becoming humus

That is, he must reenter the silence and the darkness, and be born again.

Hey there. I’m Nielsen. I just got back from a trip. I hiked, biked, and truck-camped my way through British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska, along with a little backpacking here and there. Needless to say, it was a long time to live out of a truck, rain or shine.

Now what? I moved into a new place, after seven years at the previous one. It’s the first time in my life I’ve had a whole apartment to myself. At 37, it’s overdue.

The plan was to keep up with the flow of writing and content I had going before I left (not to mention launch this website) while I traveled and played outside along the way. But I found it difficult while being on the road, that constant movement and all, sleeping in a different spot most nights, the days flying by in a blur I couldn’t keep up with, and often finding myself without cellphone service or wifi. This trip reminded me of how important structure, stability, and routine are for creative work.

Suddenly I am at the point where I would give all of this up—the freedom and independence—for a meaningful work (if only it would make a living). In a way, I’ve had enough of it, the movement. I could settle. I’m 37 and, so much of the time, feel no nearer to much of what I really want (like finishing a book, for instance). I wonder if I missed something along the way, some adult cue everyone else got but I did not.

What is this life I’ve chosen? I no longer know if I can justify doing whatever I please simply because I can. It’s like you’re trying to be someone, to fill something, in this lifestyle. I wonder who, and what. Is it worth it? I think so. But there’s a price, as with any choice and direction. And, ironically, what I’ve paid for what I have is now what I think I want. I think.

Loneliness creeps up on me. All this adventure, excitement, and beauty, and most of it experienced on my own. Does any of it matter if kept to oneself? I can’t say. Whatever the case, this is not “it.” Though, nothing ever is.

And that’s the lesson to be learned, isn’t it? I’m not trying to be melodramatic here. But it’s true that whatever and whoever we look to falls short of what we want it or them to be for us. It’s something of a melancholic reality of life. Though perhaps essential. We cannot be saved. In a way this frightens me—that nothing you want or get is ever enough.

I want to change my life in such a way that means nothing and no one ever has to be. You sit with-in the emptiness of all things, and it is enough that nothing and no one ever fills it. You live with-in the wound, you bleed out your life, knowing that nothing and no one stays—you keep none of it. If it’s all to be lost anyway, you may as well bleed your life away until there’s nothing left. By this I mean—live to be given, live to lose everything. Keep and hold nothing; it’s all lost already. 

This is not defeatism or nihilism. It’s beautiful. It’s sacrificial. It’s a life lived according to how things are. Death and decay are the humus for more new life (as Wendell Berry profoundly describes in his essay, A Native Hill). I am content to live as such—or, I’m getting there. It brings us down to our proper place. It raises others. It’s submission to the order of things, no longer trying to rise above it. We bleed into the universe and are a part of its life. We do not exist without it, and, somehow, it does not exist apart from us. 

Bleed out into the world, into the lives of others. Become the humus, through your own death and decay (metaphorically speaking), from which new life may spring. This—this is a worthy life, and gives meaning to our emptiness.

So do not delay to live a life of death and decay. The humus from which something unknown will grow, even if you do not live long enough or see far enough to know it. 

This is the hope for this online space: that it be a place where what is poured out will form a humus from which life emerges; and, not least, a place where you will hopefully feel a little less alone. As Wendell Berry says, “It is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are.”