A person who had lived outside of the norm, but what is the norm? What group or person decides what is normal? Some societies had traditions that they protected; later, people broke these rules and changed their world. The philosophy of these loners or small groups had transformed the mind of the younger people and brought them out of binding traditions that weren’t needed anymore.
That question was asked in the mythical world; a lone man lived along a beach; he wasn’t anything like a beachcomber or hippie; he lived in a small hut if it was called that. It was dome-shaped and constructed out of the light that protected the dweller against the weather and the seasons; it wasn’t large, and it could accommodate only one person. It had no rooms, and going to the bathroom and cooking were done outdoors. That man lived alone, but he was not a hermit; he was a guard for the beach; he had been tired of living in the cities. He had things in small cubes that were a storage system; large items were stored in these cubes that fit in the palm when taken out, and the article became average. The cubes were carried in his bag to be taken anywhere he moved around. The light gave him a living light that burned his cooking, light that illuminated the night, and solid light as shelter. He fished in the sea to eat and traded what came from the sea for vegetables and fruits in the small villages along the coast. He watched days that changed along the beach for recreation and made sand paintings. He wasn’t considered normal by the villagers, but he was well-dressed; he wore nothing shabby. They surmised that he was once a man of power, but none knew where he had come from.
Not all people who didn’t wish to be part of society lived outside the cities; the cities were the best birthplace for going against what was considered normal. An elderly woman lived in a bulb-shaped onion dwelling high above the city’s highest building; her home was situated above the clouds. The cable or a tall pole tethered it, probably both that suspended her dwelling; her house just floated, so it didn’t need anything to keep it aloft; the tethering kept it in one place so the winds wouldn’t carry it away. She had been self-sustaining, grew her vegetables and fruits, and traded things she needed for material goods with the city below. People started copying her, and eventually, floating structures became another part of the city.
There used to be groups of people who used to live in abandoned cave dwellings that were long ago used as storage places or guard houses used by soldiers. They lived in moderate comfort because they preferred to be closer to nature; the previous occupants had paved the cave floors. Gardens inside of the cave were used to grow the needed food; the ocean was close by for protein. These poets and artists didn’t write or draw; they were creators of spiritual machines that connected them with the spiritual world. The machines looked similar to ordinary clocks, but they were different; their technology was beyond the conventional engines found in the cities and towns. They guarded themselves against the intrusion of nasty strangers with large vicious dogs, but they were friendly to an average person. Outside, people had thought of them as a religious group; this was not what they were.
People who rejected society weren’t uncommon in the mythical world.
Robert J. Matsunaga
