Chasing Clout

It’s 8:45 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26., and I’m currently organizing photos, editing drone footage and adding new stops to a virtual map that I’m testing for my new website. In addition to tracking my itinerary, the map also allows me to post pics and jot down notes about the different places I’ve visited, including some from my recent trip to New England.

What comes to mind when you hear the words “New England”? For me, it’s northerners—or Yankees, as we prefer to call them down south. It’s Boston accents, clam chowder and the Pilgrims… The word pilgrim means traveler, or someone who journeys to a foreign land. The Pilgrims of the Mayflower, for example, left Europe for the New World in 1620.

They originally set sail for Northern Virginia but instead landed on the shores of Cape Cod, MA, before eventually settling across the bay in nearby Plymouth Rock. These early settlers were labeled as separatists because they left their homeland in an attempt to break free from the religious confines imposed on them by the Church of England.

Standing on the shores of Plymouth Rock, I couldn’t help but think about how difficult of a decision it was for these voyagers to leave their homeland to chase their own idea of freedom. I suppose we “van lifers” are separatists in our own right because each of us has chosen to break free from the perceived societal norms that dictate how we are supposed to live our lives. In doing so, we have exchanged routine for adventure, city life for the open road, and physical communities for virtual audiences.

I remember reading John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress growing up. The main character, Christian, leaves the City of Destruction in search of the Celestial City and must overcome inhospitable places like Vanity Fair and Difficulty Hill along the way. Only by keeping on the proverbial narrow path does Christian eventually arrive at his literal and spiritual paradise.

Pilgrim’s Progress, originally published in 1678 in England, quickly gained popularity across Europe and within the Puritan communities of present-day Massachusetts. Bunyan’s work is one of the best-selling and most published books of all time and has inspired religious and secular authors alike for more than 300 years.

I used to imagine that my main character, Maven the Raven, would one-day become part of mainstream popular culture. The more I physically detach and mentally disassociate myself from my former lifestyle, however, I realize that, similar to Christian, these aspirations stem from wayward influences I picked up living in my own City of Destruction.

When I started my road trip, one of my goals was to build a social media following and grow my “writer’s platform” in the process. Writers with large social media followings are generally more attractive to agents and publishers because writing a book is only half the battle. The other half is building an audience, which can quickly become its own form of vanity if not careful.

In Bunyan’s book, Vanity Fair is a place to see and be seen; it’s an ongoing festival where venders hawk all forms of “lusts, pleasures, and delights.” Ultimately, it’s a place designed to entangle its visitors and keep them from reaching their ultimate destination. Sound familiar? It certainly does for me because in recent months I have been more focused on traveling and social media than I have on writing my book.

I’ve had some of the most amazing experiences of my life traveling the country this year, but I regularly beat myself up for not being further along in my journey toward publication. Similarly, at one point in Christian’s journey, he falls asleep on the side of Difficulty Hill and loses the very scroll he must present upon arrival at the gates of the Celestial City.

Christian chides himself for giving in to “guilty sleep”—a metaphor for loss of direction. He says, “O wretched man that I am […] that I should sleep in the midst of difficulty! [...] How many steps have I taken in vain!” Christian isn’t the only one who has found himself sleepwalking at times. I suppose this is one of the perils that comes from traveling alone. There aren’t always people around to shake you from this so-called sleep, which is why having a solid community to rely on is so important.

This past year has taught me an invaluable lesson that an online community should never replace its physical counterpart. Relationships are vital to each of our spiritual journeys, and in my opinion, a real influencer is someone whose individual work, whether creatively or altruistically, makes a positive and meaningful impact in other people’s lives. Now, that’s real clout.

Follow me on Instagram at @Joshua_Maven or @HonchotheVan, on Twitter @MaventheRaven or Facebook at Facebook/TheLastImperial.