As I'm about to shove off and begin my life as a nomad living in a car, I've become aware that there is a whole subculture that is quickly growing around this way of life. It is growing fast enough that now the bougie folks are getting into it, decking out their vans, trucks, SUVs, and whatever else with all manner of luxury implements and interiors, posting their experiences on various social media outlets, attracting the attention of corporate sponsors, and etc.
I believe they call it something like #vanlife on Instagram. Much of it seems airbrushed: a highlighting of adventures and fun outdoor living, and an erasure of the social disintegration that makes this lifestyle attractive. Many of the car people getting in on the recent action are weekenders, enjoying a slice of this cutting edge lifestyle. But many others are actually living the life, scaling down their commitments and needs, helping others do the same, and etc.
Now corporate sponsors, that's something else! The marketers have figured out that the Millenials prefer "experiences" and "emotional connections" with interesting car-bound individuals, individuals which serve as blank canvases to project their dreams of free road living and whatnot. These are among the many trojan horses that marketers enter the Millenial market with. It seems even the auto-makers are catching on to this trend, looking to sell people's social, political, and spiritual fragmentation back at them in the form of fancy camper cars and road trip vehicles. Much like the ongoing evolution of the gig and sharing economy, and that economy's relationship with the tech sector.
Capital is learning to market and monetize the increasing circulation of human detritus that it is playing a part in setting free. All fine and well, it has always done this. It does also open up more opportunities for people who are trying to survive in the system, but who have not been properly absorbed through traditional channels.
I'm aware there are problems with my new life as a car-dweller, living in a moving combustion machine within an intensifying greenhouse. But there are trade-offs too: I'm not really using heat or air-conditioning, I'm not taking very many showers, I'm wasting very little, using less, and forgoing many previous comforts. The net energy I'm using up is most likely much less than it was before. I'm still aware I'm a bit of a shitbag doing all this driving, no illusions there.
It is meant to be a transitional stage. It is a means of circulation, of displacing the tensions and contradictions within one's environment and community, which tend to build up over time as one stays still within intractable systems.
Through movement, one can temporarily leave the entangled pathologies of one's default community - while of course indulging in another set of pathologies simultaneously - transforming oneself through circulation amidst other communities engaged in various worthwhile projects.
The task that appears most vital to me at the moment is to transforms one's relations with the land, and relations with others simultaneously, which gradually happens through this constant movement. Will it actually work? Who knows. I could very well be deluding myself. And of course, there are plenty of ways that one can transform oneself and one's community, based on what one is and how one relates to one's community.
So serious! But there you have it. Now to try it out and see what happens.
