Promoted To Drifter

Rome, NY
NoLL

Friday morning I was sitting in the park near lock 20 reading my book. A young man wearing a rucksack approached me. "Is that your boat," he said pointing at Tarwathie. "Yep," I answered.

The man went on to explain that he was traveling west by bicycle and that he kept catching glimpses of Tarwathie ever day as he continued west. We chatted for a while. I ask him about his destination. He replied, "I'm just drifting west."

"Wow," I thought, "a real live drifter." Then I though about it some more. What's the difference between a cruiser and a drifter? Not much. For that matter, [voluntarily] homeless, hobo, vagabond, vagrant, drifter, cruiser, world traveler, and jet setter are all more-or-less synonyms. The difference in meaning is more quantitative than qualitative. The latter adjectives are presumed to have fatter wallets than the former. Homeless are presumed to be on the bottom rung of social status and jet setters on the top rung.

Cool. I spent most of my career with titles like engineer, senior engineer or most pompous of all -- consultant. Now, I left all that behind, and promoted myself to drifter. Not only that, many people envy me for it.

Actually, I'm kind of proud to be able to call myself a drifter. The implied low social status bothers me not. The implied degree of freedom is something I value a lot. Drifters, like cruisers, have the freedom to wake up each morning and say, "Shall I stay here today or move on to some other place? If I move, where shall I move to?"

Only rarely, as in the stories by O'Henry and by Jack Kerouac, does one hear glorification of the life of a drifter.

Each person in a free country may choose his/her set of values and to prioritize them. Comfort, possessions, and security are high on the lists of many people. The freedom to drift is prized foremost by a only small minority. I think the diversity is great. The only sad aspect of it is that many people just stumble along through life by default without ever assessing their personal values or consciously making life style choices.