This a cathartic blog about the process of changing my life from a mundane, plodding existence in a consumerist western society and to hopefully a new and positive happy future.
My name is Luke. I live in Adelaide, Australia and i am a lost soul who has just found a thread in my reality that i have begun to pull on. It has recently torn my world asunder. Lets start with where i am at the moment and dissect myself from there. I have lived up until now a reasonably happy yet mundane life. The details aren’t important except to say that i haven’t been truly happy for a long time. I have a variety of occupational experiences from IT to Aroborist (Tree-climbing and Felling) to Delivery Driver and i have lived comfortably for a few years now.As a younger person I studied Environmental Management, IT and Architecture.
These experiences were great but as a human being i was angry, confused and I really had a problem with the world. I was a frustrated and in some respects I had begun to deny my ability to experience and influence the world. At about age 28 i finally capitulated and found full time work (relatively well paid) and resigned myself to the fact i was a “work to live person.” It is amazing that 5 years later i had an itch that formed.
My frustrations over the last 6 months had finally evolved into a strong feeling of unhappiness within myself. At first i felt weak and disillusioned. Over the years my job had enabled me to be involved in a local community Soccer Competition and i latched onto that and felt a great benefit socially and in experiencing a local community group. It was the thing that I focused on. It had only created a shell that covered most of the symptoms of my impending fear. Until recently I only noticed hints of this when i got drunk or binged on food. I love reading, movies, sport and socialising etc. I wasn’t unhappy in terms of my social life but i was more ashamed of my inability to find out what i wanted to do. All the superficial stuff was fine but deep, deep down in my heart i knew something was missing. I am confident in a group or one on one and love a good chat. I am an intelligent person who was just lost. While my friends where finishing education, working in great jobs, traveling, having families, growing,making decisions and ultimately living their life.
I was stagnant and I guess stuck. It was like a bad dream in a way. My problem was just that at some point ahead was an impending breaking point. Change was needed and yet the phrase, ‘life is what happens when your planning it’ was beginning to take over. My job at the moment enabled me to listen to my iPod and music and audiobooks began to take over. Soon i was a shell of a human almost an automaton with no purpose but to do my job and take solace in the stories and tales from my iPod/iPhone. Then i began listening to Podcasts. It has changed my life. A haze has begun to clear and i began a process which has enabled me to accept and understand that life is an unending sequence of events that will take me anywhere i want to go if i choose to.
This blog is my way of documenting the new phase of my life and i am going to sound out to the world my plans for the future.
Peace and love
L J Hylton
Looking before leaping off the Grid 