Liberation (or, the Coyote Solution)

To get into a college or university in the United States, you have to take a test. There are two tests that are widely accepted as entrance exams: The SAT and ACT. The differences between the two are purely academic. The tests prove nothing, measure nothing except your ability to take that particular test. They're purely arbitrary yardsticks that can determine the course of your life for the foreseeable future.

Getting out of college is a lot like getting into college. Due to pressure from professors, family, friends and, of course, finances, you're forced to pass a ridiculous test which demonstrates nothing except that you know how to give the answer that is expected of you.

This test consists of only one question. You receive no "freebie" points for writing your name.

What will you do after college?

• A. Live in poverty to avoid working a job you hate.
• B. Take a job you hate. After all, you've got bills to pay, and Sallie Mae's legbreakers just threw a textbook through your window with an Outstanding Interest Statement wrapped around it.
• C.) Grad school. It's poverty, but at least it's dignified poverty.

It's a game of blackjack with blank cards, infinite stakes and a dealer who won't stop smiling. The only rules are these: You can't win and you can't break even.

The answer is simple. Choose

• Z.) I refuse to play the game.

It's what one of my best friends calls "The Coyote Solution;" win the game by nullifying the rules.

When I graduated from college in January, I was faced with a host of unappealing options.

• A.) Stay in Sherman near my people, who will eventually leave.
• B.) Move in with my parents until I find a job in the States.
• C.) Move in with a buddy and put my name on a lease.
• D.) Find a job to pay the bills until I found what I wanted to do.

I put down my pencil and walked out.

I sold my car and my worldly possessions. I borrowed money from my family, bought my camera equipment, and booked a flight to South America.

I chose the Coyote Solution.

It's only been four weeks, but they have been four of the happiest weeks of my life. I am the kind of stupidly, blissfully happy usually reserved for lobotomy patients, the helmet-wearing short-bus crowd, and the newly enamored.

For the first time in God knows how long, I do not worry about anything. This kind of anxiety-free equilibrium with one's circumstances must be what zen masters and opium addicts feel.

I am liberated. I am outside the System. I am where I want to be, doing what I want to do. To paraphrase St. Durden, I refuse to work a job that I hate to buy s*** I don't need. I do what I wish because it makes me happy. As soon as it stops being fun, I'll find something else to do.

That is the essence of liberation in my mind. To let slip the shackles that you've made for yourself and take complete control of your life. Liberation is the establishment of personal sovereignty: to be the only one who decides your circumstances.

Send lawyers, guns and money,

J.