Roy’s world: Utopia or Disneyland?

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A few days back a post showed up on my feedreader that raised some red flags for me. The post talks about this gentleman named Roy, who claims he voluntarily gave up everything to live in an eco-commune in Kerala, and I had a lot of issues with what Roy was preaching. I debated long on whether to voice them on here or not. Our panel of fellow bloggers even discussed this topic and I will share some opinions that came out of it, sort of a “best of”. I’ll probably get skewered for questioning a perceived martyr but nothing is too sacred for me, so here goes. [Original Post] [via DesiPundit]

Here’s a sampling of quotes that raised some red flags for me.

I was working as an IT consultant in corporate America for nearly five years. By most definitions I had ‘made it’ — good education, good job, nice car, pretty girlfriend, ‘success.’ Yet, I voluntarily chose to walk away from it all and search for a totally different way of life. Why? Let me share two reasons, one external and one internal, although both are deeply connected.

I had long since questioned the role of the US government and multinational corporations in dominating the world and recreating it in its own image.

But the wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq — though hardly new or different than what the US had long been doing — brought me to a point where I had to make a decision: was this a system I could support? For supporting it I was, through my tax dollars, job, and my way of life — despite going to protests to the contrary.

The post goes on to say he quit his job, sold his belongings and moved back to India. I sincerely hope he paid off his credit card debt because, if he did not, in some way I’m paying for his dues today with my tax dollars. I also hope, for the sake of his “pretty girlfriend”(who, I assume, was none too happy with this surprising turn of events) that he broke up with her in a proper manner and was able to explain his reasons. Of course, I suspect we’ll never know the nitty-gritty of what really went down.

“Getting away from it all” seems to have a romantic tune to it for all of us, because most people would rather not deal with the “kelas” life hands us at one stage or another. But, what does walking away from it all really accomplish? Lets say you see something happening that you feel is inherently wrong. Would you be contributing by walking away from it or staying and attempting to right it? The old cliche of “if you can’t stand the heat leave the kitchen” holds true here. Roy did. And I highly question his motivations for doing so. Remember the underlying causes for NFL star Ricky Williams’ abrupt retirement from football along with the stories he fed the media?

As for Roy’s reasons - he felt he attained success with education, job, car, and a “pretty girlfriend”. Not only are his criteria for success pretty generic, but they are also outright filmi (car, building, bank balance, anyone?). Roy set the bar to something commonplace and attainable and when he was done and bored with it, he walked away. Understandable, perhaps to some. Consider me unconvinced. I would’ve had more faith in his words, if he gave a real world reason - I hated my job, my life sucked, I could not find the right woman or even a simple: this is not what I wanted to do. But then he goes on a political agenda with this remarks on the US government and multinationals.

From the second quote it is obvious, Roy has a problem with the role of the US government. Nothing new there. But multinational corporations? He escaped US and went to, of all places in the world, India, to get away from multinationals? Somehow, that line of reasoning doesn’t add up at all.

As for bringing up the wars, I hate it when people equate the two wars. The Iraq invasion has been controversial to say the least and less than favorable opinions have been expressed on it, even on this blog. But I almost choked on my coffee when Roy lumped the Afghanistan war with the Iraq invasion. Would it be too obvious to say that he is doing a disservice to the obvious causes that preceded the Afghanistan war? Somehow, I’m not too comfortable with this line of reasoning.

Roy’s reasons seem to perfect, in fact, they seem right out of a textbook, a Marxist textbook. Not a big deal except that Marxism assumes that humans will behave in the best possible manner, which flies in the face of reality. I would’ve had more respect for him if he gave us the actual reasons for his choice to “leave everything”, which by the way has another term - escapism. Eco-friendly or not, Roy is living in his own little Marxist Disneyland.

Having said that, I have immense admiration for people who are above the rat race (notice I said “above the rat race” and not “running away from it”) and even more, for people who work towards nature conservancy and other eco-friendly causes. If an IT consultant like Roy were to stay among us and show us how to balance eco-friendly causes with our high-tech lifestyle, I would be all for it. Note, there has been zero mention of the other people in the commune and, since they have not fed us a cock-n-bull story replete with political agenda, we will assume their intentions are noble and unselfish.

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