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Lately I've found my self self-examining myself, to some degree. I've always prided myself on being a pretty happy go lucky sort of character. Nothing has ever phased me too much. Things have always worked out for the best, really. Despite my half hearted attempts to derail fate, fate has stubbornly stuck to it's course and delivered me safe and sound and healthy and prosperous to whatever shores I was meant to run up on.
I have always sort of considered myself kinda special, to be plainly honest. I think that probably. Or rather completely. Has something to do with the way my parents raised me within a family that eclipses all families in terms of love and morality and lessons and parenting 101. My parents were the best. My family was the best. Hence, I knew I could stumble through life and expect the world to ensure my success and happiness. And they did. And I was. Successful. And happy.
...
I just took read back through my first post on my blog (Mein Kampf), from October 2004. And to be honest it was a bit of a read. Excuse the title of the post. It was my first time in Germany and I figured it would be witty to reference Hitler's autobiography title, since I was in Germany for the very first time. Back then I was posting on a travel blog for only family and friends. I was all new to this blogging thing.
To put it in context. It was five, odd, years ago. I had just come back from my first extended foray to South East Asia, was still wet behind the ears for the most part, and was more than slightly bruised and battered from the experience. But reading back through that post, I can remember the feelings I had coursing through me as I poured those thoughts out through the keyboard. How special it was just to be able to order room service. How amazing it was to be back in civilization in clean sheets using free wireless internet, after having spent the last eight months bathing in random water buckets throughout north east Cambodia, and living a grungy backpacker life for so long. It was all so new and exciting, and exhilarating to be living this new life of work and travel.
Mind you, I had been travelling for work for five years before that. New York City for three years, living the Wall Street dream for a young kid straight out of Uni. Front row center for September 11th. My claim to fame there was that the front page story on the New York Times on Sep 15th showed a landing tire of the second plane sitting in front of the Burger King on Trinity street, across the park from the second world trade center tower. That's where I was standing. As the second plane flew over my head. And right before i bolted for the safety of the river. Wasn't until four days late I got handed a copy of the times and saw exactly how close I got to becoming the ultimate road kill. After that I took a work transfer to Australia not long after. Lived an amazing 1.5 years there.
And then from there it all went slightly helter skelter. I found my home in SEA. I found that I had a penchant for self-destruction. And SEA provided all the right ingredients. But it also provided all the right ingredients for true happiness. And a religion and way of life that provided the tools to find the means to find that true, ultimate happiness.
But my first blog, way back in October 2004, was after my year of discovery in SEA. It was after all that had faded away. After Australia. After my great backpacking adventure and my lost eight months in Cambodia. It was in a random town in Germany. Back in civilization. And on a random night, in a random city in Germany, in a random hotel. I sat down with my first free company supplied laptop. With my first free work expensed wireless internet connection. And I wrote my first blog.
And now I sit here almost five years later. And I read back over that blog. And I feel the old feelings that i felt that day coursing through my veins. I feel the newness, and the excitement, and the optimism and hope for the future. I feel the amazement that someone is willing to pay me to travel. That someone is actually willing to pay me to travel the world and to live a life that I feel so deep in my bones that I feel it obscene to even ask accept my paycheck.
And I think of now. And I think of my last post (Do I Stay or Do I Go). A post that I typed out only yesterday. Last night. And I think of how I poured out my frustrations, and conflict, and torn emotions, onto my keyboard for all to read. And how utterly different that entry, that day, that post, that person, was. Is. From who I was way back on that day in Germany when I felt so lucky, and fated, and the world was a gift waiting to be opened. That the world was so, so, just so big.
Now that I've been around it a dozen plus times. It's starting to feel real small. And that makes me sad for some reason.
And so I try to reconcile the two posts. My first and my latest. I know inside I still am that person. I haven't removed myself so permanently from that person that I can't slip back into his skin with the simple read of an old post. It all comes rushing back over me with a simple read, so I'm back there in that old hotel room feeling life laid out before me.
With the fresh sense of those emotions still wet on my tongue, I have a bit of a fresh perspective on things right now. I could feel life laid out before me back then. And I still can today. Now, today, five years on. I look back on all the adventures I've had, and all the life I've lived. And I know that I truly have lived adventures that most people could never contemplate.
But tomorrow. Monday morning. Going in to the office in a dusty industrial park on the outskirts of this boring city on the edge of the desert. Just. Doesn't. Quite. Feel. Like a bloody adventure waiting to happen. If I had to estimate. I would say the chances of adventure occurring to me some time between the hours of 8:45am and 5:30pm, stuck in a boring consulting company that specializes in something slightly more risky than watching paint dry. Is pretty much zero.
How did my life turn from living the dream and not quite believing that they are actually paying me to travel, and save up for my eventual early retirement... To my present reality of convincing myself every day not to just kick the pointless office life and say feck it, and opt out for mega-early, and poor, retirement?
So I'm wondering how to recapture that sense of adventure. That feeling that the world is laid out before you, and it's yours for the picking.
To be plainly honest. I'm looking to recapture that misplaced invincibility of youth. That feeling that the world is your oyster. And it's there for your taking. And that you deserve to take it. That nothing bad will ever happen no matter what you do.
Fearless.
God, how I miss being fearless
Bodhi
7 comments:
People often confuse the notion of "doing what you love", with "I want what I want and I want it now". Learning to delay satisfaction can be character building and make the reward that much sweeter. Just because we might like drinking, gambling, gluttony, lust, etc...does not give us license to abandon all reason and sense.
If you want to climb Everest, you must plan and prepare well in advance. Sure you might die before you get there, instead of on the way down, but you will be moving toward your dream and your life will be richer for it.
So as you already know, you just have to keep working and moving toward your dream.
Most guys make key life decisions, like do I stay or do I go, when they are in that honeymoon, starry eyed phase of their courtship with Thailand. This courtship phase can go on for years, decades even, if you only get a couple two weeks trips a year. You never stay long enough to get over the hormone rush, and to discover the reality underneath.
In reality, it's really most often not how amazing Thailand is. It's more how bad you view your present circumstances and location, and the whole grass is greener spin that you put on Thailand.
For me, I know my reality and I agree that there is merit in delaying satisfaction. That's why a two week holiday will find you cherishing every day, and capturing each moment in your memory. Whereas if you live where you vacation, you find that its' the same as anywhere else. Your holiday becomes your life, and it's hard to hold on to that feeling.
As they say, without the sad times, the good times will never seem as good. The first glass of wine always tastes the sweetest. The fifth glass, you're just drunk and don't even taste it anymore.
Problem is, once I hit the fifth glass every now and then, I get this irrepressible urge to blog. Hence my last two cringe worthy entries. But hey, what's the shame in being honest? It's more than a little therapeutic sometimes.
Great to see you're back to blogging, VF. I can see you've been busy with life and passport issues.
I've had the water bucket bathroom touch, if you're ever going to have a heart attack then that would fast forward it no problem. I'd say the Village Farang has spelt it out about right, you've got to plan towards your dream, jam tomorrow. I really do like your style of writing and reading your above comment, I would disagree about your last two posts being cringe worthy. Sometimes those deep, dark, wine fueled thoughts make a good read.
I envy your youth, since I fancy you have a lot more left than I. However I remember similar feelings when I travelled the world as a young man, working, albeit for the British Army.
I had my dreams, some of which came to fruition some of which didn't. Now like you I enjoy SEA, but it took an awful lot of "self exploring" to find out what I really wanted
You have to remember that many factors play into being able to live a life you desire, not simply being in an apartment in a country you miss.
At the moment you are obviously not enjoying the environment and place where you find yourself however this could be for many reasons beyond simply the location or job. Patience gives you the ability to ride out the times when something is not as you desire and making choices that might be detremental to other unknown and mitigating factors in your life.
When all things are said and done it is not likely that you will not make a conscious decision that leads to what you seek but outside influences or other factors that guide you when the time is right.
Sure Lloyd, I completely agree with your point that there is a whole lot that goes into putting together a life that is not only what you desire, but will also fulfill the requirements of a life that will continue to provide contentment far into the future. Most guys don't get past the "apartment in a country you miss phase". Problem is, it takes a lot more to make a life than a country you love (but don't really know) and a place to call home.
As I remarked to Village Falang, he's built all the trappings of a life, in the confines of a beautiful home, in a country he knows well. It's a sustainable life, since it's built on planning and preparation.
I'm still trying to find my patience. I've never had much, hence why I'm moved so much and saw so much in my relative amount of time here. Thanks, Mike, for envying my youth. But it's safe to say that lately I'm feeling old enough to retire. Maybe that says something about how hard and fast I've lived the last decade of my life. But I'm feeling old enough that thoughts of retirement in paradise are now starting to drown out my more rational and responsible thoughts.
Hoo Don, thanks for getting enjoyment out of my torrent. :) No, really. I guess I'm just a narcissist at heart. Those deep, dark, wine fueled thoughts are always lurking.
I guess I'm like my father. He always said that he was addicted to melancholy. And red wine was the surest way there. And he was one of the most stable guys i know. Nothing like that sweet twinge of sadness for love lost, memories rekindled, bitter sweet recollections of times past. Which can never come again.
The future, however, remains bright. And despite how much I would prefer my tomorrow to be elsewhere. In the meantime I will just remain and keep working towards that future. And if I can't enjoy my present to the degree that I would like, instead I will occasionally drown myself in melancholy. And try to learn the patience necessary to make it through.
Bodhi
Sometimes we hanker after change because of the greener grass syndrome, as good a way as any of avoiding confronting those inner demons. The trouble is that once you get to see that green close up, it's the same old same old mix of weeds, seeds and dirt as anywhere else. Just with a different Latin name, that's all.
Is that such a bad thing? I think not. It's just part of coming to terms with living life in an effective, satisfying way, on a day to day basis. Tomorrow may never come, so all that time spent planning for change would be rather wasted.
As Mike says, looking back (into the dim mists of time for some ;-) we can remember that feeling of invincibility, that life can throw anything at us, we're 'special'. That's just another coping and survival mechanism, from the unconscious behavioural drives that have evolved over the eons. Hell, if we didn't have it when we were young, we would be a pretty miserable, unmotivated bunch! It fades, naturally so, as we age, and again, that's not so bad. Part of the natural order of things, as the next generations move up to take our place.
But what you say strikes a chord. I can remember jumping out of planes, skiing off cliffs, going to the most dangerous of dives in the most dangerous parts of the world when I was 'young'. Wouldn't do it now, and that's when I've got a lot less to lose. Does it matter? Only if you cling to the feeling as if it was something you desperately couldn't afford to lose. In this respect the Buddhists are onto something - it's not about controlling your life (you can't, they would argue). It's all about letting go...
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