Run away. Run away. Run Away! Listen to Run Away on Spotify, Apple Music or Soundcloud.
The phrase has a pejorative connotation in Western culture. But for me in Bali in 2016 it wasn’t like that at all.
Because being in Bali gave me a very different perspective on American Culture: what’s great about it, and what’s awful about it.
This is the beauty of culture shock. It shocks you! And in writing this song, I was shocked into a realization that the American Dream might be a trap.
In Bali I saw clearly all the invisible forces in America that want something from me.
The social media and media industries want my attention.
The credit card industry wants me to spend money I don’t have.
The cosmetic industry wants me to believe that everybody should look like a movie star.
The military-industrial complex wants me to feel afraid and condone war
The Democratic and Republican National Committee’s both want my vote, and want me to believe their frame on reality is the right one.
The automotive industry wants me to believe I need to new car to feel alive.
And on and on…
Getting away from these forces allowed me to see them more clearly. I saw how the American dream of beauty, two new cars, a stable 9-5 job, a big house in the suburbs, loads of credit card debt, and impressive social media posts serves the interests of everybody but ME.
In Bali I was able to focus on my version of success for myself, away from the demands made on me by american capitalism.
In Bali I saw how lucky I am to have the opportunity to travel between continents, how insignificant my Western “problems” are, and how unconstrained and numerous are the paths to happiness and fulfillment.
Driving from Amed in the North of Bali to Ubud in the middle of the island, I passed through villages where school children pointed at me and chased me because they had never seen a white person before. I spoke only a tiny amount of Balinese so I smiled and played Guitalele for them.
These people seemed happy and I realized they live on only a few dollars a day. It’s a cliche at this point but these people seemed much happier and much more ALIVE than the wealthy Boulderites I’m usually surrounded by.
The countryside was beautiful and gave me a feeling of true wealth. Lush jungle and green hills rolling down to the ocean. In one area I was introduced to Salak (a strange fruit that tastes like a pineapple mixed with an apple, with skin that looks like a snake!)
Near Candidassa I booked myself a room at the Salacca Inn - surrounded as far as the eye could see in all directions by spikey Salak fields. It was harvest season so there were buckets of the stuff everywhere.
I pictured myself selling all my stuff in Boulder and moving to Bali to live among the Salak.
How hard would that really be? I thought. I realized it wouldn’t be hard at all. And even factoring a few yearly flights home to visit friends, plus some carbon offsetting for the flights, it would be much cheaper to live here than to live in the USA. And I would be free of all the demands of the American Dream and it’s fake promise of happiness based on consumption.
In general, the people in Bali seem happy to me. There are no guns. There’s little violence or competition. The relative harmony stands in stark contrast to my “American dream” back home, where Trump had just been elected.
I wrote Run Away in a little bungalo among the Salak at the Salacca Inn. It’s a song that rejects the narrative and the definition of success embodied in the idea of the american dream. It rejects the role of “consumer” that we’re told to take on, and tells us to run away physically or at least mentally from all the forces acting on us for someone else’s benefit.
In writing the song I saw how success, consumerism, and the american dream are reiterated over and over again in our pop culture, our advertising, and our for-profit storytelling (blockbuster movies and TV shows), all forces that see me as their revenue source, to be coerced into behaviors that will help them hit their quarterly earnings targets.
I saw again how corporatized and commoditized we are in the West. We accept that the most powerful entities in our society (large corporations and political parties) seek monetary gain and domination over everything else. We accept the endless consumption of resources to serve a bottomless hunger for growth that is leading us off a cliff.
And in the process we forget our humanity. In my opinion this consumerist version of the american dream moves each of us away from finding sustainable happiness and fulfillment.
The villagers in Bali seemed happier than the bankers in NYC I used to ride beside on the subway. They seemed happier than the Boulderites in my neighbofrhood back home. They seemed happier than nearly anybody in America.
And so I decided I want to be more like them. I want to escape the american dream. I don’t want to be anybody’s commodity. I don’t want to buy anybody else’s definition of happiness, or try to achieve it by buying their products.
I wrote Run Away to remind me whenever I need a reminder, that I am a free man as long as I decide what fulfillment looks like for me, and orient my life around that instead of keeping up with the Jones’
Because I don’t want to,
fall into,
someone else’s plan for me
No it’s only
my plan,
for me.
I hope you like Run Away. Step out of our culture’s plan for you, take a moment to feel into what real satisfaction might look like for you, and make moves to create your own wild and crazy path towards fulfillment. I got your back. ❤️
