The Utopian dream

 

Pictures of the border line by Kinsee Morlan

 

Strange. I checked my email today and this YouTube video was sitting in my inbox. It’s from a dude named George who wants to start a Utopian society somewhere in Mexico.

Most people would just delete the email and think nothing of it, but I’ve always half jokingly talked about starting a commune, so the vaque little video caught my attention.

The closest I ever came to starting a commune was when I lived in downtown San Diego with seven other official roommates (and a flux of about four other unofficial roommates who’d sleep on our balcony).

We cooked with each other, split all the bills and partied in a cloud of Captain Morgan’s and philosophical debates. It was perfect, but we all grew up, eventually got kicked out and went our own ways.

When I moved to Tijuana, I initially wanted to find a cheap house and convince a handful of my friends to move down with me. With prices the way they are in Tijuana, I figured we could each end up paying less than $100 a month for rent and all our bills.

But instead I moved into a studio where I’ve paid $250 a month for the past year. It bought me a certain level of freedom from my capitalistic responsibilities and woes, but I still struggle. See, like a lot of people in their mid 20s, I’ve got student loans to payoff. My loan payments total about $250 a month.

The bills are like shackles. They keep me down in more ways than one — I can’t drop everything and travel around the world, I can’t take entrepreneurial risks and I sure as hell can’t go help my buddy George start a Utopian society in the jungles of Mexico. I’ve got bills to pay.

Damn my capitalistic upbringing.