Continuing Adventures In Nudity (or Be Naked, Be Happy, and Fuck the Establishment)

It is with much regret that I step inside, but dawn will be approaching soon. The weather was extremely fair/mild today, even on into the night. The low tonight was something like 70, and it was very comfortable out there. There was some humidity, enough that you couldn't ignore it, but not so much that it overwhelmed you - indeed, I thought it felt good. And there was also a pretty constant on and off gust of wind - slightly cool, which felt good in the warm air - the kind that typically preempts a thunderstorm, but it stayed dry through the night, as if the storm was lazily reclining on its porch, intent on enjoying the night rather than going about its work of raging through the skies. All in all, the night was bea-utiful.

And I spent the larger part of a good two hours out there, all or mostly nude.

At first I went out, with no particular plans, just to gauge the atmosphere. Wandering around the yard, I got the impulse to go for a little walk through the streets, and maybe - maybe - even take a picture or two away from my headquarters for once. I wasn't about to go on an aimless walk through the streets without any kind of covering (unfortunately), so I grabbed that blanket I used once before from my room, and wrapped it around myself. I grabbed my camera and tripod just in case I found a good spot, and then I went off about the streets.

Well, unfortunately, partway through my stroll, the one leg on the tiny tripod attached to the camera I was carrying fell right off, hardly without any provocation at all. There wasn't much chance of me taking any decent pictures without the tripod, I figured, so I just turned around and headed back. Lucky for me, I just so happened to have picked up that other tripod at Walmart that I'd been looking at, earlier tonight! It's a lot bigger than the tiny tripod I've been using - heavier, sturdier, and it looks much more like a professional tripod.

So I went back out with the camera and the new tripod, but I wasn't about to haul that thing up and down the streets with me. I was concerned enough with the smaller tripod - not that anybody would have noticed if they happened to pass me by, but I kept thinking what would happen if I met a cop, or anyone who was too suspicious to ignore me. They'd probably think I was a lost hobo, considering that I was wearing nothing but a blanket - and I certainly didn't have an ID on me. And if they questioned me and found out I was carrying around a camera, well then, who knows what assumptions they might jump to then.

So anyway, I took some shots around the yard. I had fun, and I had a lot of ideas, but I forced myself to hold back, because I want to save those ideas for other days, and not spend all my creativity on one night, you know. After I got the shot I wanted, I sat on the porch for a bit, then I went in to take out my contacts, which I had put in specifically to do the shooting. It was after four by this point, but it was so beautiful out there that I just had to go out for a little longer.

And when I got out there, the boldness that had been subdued by the daring of setting off the camera flash in the yard multiple times came right back to me. When the weather's so nice, it's hard not to be drawn to make the most out of it. So I went and stretched my boundaries once again. I believe I mentioned in previous entries my previous limits - for wearing only the blanket, it was down to the end of the street, and for being completely naked, it was no further than traversing the length of the yard just outside the property, on the side of the road.

Well, this time I walked to the end of the street completely naked, and in addition, I also walked up the street as far as the top of the hill, to the point where I could see the intersection and beyond. And it felt so great. It tears me apart inside because it feels so good just to walk down the street completely naked, and yet I have these pretty strong notions in the back of my head that certain people in power would destroy me if they found out.

I mean, what's so harmful about walking down the street naked? It makes me feel so good - good enough to want to do it again, good enough to want to do it more, good enough to want to do it farther. Who am I hurting? I don't want to hurt anyone, I don't even want to offend anyone. But this is something I want so bad to be able to do in my life.

Obviously, I'm working under the impression that if I were to walk down the street naked, in the middle of the day, within sight of any random person in their house/yard, or any passing car, then I would be placing myself in a position I don't want to be in. Specifically, people would be offended. And not just unnerved. I'm assuming they would make specific complaints, if not to me or to people who know me, then to the authorities themselves. What kind of consequences could that have? Even if it was at worst a warning not to engage in that kind of behavior again, that would 1) destroy my self-esteem, which has never been particularly strong to begin with, and 2) wouldn't help to make it okay for me to walk down the street naked - in fact, it would probably make people even more wary/cautious/suspicious, and thus harder for me to do it behind their backs.

I've considered the possibility that these paranoid thoughts might purely be fantasies created by my self-defeating imagination, and that if I decided to walk down the street naked in broad daylight, then maybe nobody would care, or they might even be happy about it. But considering all the facts I have at my disposal, not least of which is the fact that I've /never/ seen /anybody/ walk down the street naked, gives me the feeling that my concerns are strongly justified.

And we haven't even gotten to the worst case scenario yet! What if somebody has sufficient proof of my activities, and that leads to the authorities being convinced that I have committed some kind of, gasp, "crime"! What if I had to appear in court? Even barring that, having to deal with legal mumbo jumbo and paperwork and maybe fines and whatnot would be no fun at all. For what? For walking down the street naked? For allowing people to see what they themselves have, though they probably refuse to even look at their own naked bodies? I'll tell you what it's for. It's for being a minority. Not in age or race or anything like that, but being a philosophical minority. It's not the government, per se, that I'm afraid of. It's the dirty majority. It's just that the government is a tool the majority uses to persecute minorities everywhere.

Look, here's my position. If nudity is such a bad and terrible thing, and I'm just in some way corrupt and wrong and all that, then by god, please do something. Get me help, get me therapy, lock me away, if necessary. At least then I'd be on the road to recovery. But if my beliefs on this issue are perfectly humane and reasonable and all that, which is obviously what I myself believe, then stop fucking terrorizing me! With threats of, "if I catch you engaging in that behavior, you're gonna get it!" As Frank Black said (in paraphrase), if I'm being accused of a crime, then arrest me now, but if not, then get the hell out of my way.

It frustrates me to no end. The reason I don't contribute to society is because this society has very little to offer my soul. And in place of giving me reasons to contribute, it instead insists on bullying me and making me feel inadequate. Which it's doing a damn good job of.

I was thinking about why I don't care much about world politics, or even politics within this country, and the reason is, I just can't think on that kind of a scale, in terms of people. When people start making guesses and averages about groups and demographics, it's the individual that gets crushed. And certain individuals - specifically the ones that vary from the average the most - feel the weight more than others. It may sound harsh, but I don't give a damn what half a billion people on the other side of the world are doing, or how they feel. I don't even give a damn what half a million people on the other side of the country are doing, or how they feel. I'd love it if they were happy, but it just doesn't make a difference to me, unless they enter my life some way. Sure, humanistic trends fan out and what one person does on this side of the globe may affect a person's life on the other side of the globe, but that's way too impersonal a connection. Put a person in front of me, and I'll genuinely care for them, even a complete stranger. But as long as I don't know them and I've never met them, they're just not gonna be more important to me than I am to myself. And as long as I'm feeling this massive weight from society, I can't be happy with the kind of system we're running.

I want a small community where everyone's individual needs are attended to. I want to live in a community where I can be who I really want to be. I want to live in a community where I can feel good about my contributions to that community, because I can see how they're helping the community, and how that community in turn helps me - helps me to be who I really want to be. I want to know people that share my crazy views about life, or at the very least, ACCEPTS my crazy views about life, without trying to mold them into the national average.

This is why I'm not happy. I'm not living in a world that satisfies me. And every desire to change my world by my own hands is met with both the fear of coming up against that powerful majority who is fine with things the way they are, and the pessimistic feeling that any progress I'd try to make would never work out in the end...

I might be able to do something about it if I wasn't alone...

I want to make a difference. I want to force people to wake from their slumber, from their comfortable lives and security, and force them to see the damage they're doing to the minorities in thought as well as being. My life hasn't been particularly hard, but I feel like I've missed out on most of the good things. Friends in school, young love, hopes and dreams with the appearance of being fulfilled. If my life has been wasted, then at least maybe it's not too late to make it worth something. I just don't know what to do about it. I don't particularly feel like one person can make any substantial kind of difference anyway. Not without tons of backing and influence. But then it's not really one person anymore.

Fuck you, life. Fuck you, society. If anyone has some kind of use for me, something that I could get my mind into, give me a call.