NOVEMBER 21, 2022 – It’s been four days since I’ve seen another human being but not since I’ve interacted with many—by phone, text and email. In fact, I spent many hours today on the phone; mostly contentious, anxiety-ridden or otherwise demanding business calls. They were a reminder of how removed most of my life has been from the quietude that surrounds my current hermitage. For decades I’ve made my living by facilitating trade in the capitalist bazaar—or advocating for one trader against another or helping resolve disputes between them. It’s often a loud, dusty, dirty, smelly business, with goats bleating, chickens squawking, parrots repeating, gorillas beating. Many in my profession tire of it, hit the bottle over it, curse the day they got involved in it.
I’m not among those who can’t or couldn’t wait to retire from the practice of law. I love many aspects of the cacophonous bazaar. I enjoy the noise, the goods, the color, the people, the characters, the give-and-take of commerce, and my role as a lawyer, a counselor, a problem solver, working for hire out of a vendor’s booth.
During a break in the action today, I took a hike along the path that meanders along the shore. This route leads over the top of “Blueberry Hill,” where invisible inhabitants of the woods leave their tracks among mine. At the summit bench that my grandfather built 80 years ago between two old Norway pine—a bench my father replaced 40 years ago—I stopped and gazed down the steep bank. The lighting was so perfect, the lake water, so clear and still, I could see every stone, every pebble, every ridge of sand on the lake bed 50 feet below where I stood.
In the moment, I was fully absorbed in this remarkable scene. The bazaar was a million miles away. Soon, however, thoughts of the boisterous market re-entered my consciousness. If I could run, I couldn’t hide from them. Moreover, in the cool light of day in the Northwoods appeared the inescapable connection between the clamorous world in which I’ve made my living, on the one hand, and on the other, my ability to enjoy these Empyrean woods. My career in the bazaar, a life battling dust and noise, hawkers and hucksters, is what’s provided me the means to be in this place—here and now.
Another connection then appeared—one much broader than the first. Just imagine what it takes for me to be here, I thought; the vehicle I drove, the roads I traveled, the dwelling I occupy, the food that nourishes me, the tools I use to make and fix things, the devices that allow communication with the outside world (and thus, working remotely) and . . . so on infinitum. Call all of these “infrastructure.” Absent them, I’d be a plane without wings; a man without prospects. What’s behind them all? Human interactions of mind-boggling complexity, organized to produce desired, predictable outcomes broadly distributed among billions of people around the globe.
My enjoyment of the bucolic life, then, depends on “infrastructure.” Infrastructure depends on human interaction. Human interaction that produces infrastructure, emanates from the bazaar. It’s a circle from which I can’t and wouldn’t wish to escape.
These reflections followed me back to the cabin where I needed to prepare for a scheduled call—but I summoned enough reprieve en route to marvel again at my surroundings and count my immeasurable blessings.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
