Total escape from the world leaves unsettled questions of responsibility and survival

Evidence

These despairing questions might sound familiar to anyone who has force-ejected themselves from an absorbing situation only to find its pretenses are totally, frighteningly questionable. Indeed, Levi Felix might have been asking himself these questions on the plane to Cambodia after quitting his ruthless job. At least in this story, the two men decide to abandon their entire lives (including their fiancées!) and become hermits like St. Anthony. No going back to work on Monday for them. In any narrative of escape, this is a pivotal point. Do you pack all your things in a van, say, “Fuck it,” and never look back? What responsibility do you have to the world you left behind, if any? And what are you going to do out there? The experiences of the 1960s communes suggest that these are not easy questions to answer. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 217

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to defending Odell against the withdrawal misreading—the chapter frames full withdrawal as posing unanswerable questions.