I’ve read those stories, you know, the ones about people vanishing. They are curious tales, with provocative headlines in local rags and the New York Times alike. More often than not I read about missing children – usually young, white girls - and I’m just completely dumbfounded. My thoughts wander to the chilling experience of abduction or torture, the utter thought that to have gone "missing” (as the headline usually reads) is to somehow have been forcibly removed from your reality. Because, well, who actually wants to be abducted? or end up on the proverbial milk carton? or just disappear out of thin air at your local drugstore?
I’d venture to say: no one.
No one wants to be forgotten, to live in a shed in the back of a creepy guy’s house, or transform their entire life to the point of being unrecognizable to one’s self or others. I mean, that is why we have tombstones, Megan’s Law, and group therapy, right? But that's because the thought of non-existence, of vanshing without a trace, is beyond human comprehension. It is why we call the police and create search parties when people go missing. To disappear is to fundamentally transgress that liminal space of knowledge and tread upon the one concept that humans have never been able to come to terms with – “the unknown.”
My friend Katie once told me a story about a man who worked in the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York. On September 11, 2001, he was going about his daily routine when something utterly unexpected happened. He walked out of the South Tower and began to live a completely different life. That’s right. He left his desk, his wife, his children, his name, his entire identity behind. He is as missing to his former co-workers who survived or died in the terrorist attack as he is to his own parents and relatives who have no idea what happened to him on that day. He disappeared, along with thousands of other New Yorkers that September, and lives on in the memories of the people he knew before. Except, he’s alive. He saw an opportunity at an inopportune time to radically alter his life. He utilized a pretext of destruction to create something new. I’m not saying that I agree with this man. But, I must admit, he had some pretty big balls. Maybe it wasn’t just big balls, but a big desire to start a new life in a system that only really allows for one.
Think about it.
There’s no "log off" button from life, except, well, death. But for those of us who are not contemplating suicide or euthanasia, there's no real abrupt escape. And in this hyper technological era of GPS navigation, Facebook, and ubiquitous cell phone usage, the problem more often than not is that we can never go missing. We can always be found. And the act of being “known” requires a persona, an identity, and a performance to accompany it. But like most Broadway shows, the eight shows a week routine becomes taxing. You love your audience, and hopefully, your castmates, but, when you step back and realize that reality exists outside of that theatrical venue, you may or may not start looking for the exit signs. While it may be true that all of life’s a stage, maybe we don’t always have to play the part we’ve been handed in its traditional constraining fora. We can become president, shave our heads and assault paparazzi with an umbrella, or cheat on our partners multiple times without them knowing it. I’m not saying that our unconventional, revolutionary actions will always be the right ones, but we should take comfort, not revulsion, in the possibility of their raison d’etre. After all, as the old adage goes, “change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.”
On the morning of June 19th, 2010, I was going about my daily routine when something utterly unexpected happened. I opened my infamous, gloriously addictive, unflattering Facebook.com account, went to the privacy settings, located a little known button called “Deactivate” and clicked.
I am still alive. I’m pretty sure I’m breathing. I’m not in a shed in the back of a creepy guy’s house. Everything is as it usually is, except, I vanished.
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