I’m currently working on a new project idea. What I’d like to do is interview people about their personal experiences with layoffs and loss and document their perspectives on what this all means for us as a society. I’m marrying this with my bike expedition so I can talk to people across the country. It’s also partly a reflexive need to turn my personal travels into something I can document and bring to the table later. Maybe I’m just trying to rationalize my need to ditch my career and go wandering. I’ll write a book about it later. Right.
Having traveled cross country before, I know how incredibly different Americans are from one another. We’re all people, but sometimes it amazes me that we’re able to agree on anything. People in DC (inside the Beltway) are particularly prone to insularity and a kind of arrogant assumption that because we’re so close to the center of power it gives us some kind of elite understanding. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.
In 2005 I drove from Olympia Washington back to DC with a friend. Halfway through, we stopped at a ranch in the Badlands of South Dakota for a week to rest and fix the car. While staying there we were invited to meals by the owners. If I were a better writer I could find the words to describe the gulf in experiences and priorities between my friend (a DC city boy) and me and Jake and his wife.
Jake had inherited part of his 10,000 acre spread from his father, a Depression era rancher, and wrested the remainder from his older brother, a drunk. He was in his 70s when we met and had been working the ranch since he was seven years old. I don’t know that he had ever left South Dakota. I don’t think we found a single common topic of conversation. This was fine since Jake’s stories of cowboys and wrangling were more interesting than anything I had to offer.
The trip got me thinking about how different people are coast to coast and made me wonder what people are experiencing in the New Depression. DC is pretty insulated from the vagaries of the economy. The government never stops spending. It’s hard to get a real view of how bad things are from here. So, I’m going to go find people and see what they say.
I’m still working on the name, but I like: 365 Conversations. I might not get all 365, but it’s a nice, round number.
Any thoughts or ideas out there?
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