Travel Thailand Time

It looks like downpour but the sun in just obscured…

I’ve been reading a lot about living in the now. Nothing like a 16 hour flight to help you do that. I have become acutely aware of my surroundings and my physicality while cramped in this small space. I can barely think, much less sit with the future or the past. All there is, is the now. And a subconscious desire to stretch. Finally, I can see the benefit and point of spending extra on first-class.

I took a few moments during this flight to draw out of my body and look at myself, twisted and pretzel trying to sleep. Kind of watching myself from the outside. I am flying across the ocean. I am flying across the world. I am flying from night to day. What did I leave behind? What part of me didn’t make the journey? The familiar is thousands of miles away, and I am left with the unknown. Notably, there are things that I am hoping to leave behind, things I don’t want to retrieve on my way back home in two months. And things I bet I will want to keep from this trip, tucked away safely inside of me… I am getting ahead of myself. I don’t need to worry about parasites for two months. I have been a bit afraid and tense all day. That is the adventure, accepting the unknown.

I love waterslides. I honestly think they are the most fun in the world. When I slide down a water slide there is noting but the joy and exhilaration of that moment. But I can’t ever seem to carry that forward. I cant seem to take that shaky clarity forward. I want this trip to be a waterslide. I want it to be a long experience of bliss. I don’t expect every moment to be awesome. I expect myself to take it all in as an exciting series of moments

Really, I should expect nothing and simply accept If I want it to be bliss. I just want it to be. How’s that?

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--I wrote an article this week about travelling. I am hoping to edit it and publish it at some point--

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Article I wrote about Travel

Travel is a form of escapism, a way to subvert routine reality and break out of the bubble like confines of life. While the motivations behind exotic travel can seem very personal differing from one traveller to the next, there is a common denominator in the desire to get away. Adventurous voyagers often feel suffocated within the construct of their environment and seek out new locales to explore new forms of personal self expression. Resort tourists are after relaxation and the pampered comfort of controlled exploration. Jet-setting flyers are looking for excitement and a way to connect with and learn about a new culture. Wayfaring expatriates try to fulfill a deeply rooted fantasy of a different kind of life. All of the above in one form or the other are seeking to vacation from their own minds; they are looking for a way to take a breather from the self.

When on vacation, we dress differently, try new things and go to new and foreign places. This is all in an attempt to change the reactions and perceptions that form our ideas about who we really are. Everyday life is filled with expectations and judgements about how to act, what to do and who to be. We are all well aware of the social and cultural norms that govern the people we have become. There is a specific way we are supposed to react or to present ourselves in any given situation. When we are at home in our environment we know all too well what those reactions and presentations are expected to be. Travelling allows for the opportunity to rediscover how we choose to package ourselves based on different cultural and social rules. It provides a way to escape from the otherwise routine yet random assortment of everyday thought. It’s easier to act out in a place where no one knows your name or your employers. Going to a new place can be like a rebirth, discovering ideas and making decisions all over again, as if for the first time. Long term travel is an opportunity to become more deeply immersed in a fresh way of perceiving the world and oneself, perhaps through an unseasoned eye. Simply transporting yourself from one place to the next isn’t a ticket to sudden enlightenment. Yet it can provide the opportunity to escape from the cultural filters that define the way knowledge is perceived. People don’t travel to find the self but to clear the baggage that obscures what is already there.

When we are children, everyday is a new journey experiencing many feelings and thoughts for the first time. Once we have lived for a while, very little seems new and often even less seems truly interesting. We feel that we have done it all, and that the outcomes have become predictable. We become bored soothsayers in our own lives, easily foretelling the routines and results that make up our daily lives. While we do entertain ourselves, little happens that has any possibility of forming new synaptic pathways in the brain. To most, vacation seems to be a temporary way out of this rut. For the expatriate however, those feelings of boredom are akin to a slow death. They view their environments as a part of a long suffering which robs them of the forgotten blissful feeling of childhood discovery. Here we speak about expatriates who have embraced withdrawal from their home environment, not the ones who are simply shoved or promoted elsewhere by their employers. Eager expats have a specific place they desire to go to and a specific set of ideals about that place. They want to extend the vacation indefinitely to match the fantasy they have in their minds about themselves. Weather they see themselves as exotic trekkers exploring some outback, or socialite city dwellers, they see them selves as someone other than the person they are in their current environment. Expats envision themselves as being trapped in places that can never adhere to their ideals in the same way a dream can. This is likely part of the reason that many expatriates fail, especially those from North America. Reality rarely lives up to or exceeds fantasy and when the honeymoon period is over expats often realize that their chosen place has many of the same problems as their former home. They begin to see, after a time, that they too have many of the same problems because they are the same person. Changing locales can shake up the ego, but it takes much more too fully root it up.

Before the industrial revolution, migration was a matter of necessity. Humans only moved around for reasons of safety, commerce or conquest. Technological changes of the mechanized age introduced the ability to vacation, an idea based in desire. It’s easy to simply point, click and arrange to go anywhere with comfortable and pleasing accommodation. Yet many humans still exhibit the same innate fight or flight desires that we did in times past. To satisfy the urge to explore and conquer, extreme adventure style holidays have become increasingly popular. People climb mountains, camping overnight on tiny ledges thousands of feet up. Groups trek through the wild in search of campgrounds and fresh water. Even arctic expeditions have become respites of fun and fodder. These tourists are looking for a different aspect of humanity that has become obsolete. They are investigating a temporary return to the survival of the fittest, the need to experience the world Viking style. In truth there are no undiscovered lands left, but buying real-estate simply cannot satisfy this kind of urge in the way extreme trekking can. Although there are no unmapped territories left to discover, there is always room to house new knowledge and experience in the mind. Modern life has become exceedingly simple and sedate. It can be absurdly refreshing to sample even a modicum of what it is like to use the physical body and the mind to survive. There is no question that it is more comfortable to sleep in a bed than on a desert floor, but the challenge of the desert can fend of the atrophy of the mind habitual life inspires.

Of course there are also those who don’t want travel. Not people who cannot afford the time or money to do so, but the people who aren’t happy to temporarily escape the idea of home. They are the people who exchange wanderlust with the desire to know exactly what’s coming up and use that knowing to gain a sense of comfort. They are the people who imagine that they understand what they need to know about the world, others and themselves and can learn that information at home if it be otherwise. They could well be right. It is possible to change the way you think and what you do without ever leaving your doorstep. It is possible to break away from the familiar even in a place you think you understand. It’s not inconceivable to be content looking into the same horizon each day. But most of us do not have the inner fortitude to change or to settle our minds about life by simply staying stationary. Dropping yourself in a completely new surrounding is a fairly easy way of changing a dim light bulb in the mind to brighten the outlook. A trip or even a permanent move won’t swap your brain out for a fresh model, but there is always a hope that the temporary change will inspire something to carry forward. Even a few fresh memories can help to move out the stale.

I’ve decided to take a short leave from my life; my own temporary disappearing act from the ordinary and mundane triviality that rules my everyday. After years spent dreaming of exotic cultures and new locales I’m finally heading to Thailand for two months. I will miss my partner, my friends and my family. I am missing the chance to complete two well needed summer school credits. I will sorely miss my dog. Hopefully, I will also miss the parts of me that I’m tired of living with, at least for a short while. When I imagine my getaway, (naturally a trip this long in the making is mired with sentimental fantasy), I imagine myself in flowy white tunics and sunhats fearlessly navigating Bangkok. I feel exhilarated and am impressed by my own adaptability and acquiescence. In the back of my mind I know I’ll be roasting away in wilted t-shirts and my even suffer a touch of culture shock. I expect the reality of the trip will land somewhere between my dream like ideal and my dread. Still, I would love to look in the mirror and see a different light in my eyes. For a brief moment, I am hoping to shed the construct of my self- image which I am becoming weary of preserving. Even if only for two months.