Afterword

0:08JACK: [Music] You might be wondering, wait that's it? Yeah, that's it. I mean what more can I say? He disappeared after that and I have no idea what's happened in the last seven years. There have been zero updates from him after that call. So that's all I got for you. My guess is he's either dead or in prison. But over the course of making this, I’ve done some soul-searching myself, and it’s given me a theory of where I imagine Zachariah might be today, which is what this afterward is about.

0:42I wanted to share my thoughts of what I think of his story, if he is alive and not in prison. I feel like there was a certain way that his life should have unfolded next. See, recently I read the book The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir. Something stuck with me from that book. In her book she talks about the different stages or attitudes of life that people can go through. We all start out as children where people tell us what’s good, what’s bad, what we should be doing, and they make all our decisions for us.

1:16Children don't get blamed too badly for messing up, either, because we’ve all been kids before and know how easy it is to make mistakes, so it’s fine. But as a child you lack the responsibility that comes from being an adult, and you feel unburdened. That’s what Zachariah was like living with his mom. But then the first failed attitude hit him, something that Simone de Beauvoir calls the sub-man. The sub-man doesn't yet want the weight of responsibility of being an adult, where they have to make all these big choices and figure out what they want to do in life.

1:52So, they just drift aimlessly. They squander their life. They act like a thing in the world, an object instead of a subject. After Zachariah ran away from home, he didn't know what to do and he didn't make any real choices for himself. He let the world choose for him, and he convinced himself he didn't have a choice, almost because he was scared to make those choices. He didn't quite understand the seriousness of life yet, but then when he became a drug dealer, he got his first glimpse of something serious.

2:28He didn't just become a drug dealer; he wanted to become a great drug dealer, and later on when he went to the farm, he didn't want to just be a farmer; he wanted to be a great farmer. This gave him the attitude of a serious man. He discovered his freedom to choose, but then he threw it away because he only chose something that was given to him already. He didn't go out seeking something that he was already passionate about himself. He never set out to be a great drug dealer or a great farmer.

2:57That’s just what life handed to him. But then he became convinced that that’s exactly what he wanted to do, which relieves our anxiety of freedom. When you have infinite choices, it’s hard to feel happy with whatever you pick, because you don't know if you made the right choice or not. But when life chooses for you, it’s way easier to just accept that even if it’s not what you ever wanted, because it’s just too much responsibility and too much effort to choose something else.

3:28He was living a lie, and he devoted all his time and energy into something he didn't really want to be good at. But then when the farmer died and later when he went to the US and Nick died, it all came crumbling apart. All the beliefs that he held as valuable were no longer valuable. The focus on becoming great at something was suddenly shattered, which pushed him into the next stage of life that Simone called the nihilist. Why put so much energy into trying to be something great or someone great when none of it matters anyway?

4:05Like, he tried to keep that cow alive so badly, but it still died anyway. So, what’s the point to any of this? That’s the nihilist belief, and it destroyed his desire to do anything good. The next attitude is the adventurer, which I clearly see in him when he goes out on his own once again, even redefining himself with a new jacket. He was seeking excitement and conquest by beating people up that he hated. He wanted that feeling of being alive, and he became violent, which thrilled him.

4:41But he was burning his life and the world around him, and from there he naturally entered the stage of passionate man, where now his new mission, the mission that he feels he chose this time, was to punish pedophiles. He felt like it was in his bones to do this, and he could not stop thinking of anything else or even picture himself doing anything else. This is the mission he was put on Earth to do, feeling like he was the only one who could do it.

5:14It became his obsession. It became his everything. Maybe it ultimately did become everything for him, because that’s where his story ends. That’s when I lost contact with him. But Simone de Beauvoir says that each of these stages are failed attitudes since they cannot support the weight of being truly free. Each one is a trap of sorts that restricts your potential and true freedom. She says that the ideal attitude to strive for is the one that she calls the genuine man, which, as a side note, it’s kinda funny that she genders these attitudes with names like sub-man and genuine man, because she’s the one who started the second wave of feminism.

6:02Anyway, in this stage one understands the ambiguity of life, that you can't be perfect, nor can you just be an object in the world. You have to find the meaning of life somewhere in-between. You're tasked with the burden to find your own meaning, and you shouldn't accept someone else’s for your own. While a genuine man knows that we're all born free, they know that’s not permanent, and they need to keep renewing their freedom every day. Life is an action, a verb, not a noun.

6:41But for Zachariah to get there, there would be a big lesson that he would have to learn, which is if he’s hurting others or oppressing anyone else, he’s gotta come to the realization that he’s degrading their lives to mere objects of his life. Simone thinks that a genuine man doesn't degrade others but instead works to liberate others, to help them become free, too, and to find their meaning in life, too. Maybe Zachariah will never be able to help pedophiles, but I think what he’s really trying to do is help victims.

7:15So, I want to imagine that if he’s still alive and out there in the world somewhere, the next stage in his life would be to help those who have suffered like him, to elevate them out of their suffering and to shed that unfathomable weight of being sexually abused in order to feel free again, to feel fulfilled in life, to feel happy and to be genuine. If Simone’s book is a map to life, then this is where Zachariah should have gone next, which makes me pause to think about what pain I’ve gone through and how much I’ve grown from it, and maybe I can help someone who is suffering to shed their traumas and step into a new life where they feel both a complete sense of satisfaction of a life well spent and the endless urgency to keep spending every day wisely.

8:07We all can make an immense impact on ourselves and the world around us with the right attitude. Zachariah’s story affected me in so many ways. Like I said at the beginning, I don't know if this story is true since I can't fact-check it, but it’s given me such a deeper value of life. After hearing it, I just feel enormously lucky to be given this gift of life, and from that, I don't want to squander it. I don't want to die before I’m dead. So, while I grappled with this story for years, not knowing what to do with it, it just became more and more clear to me to try to give you that feeling, too.

8:47I want you to live your life more fully, and I want you to find something in this story which stuns you to wake up. So, here you go. I give you this story. Now you can carry it along with you. I’m really curious how it affects you. Don't tell me your first reaction to it. Let it sit. Let it simmer. Let it stew. When the story comes back up for you, what do you get out of it? What emotions are you feeling? How does it affect you long-term? I want you to e-mail me and tell me; jack@thisislow.com.

9:21Which reminds me, you should visit the website, thisislow.com, there's transcripts and merch if you're interested. I've also listed every song I've used in this show. About a dozen of the songs I've made myself using synths and guitars. On the website I've linked to a Spotify playlist with a lot of the music that's used in this show. If you're curious what songs are in it, go to thisislow.com. If you liked this show and you're not familiar with my other podcast, you might want to go listen to it.

9:49It's called Darknet Diaries where I tell true stories from the internet. Your days are not yours to keep, they're yours to spend. I'm rooting for you.