It’s been a life-long fascination of mine. In the most individualistic culture on earth, we like to display our status by wearing brand names and shop the same stores in malls that look the same across the nation. We are the inventors of the chain store, the strip mall. The one-size-fits-all. The suburb and cookie-cutter-house. Here in the cult of the individual, we like to do what every one else is doing.
Kerri and I tease about writing a book. It’s called “Looking For Joey.” Google Joey Coconato or his YouTube channel, My Own Frontier, and our blogs pop up at the top. We’ve not written much about Joey Coconato – a few posts – but to our great amusement, we top-the-google-list. And, so, these days, we are regularly contacted by people who are looking for Joey. They think we know him. They think he’s editing his next video in our basement.
Joey lives off the grid. He backpacks the American wilderness and documents his treks with videos. We became avid Joey fans when pandemic-isolating last year and vicariously got “out there” through Joey’s films.
After watching a few of his films it becomes abundantly clear that Joey is what everyone on the grid pretends to be. An individual. His clothes are ripped. His gear is constantly in disrepair. His food is what he can get his hands on at the moment. He is not climbing any ladder. In other words, he is not invested in how he looks, what he wears, or whether or not he’s doing things the way he ought to do them. He’s doing life in his way. At his pace. In his place. According to his star.
After receiving the latest: “Do you know where Joey is? It’s been 8 months since he posted…” I decided that, in these un-united-united-states, everyone is looking for Joey. He has, for me, ascended to the level of metaphor. He is authentic in an age of thin veneer.
While people are draping themselves in tribal-hate-flags and crying “individual freedom”, sticking their heads in the Q-sands as an act of liberation, blinding themselves in a rabid-festival of group think, all the while shaking their fists declaring, “No one can tell me what to do.” Insisting without any connection to reality that an election was stolen, that vaccines in a pandemic are filled with micro chips, that January 6 was an ordinary day at the Capitol – we are a mess of lockstep inanity.
I think everyone is looking for Joey. They – we – no longer know what is real so they -we – are splintering into disparate group-fantasy. Lemmings singing a chorus of My Way as they – we – plummet off our collective cliff.
Honesty is not that hard to spot if you want to look for it. Much of the fight falls away when you are prepared to acknowledge that much of what we profess is cotton-candy, that we are terrified of looking at our full history. Shops and malls and online outlets are not great places to look for answers. Running from critical race theory does not make our past go away.
A walk about in nature has a way of making the absurd abstractions fall away. Carrying your food on your back and looking for water when you need it strips away the investments in the ridiculous.
Individuals – people truly living out of their own center – generally don’t have to wear brands or broadcast their individuality. They are not seeking validation. They are not fighting for their freedom. Like Joey (I imagine) they simply live it.
[ the cool Dr. Seusss plant is called white baneberry or doll’s eyes.]
read Kerri’s blog post about STAND OUT
Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: aarp, artistry, back packing, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Dr. Seuss, fit in, frank sinatra, freedom, group think, individual, individuality, joey coconato, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lemmings, malls, metaphor, my own frontier, my way, Stand out, story, studio melange |
The Direction of Intention 
Though I honestly never remember hearing my own mother say it my daughter insists one of her favorite Grandma quotes to be:
“Why do you want to be like everybody else?”
And now you’ve done it. Had to follow the Joey link and fall down his rabbit hole.
Ah, my work this day is done. Follow Joey into the canyon lands, you won’t be disappointed. I’ll have an intervention ready when you adopt his diet and start tenting in the backyard. Until then, go rogue!
Yes, I’d say tenting in the backyard is about as far as my rogue-ery might get me.
You and I have generally been rogue-ish at the same speed. It’s why we are such good collaborators. Backyard tenting sounds like just the ticket: indoor plumbing and a kitchen are part of the package;-)