that's exactly all it is. What prevented me from being born in the midst of the Hutu and Tutsi conflict? The Bosnian conflict? The Spanish Inquisition? Nothing.

An intimate friend was discussing her interpretation of Into the Wild the other night and I think that caused me to remember this. It's nice to have ideals. It's nice to have principles to live by. But when your principles go against the very person you know you are, then it becomes deceit by ones own idealism. Yes, you must be the change you wish to see, but if you have never seen the change you wish to see then your very interpretation of what needs to change can be dangerously misinterpreted. And for that reason, nothing is more important than staying true to yourself. Whatever that may be. You can always affect what you wish to effect but one just needs to tap into the proper medium. A rose is a rose is a rose.