Quest for Simplicity

Elections are just around the corner, relatively speaking, and things are pretty crazy. I have taken it upon myself to become an educated citizen of these great United States as well as a responsible voter.

The dark side of becoming informed is that I have become increasingly cynical. Every time I watch the news or turn on the radio, I find myself wanting to return to the good old days back when I was a little kid without a care in the world.

Unfortunately, time travel is not a viable technology, which has forced me to consider more practical solutions. Thankfully, after careful consideration, a solution has in fact presented itself. It is very simple and entails three easy steps:

 

1) Locate a small, uninhabited, tropical island on Google Maps.
 

2) Canoe out to the island.
 

3) Live there for the rest of my life.

Simple, eh?

It will be glorious. I will canoe out to that island. I will eat coconuts and tilapia all day. I will swim with dolphins and play with the Humboldt Squid. I will fish with spears and dive for abalone, and I will live like a king.

In the long hours of the night, I will compose sonatas in my head and I will rise in the morning to write them in the sand, and then watch the tide wash them away forever as the sun sets.

I will carve chess pieces from coconut shells and play against myself for weeks until Bobby Fischer himself descends from Heaven to say, “Hey, you did it, kid. You're one of the greats now.”

We'll sit down and have lunch, Bobby and I, and play a friendly game of chess. After a nice long chat, he'll wave goodbye, promise to visit again, and depart as he arrived. He won't return of course, he'll be too busy practicing for when Boris Spassky kicks the bucket to remember to visit me. But it's the thought that counts.

I will tally the passage of days on a rock that I will have named Sunny. Every year, as close to my birthday as I can guess, I will build a raft from palm leaves and drift wood and contemplate sailing back to civilization, before pushing it out into the current. I will watch it drift away until it disappears across the horizon. Then I will return to my hut and eat a delicious dinner of tilapia-coconut stew before lying down on the sand to watch the stars before drifting off to sleep, without a worry or care in the world.

Of course there are downsides. Canoes are expensive. And I can only imagine how quickly I would get sick of eating tilapia and coconut. Plus chess gets boring really quickly. And truth be told, I don't think Humboldt squid are particularly playful. Also, who can really say the French ever really stopped testing nukes in the South Pacific?

I guess I just have to admit my idea is probably flawed. But there are always other options.

Cryogenics for example. Ol' Disney had the right idea. Who needs time travel when you can simply wait for the World of Tomorrow to come to you? After all, a harmless bit of freezer burn never hurt anyone.

Right?