Excerpt from Part 1 of The Essence of Free: Planting Seeds
Chapter One
Community
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The direction life can take us is amazing to think about. I sat hunched over with my head pressed against the window pane, peering out at the runway below. From outside the cabin the roar of the jet engines permeated through the walls, and as we began to creep around the tarmac I felt as though I were back on the bus. A week ago I had boarded a Trailways, with no earthly idea how I came to be getting onto a tour bus with forty other strangers or just what to expect when we finally made it to the nation's capital. Somehow, though, I had made it to the bus, and somewhere along the way I came to find myself on a plane, buckled in and watching the pavement lurch by.
I had always assumed that I would be nervous the first time I flew, but to my surprise, I was ecstatic. The person sitting on that plane was not the same person that had once been so afraid of flying that he swore he'd never get on an airplane, and as we finally began to pick up speed, I felt only curiosity.
The plane's angle shifted as we began to move upward into the sky, and I looked out just in time to see the wheels suspended, before being retracted completely. I watched in awe as the scene below grew smaller and smaller, and before long the cars and buildings looked to exist only on a much more miniature scale. I could see roadways and people moving from place to place, and I found myself in a strange mix between amazed and delighted. After all, a century before people had only dreamed of soaring above the ground and zipping through the clouds, yet there I was- living the dream.
When we had left the terminal at the Baltimore International Airport the skies had been gray. It had just started to rain, and flash flood warnings had been issued for the surrounding areas. As we broke through the clouds the rain subsided, and all of a sudden the most unalloyed blue sky I had ever seen lay before my eyes. I could hardly believe what I was seeing, but I was glad I got a chance to see it; after all, I had always wondered what it would look like above the clouds, and what I witnessed certainly didn't disappoint.
Once the plane leveled off I continued looking out the window, with my forehead nearly glued to the glass. I had left my netbook in my Ubuntu bag, and had no way of accessing it, but I was so enticed by the flight I didn't really miss it. I did take the opportunity, however, to flip through Skymall Magazine.
The flight was relatively short, and before long we were approaching Charlotte-Douglass International Airport. The landing gear lowered back down, the plane touched ground once more, and I waited in limbo for fifteen minutes while the people slowly made their exit off the plane. We had to hurry to the next terminal to catch a connecting flight, but when we arrived we learned that it was delayed for a few hours due to severe storms in Florida, so I sat in the terminal watching the Matrix on my laptop.
That morning had been interesting, to say the least. My roommates and I had set the alarm for four-thirty, but due to an odd problem with the phone changing time zones during the night, we were awoken about five minutes after five by the “just in case” wake-up call. I furiously snatched the last set of clean clothes from the top of my suitcase, we brushed our teeth together in a frantic huddle surrounding the sink, I rounded up the few possessions I had yet to pack and slung them into my suitcase, and then I ran downstairs to meet the bus.
The second plane was a small puddle jumper, and as luck would have it, my seat was right near the propellers. They were comically noisy, but the racket lulled me, and being so exhausted from the early and difficult start, I fell asleep several thousand feet above the ground.
Open Sharing
When I was a kid I had a wild imagination. I built sprawling cities out of Legos, I battled invisible foes using the Lightsaber function of our broom, and I cast spells with the wands that I fashioned out of the sticks I stumbled across in my backyard.
From the time I was old enough to spell my name I liked to write. I would sit in front of my old Compaq Presario running Windows 95 and pour out my imagination into the text editor. Over time I amassed a huge collection of wild tales that I concocted: werewolves, hidden lairs, evil geniuses- I even wrote a twenty-thousand word story about vampires that lived in tunnels underneath the moon. I loved every bit of it, and I dreamed that one day I could grow up to write professionally, make millions of dollars, and marry a supermodel.
As I continued to get older I started writing less and less, except for an attempt to write a novel for NaNoWrMo (National Novel Writing Month) during my eighth-grade year, and those dreams eventually faded away with my childhood.
I had no intentions of writing a book, at least not any time soon.
As I started branching out, experiencing new things, discovering what I enjoy and what I don't, and finding something I became passionate about, I started to feel that familiar itch again. For the first time, I felt like I had something worthwhile to say. I wanted to contribute to the projects I care for and pay it forward.
When I first announced that I was writing a book on my website and my Facebook profile, my friends all asked the same question: what is the book about? I thought about an answer, but I never really could get it down to a sentence that made sense. Finally, I reduced it all down to one thing:
Freedom.
That was the only explanation that made any sense. At the time the content that I had written was a random potpourri of thoughts on politics, open-source, and community, with about a dozen stories from my life mixed in. But, as I started to really trim everything down and fit a particular mold, it became clear that freedom was the underlying principle on which everything in this book is founded.
I started writing this for several reasons, the main of which was to say thank you to the people who influenced my life and wrap everything up as a farewell project during my senior year. Over time it evolved into something entirely different, but something that I am immensely proud of.
Enough blabbering. Let's get this ball rolling and start making a difference.
The Garden
As much as I don't consider this a biography, I feel it important to fill you in just a smidgen about my beginnings. As a child I grew up in a place called Old Beech Mountain, a rather secluded area in Western North Carolina where the closest store was nearly thirty minutes away in any given direction from my house. The families that lived there had resided in the area for generations, and because of it, everyone knew everybody else. I lived in a small, single-wide trailer with my parents, and because they had to work I spent most of the days in the care of my grandmother, who was the funniest, sweetest person that I knew. There, with the three of them, I was given the opportunity to learn and grow in a place where everyone knew and loved one another, and everything I could have possibly wanted or needed I had. I was more lucky to live there than I will ever be able to fully appreciate.
Being stuck on top of a mountain with the same few people every single day isn't the best way to obtain the social skills needed to excel at life, however. I had almost everything I could have asked for, but I didn't have much of a chance to learn how to behave as part of a community. I have a sister, but she was almost grown when I came into the picture, so I didn't have any siblings to learn from as a child. With friends living so far away, there was little opportunity for me to spend time with others. Aside from my parents and grandmother, I relied on myself and my early, introductory forms of technology for entertainment. My best friend wasn't some kid down the road; it was the Super Nintendo connected to the television in the living room. That's not to say that I didn't have friends, but I never really felt close to any of them, and although I got along well with others, I never went out of my way to be around them.
Unfortunately, one of the biggest disadvantages to keeping yourself “quarantined” is that you don't get a chance to look at things from other people's perspectives. You only see one side of the road. As such, I knew only one set of ideologies and vantage points to be reliable, so I developed a closed-minded, “my way or the highway” kind of attitude about the world. Of course, none of those opinions were even of my own formulations. I would listen to the adults around me discuss the world, soak everything in, and regurgitate it all back later. I had tons of stuff floating around in my head, and only about half of my own creation.
I didn't realize it at the time, but all that was going to change very soon. New school years were always hectic at Beech Mountain Elementary, the school I attended from Kindergarten to seventh grade, because you could never really know which teachers would still be there when you went back. I walked in the doors in my sixth grade year to find my second consecutive new teacher, as well as a friendly face that I hadn't met before: Skip Watts.
Skip Watts was skinny, had jet-black hair, was as sharp as a tack, and as nice as guy as you could ask for.
He was a great guy, but I thought he was odd, so I sort of isolated myself from him at first. I could tell he acted and thought differently, and it sort of took me off guard, as I had been accustomed to the type of people I had been surrounded by my entire life. In many ways, it was a culture shock, and I was uncomfortable with the thought that I would be spending my time with someone who thought the opposite way that I did about almost everything. I wasn't looking to branch out, and I certainly wasn't looking to clash with anyone.
The more I got to know him, the more I admired him. We disagreed over many things, but the way he spoke about things like the media, politics, and the environment indicated that he truly cared about things, and for right or wrong, he put enough time and effort into learning about them that he didn't just sound like he was talking out of his butt..
I was always eager to throw in my two cents, but I wasn't a complete idiot, and it didn't take long for me to see that I didn't really know much about what I was talking about. Truth was, in the grand scheme of things, I knew very little. I wanted to be able to have relevant, well-founded conversations, so I became motivated to study up and learn about the important political and social issues of the time, like the brand-new War on Terror, the tension in the Middle East, the Patriot Act, and the genocide in Darfur. I was raised to be conservative, so at the time Skip and I didn’t agree on much, but I came to learn a very valuable lesson: the importance of keeping an open mind and forming your own opinions without bias. I've come to learn that everyone has a difference of opinion, and no matter how odd or incorrect you might think someone is, they're entitled to that opinion as much as anyone else. It's important, though, that everyone be given the right information and a chance to form valid, considerate conclusions. Over time I was able to overcome my stubbornness and started to think about things in a new light. The more I learned, the more I examined myself and questioned what I had learned. I didn't change my viewpoints straight-away, but was able to set a healthy precedence that followed with me.
The year moved quickly, and before long I found myself moving to what would turn out to be my seventh-grade and final year there at Beech Mountain Elementary. A series of changes had put many new names on the payroll, the main ones being a new principal and a new teacher.
The new year started off much like any other, but so much had changed that none of us quite knew what to expect. It wasn't long into the year before I realized that I wasn't going to be learning at quite the same caliber as I had been accustomed to, and although I tried to find someone to help me, no one would. Skip, thankfully, empathized with the situation, and put in place a series of events that would ultimately ease the tension- something I was very thankful for.
Skip was great at finding excuses for me to ditch class. For one, I had the task of helping to raise the flag in the morning, which bought me some time, and he later introduced a “job” system, which allowed me to skip out on the charade and work on computers a few days a week (which was a win-win for me).
Skip laid the foundation for the future in another crucial way, but only in retrospect did it register: he showed me the importance of community, and he did so through a garden.
I have to admit, when he first told me of his plans for planting and cultivating a garden, I would have bet good money that the plants would never even break through the soil. As far as I was concerned, it was going to be a colossal waste of time, but I had plenty of that to go around, so I was along for the ride.
He got everyone from the upper grades to come out during the first few minutes of the day at first, mainly removing rocks and tossing them away down the bank outside of the lawn mower shed. Most people sat around and did nothing, and even fewer thought that the garden was worth the time and effort. Then, after all that hard work, we were able to till the ground. After seeing that plot of rocky land plowed, I was convinced that it would take nothing short of a miracle to grow something there other than weeds.
It didn't take long for most people to leave, but I stayed there, although I don't think it was purely a selfless decision on my part. I was miserable in class that year and I felt the need to get out and stay out. Skip, and his garden, helped me do that. We planted seeds and I helped carry five-gallon buckets of water from one end of the school to the other, which was tough work for such an overweight person as I was at the time. My best friend stayed out with us on most days, so the three of us planted, watered, and tended to the garden. We spent hours working in the thing, out in the morning sun, pulling weeds and checking everything.
Although I had my doubts about the eventual success of the project, I was seeing something more important. He planned on it being a community garden, with the fruits and vegetables going to the people in the local area that had less of a leg up as others. He helped implant the idea that it's important for people to work together to do something for a higher purpose, one of the most important personal beliefs I hold to this day. It laid the foundation for the work I do as a member of the open source community, as well as a contributor to a few non-profit organizations and other projects. And, perhaps most of all, he was a mentor when most of the ones I had had left.
We disagreed on many things, politically, philosophically, and taste-wise, but we had great conversations and there were never any hard feelings. We were open, honest, and respectful, and although we disagreed, we were civil about It, and I gleaned a better understanding of how we need to treat others.
Time passed, then one day, as if by magic, we came out to the plot of land to see an oasis. We had more food than we knew what to do with, but we had met our goal, and I got the chance to taste how sweet it is to meet a challenge that you set for yourself. We did the impossible with that garden, and not only did it do us good, but it contributed to the well-being of the community. It was good karma all around.
A Letter to Madison
That point in my life represented a change in direction. I started reshaping myself. I figured out a lot of things, and put myself in a position to start building up and moving forward.
It's also worth mentioning that it wasn't about changing myself completely and doing everything the exact opposite way as before. Bettering yourself is important, but it's also important to hold on to the good things that were already there. Honest evaluations are great for you, and let you figure out the things you need to continue doing for their positive influences, and the things you need to change before they become detrimental. I'm a rather dense person, but I was at least able to figure that out. While it's great to be honest with yourself, it's equally great to be honest with other people. If someone makes you happy, you should let them know. If someone royally ticks you off, don't keep it to yourself. People need constructive criticism to know when they need to change something. Likewise, a few compliments can go a long way.
Madison, you should know that I believe you’re a remarkably great person. You have a kindness in you that just isn’t something you see every day, and it’s important that you keep hold of that. While it's important to hold on to the things that make you so compassionate, don't be nervous to let go of things if they don't conform to the standard you set for yourself. I don't know what views you hold or what personal beliefs you cling to, and it is nothing to me. I just want to say that I hope you have an open mind about things, like I learned to. You seem to have things figured out, and that's superb. I don't care what it is that you put your faith in, or what viewpoints you hold politically, or what you feel is right and wrong, because that's what defines you as a person and there's nothing wrong with it (and never let anyone tell you otherwise). I just hope that you take the time to make sure that it's something you truly believe, not just something that you want to believe, and that you hold yourself accountable to that. Be yourself, because that's your ticket.
Your kindness and love that you’ve shown resonates with a lot of people, not just me. I consider you a close friend and I am thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to get to know you over the past few years. If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to let me know.
Warm regards and best wishes,
Yours truly,
-Teddy