The Bohemian Hedonist

I will be honest. Much of my life has been devoted, good or bad, to having a good time.

Elsewhere on this site I mention the "zen" of photography, and part of the appeal is how this process makes me hyper-aware of the world around me. Sadly, photography is not yet enough of a breadwinning endeavour that I can abandon my "real" job.

Events in my corporate life over the last handful of years, however, have led me to the conclusion that my job is not how I wish to define myself. If what I do at the office is solely how people see and react to me, then I have failed miserably in how I perceive the world -- and it, me. I am, when all is said and done, an avant-garde Bohemian Hedonist ... with a camera.

There are some who will scoff at this and note that I am prone to sitting at my suburban single family residence watching television with my dog's head on my lap, my beloved wife in her favorite chair, a fire in the fireplace and mugs of hot chocolate sitting on coasters. This is true.

There is another, very rebellious side of my personality which would just as soon be naked, sitting in a hot tub, drinking copious amounts of wine, tequila or vodka with a bunch of artistic, like-minded souls of both sexes. And, yes, this can be accomplished at my suburban SFR as well.

You see, I lead a double, though carefully connected, life.

During the day, and most nights, I am Mr. Corporate. I rise at 5am, shower, shave, and drive the 24.3 miles to my office where I conduct business, talk to clients, and coordinate corporate resources as necessary. It pays the bills and is not an entirely unpleasant way to spend the day. At the end of the day I go home, we eat dinner and watch the drivel (and occasional quality programming) on our HDTV.

In our private world, however, I am the sole representative of the daily Corporate Career. Our friends (and even relatives) are much more imaginative in their endeavors.

My wife is an accomplished singer. Four CDs to her credit, and performances in some of the best venues in the area. (We have seen the dark underbellies of some of the ritziest places in town. The Bel-Air, The Biltmore, The St. Regis, and even the Ritz. The stories we could tel... but I digress.)

Our friends, for the most part, are variations on the artistic dream. Musicians, poets, teachers, writers, painters, dancers, self-employed artisans -- and others like them -- are the people with whom we are likely to spend our own quality time. Their values may individually differ, but by and large they are a tolerant and itinerant lot, very fun to be with, often wildly unpredictable but marvelously accepting and intelligent. They all share one basic philosophy: Life is meant to be a creative thing. The concept of cubular conformity fills each of them with dread, as it does me. But if you keep your perspective, it's an acceptable evil, at least until I win the lottery.

All too often, however, I have seen my work associates slowly dying for a lack of "an outside life". In my way of thinking, we work at a job to pay for what we do outside the office. Our lives should not be built around work but the other way around. They say home is where the heart is, but it's also where the soul resides.

Swim naked; dance wildly to a record you haven't heard for years; run while flinging your arms every which way. Free yourself of one solitary inhibition and you will revel at how wonderful you feel. (Two will make you indulgent.)

Get a massage; drink a little wine; make love passionately. God meant us to enjoy ourselves, and this is lost in the hectic world of "increased productivity". (Buying into that philosophy is killing us all, whether you accept it or not.) Find yourself, and relearn what it was like to be a little child, filled with wonder at the world and the possibilities it offers.

Skip rope; run madly around the house; kiss your dog; spend an hour with your cat staring out of the window, etc, etc, etc.

Tomorrow you can replace the suit, tighten the tie and sit down for that conference call you've been planning. Careers are important, but from one Bohemian to another, it's all there solely to pay for the rest of your life.

Jimmy Buffet, a very famous Bohemian, once wrote the line "Stay in touch with my insanity, there really is no other way."

How right he was.