Don’t Fear, You Were Born in the Wrong Era

Have you ever felt that you were born in the wrong era? Or that your style and approach to life would better suit a different time? After the years have come and gone and enough time has passed to flow into a new decade, it’s easy to look back and sum up each decade into a nice package of nostalgia.

The 20’s were glamorous, the 50’s were quaint, the 70’s were groovy, and the 90’s were nerdy. Well, as a nerdy child of the 90’s that was my take-away at least. Yet what we often fail to do, as we idolize the past, is to fully grasp the significance of our current time.

You’ve probably heard that technology is growing at an ever exponential rate. Every day the magical becomes more mundane as our culture swallows up the newest tech, exhaling a breath of frustration instead of one of awe. Our political climate is filled with fogs of fear and heatwaves of hate and distrust. Looking towards the 60’s for cultural advice falls short amongst the fast moving tweets and algorithm-bots spreading false information. Yet we are only at the cusp of further change and uncertainty.

Exponential, means ever-increasing. The little computer that you carry in your pocket, (and probably have an addiction to) is more powerful than 30 supercomputers from the 80’s. That’s major technological growth. If you’re like me you easily remember a time of dial-up internet and house phones. Yet I’m now finding myself touching computer screens with the expectation of them moving to my touch.

Technology is increasing so fast we’ve hardly had time to reflect on what that means for our societies, cultures, and psyche’s. All the while our anxiety levels rise and we angrily react to Russian-bot comments on our Twitter feeds and the newest social-political debacle.

It’s no wonder we’ve become so nostalgic for passed decades. We are in that future that generations before us could only dream about. Dubai is launching the first flying-taxi service, flights to space have become commercialized, your phone now recognizes your face, and AI is helping shape our political atmosphere.

The irony of all of this? We actually were born in the wrong era. Figuratively of course, unless you’re a displaced time-traveler of sorts.

Although technology grows exponentially, our biology does not. For the most part we are still the same humans from 50, 100, and 1,000 years ago. We still need organic foods, we still love and hate with passion, we still seek culture and community, and we still fear the unknown. We live longer due to better medical technologies and we can change our appearances with surgery, but at the core of us, we are still simply human.

Emotionally fallible. Prone to react. Socially influenced. Driven by desires and basic needs. Fearful of change and uncertainty. It’s no wonder why anxiety and depression is on the rise as well. We are ancient beings who continuously seek comfort in a new and ever-changing world of uncertainty.

Even the future of our biology is uncertain as we integrate more with technology and learn more about the human genome and our micro-bioms. We face a probable future with technological implants, DNA alterations and micro manipulations. So what can we do about this now, without waiting and trusting in altering our biology to catch up with technology?

Breath. Reflect more often, react less, brace for further change, and most importantly: approach the future with hope.

The growth of our technological world is inevitable, change is inevitable, and the future will always be uncertain. We fear this, but the fact is that every era has been one of change and future uncertainty. Every decade has had hardships and triumphs. We can find comfort in remembering that. Remembering that change has brought further rights for minorities and subjugated people. Change brings advances in medicine and health. Change can be great.

The future is built on the back of the present. If we fuel our fast-approaching future with fear, we will build that future on the foundation of fear. If we fuel our future with hope however, we will be building our future on hope.

We idolize passed eras because we can look back and see where those time lead to and what they left behind. They are comfortable and known because they already happened. Our human instincts might not have evolved as quickly as our technology has, but we can find a map in the reliability of the human condition. Humans are still emotionally fallible, prone to react, socially influenced, and driven by desires and basic needs; but we also still hope.

It is the reflection of what we idealize from the past that will help shine a light on our future. So don’t fear, you were born in the right era. One that will prove to be more transformative than any before it. Through inevitable hardships and further uncertainty, hope is what will lead our triumphs.

Why It’s OK to Have a Creative Block

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If you’re like me you might not have painted, played music, written, or felt a hint of what to create lately. You might feel that in the great whole of the world you know little to nothing and that it’s all basically been done before. Between the never ending internet and all of the books there are, is there really anything new to comment on that hasn’t already been said? If we post one more comment or ask for one more petition signature, won’t it only be drowned by the millions of cute animal videos and simply add to the clutter on the web of everyone trying to shout their opinions at any chance they get?The other day I found myself deleting an entire article I had written because of this. At the time I had asked myself, “Why add to the clutter?” and I promptly closed my laptop and carried on with my day.

Three years ago I began traveling and learning so much about myself and the world that I found an absolute need to write. I felt like an overflowing cup of water and that if I didn’t get my stories out, or at least some of them, then I was going to burst like a shaken up soda can in some horrific mental breakdown. The word and the physical sensation that defined me at the time was, “full.” I felt too full of thoughts, too full of experience, and I didn’t know what to do with it all. Like a spoiled fat kid with too many ice cream options I was a bit overwhelmed and overly stuffed. I found myself in an existential crisis asking why I was doing so much aimless exploring. What was the meaning behind all of the ice cream? I found release and purpose in sharing my experiences, even if no one read it, at the time it was something I almost physically needed. Writing became my creative outlet. A way to give back, instead of just consuming.

I eventually stopped traveling in such a carefree fanciful way because expenses caught up, I had to work consistently again, and ultimately my existential crisis lead to a desire for future plans and less aimless floating. Time slipped by (as it does) and I’ve currently found myself working on a cruise ship with still no clear plan for my future. Only now I’m wondering what happened to my creative desires to write, inspire, and wonder at this strange experience that is life. I feel tired most of the time and I feel none of that budding wisdom and inner need to write, or create in general, that I felt so often before.

Fortunately, travel is a lot healthier than ice cream. I picked up a trick or two on the road, and one of those tricks was meditation. I got really good at meditating after the Vipassana course I took a couple years back, but I’ve since lost the patience and the mental clarity I had briefly acquired. In an attempt to get it back I’ve started to meditate for half an hour in my little closet of a crew cabin on board the ship I’m working on. It was here, floating somewhere in the Atlantic, that I remembered the all too familiar truth about life. It continues and it is now. I don’t need to be depressed about still not knowing what I want to do with my life, just like I didn’t need to be depressed about it before. It’s OK that I’m a little worried about my current lack of creative flow, just like it was OK when I felt overwhelmed before. I am doing things now, just as I will be doing things later, and that is life.

Perhaps more importantly, I remembered the ebb and flow of things. Though admittedly, watching the ocean so much these days might have helped with that too. When I was a small girl I realized that I could have what felt like the worst day of my life one day and the very next could seem the most fun and exciting. The highs and lows felt extreme, and maybe because of those extremes I was able to realize the constant change of them. Almost subconsciously I began taking note of all the high points and low points as I believe most people do. Like when we look back at the year on January first and say either, “that was a fantastic year!” or “fucking good riddance! Bring on the next one please.”

Watching the ocean on my downtime, (or when I’m bored and staring off during a shift) I can see the ebb and flow, the constant little waves creating texture on the surface. If you pay attention, along with the little waves you can see larger rolling swells moving the little waves along within them. In our own lives we’re often swimming in the water experiencing the little waves, getting splashed in the face, and the hard part is to look across the greater span of the ocean and see the high points and low points creating deep swells across a lifetime. After all, aren’t most things in this universe actually made up of waves? Light, sound, and gravity for example.

Just like all waves we must make a kind of penance for the highs by experiencing the lows, but it’s never as simple as up and down. Our lives are textured like the ocean, with splashes, highs, and deep long swells that lift us up and take us down again. Looking back on those years of nomadic travel I am sometimes sad that I am not still there. It was as if I plucked out a magic thread interwoven through the fabric of life and it lead me on a fantastical journey full of serendipity and good fortune. Even when things had gone wrong, they were lining up to go incredibly right. I had started to believe in a kind of magic again and it all felt like it was leading somewhere big and exciting. It really didn’t. The wave peaked and rolled back down. I’ve lost my luck for a time and I’m reminded to find contentment in that fact. As the old saying goes, you can’t have the highs without the lows. I am now trying to remind myself to use the falling momentum to aim and lead somewhere else big and exciting when that time rolls back around.

I stopped writing because I felt I was being repetitive. I felt the internet and the world was being repetitive, but a simple fact of life is that many things are repetitive (just like waves) and we often need reminders of that and to come to peace with it. Life isn’t a story book with one exciting climactic ending and a great moral to be learned. Life is made up of many stories, with many ups and downs and many great morals and things to be forgotten and learned again. That is why I decided to write this article. Everything might have been said before, and there are still thousands of books and articles with thousands of repeated opinions and views, but we can’t really know when the right words might inspire the right person at any given time. We are all riding our waves, creating, or building up momentum to create something soon. Many of us are wondering what the great purpose of it all is, but whatever it is, it continues and it is now.

The Benifits of Befriending Melancholy

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I have an oddly high number of acquaintances who run self-help businesses. All of which I met while I’ve been traveling. This is evidence to my belief that travel is good for the soul – it seems to be obligatory for any sort of authority on happiness. Though I run a travel website that likes to spurt out life advice, I have mixed feelings towards self-help programs. There is a huge part of me that dislikes the idea of charging people money for advice. Is it really self-help if you have to be sold the idea? If a satisfying and fulfilled life is really as simple as steps 1,2,& 3, why couldn’t I have googled my self-help steps for free?

  My feelings are mixed, however, because I understand that life’s just easier with someone helping out and giving encouragement and guidance. But I prefer to see a world where encouragement and guidance are freely given. When money is involved, we tend to expect results and clear defined rules, and we get more upset when that’s not the outcome. But my experience of life has taught me that life isn’t always clear and we can’t expect unchanging results.

 There are moments in my life when an inexplicable sadness and melancholy come over me. During these times I simultaneously desire to be alone and around people, this causes awkward social interactions which fuels a continual discomfort. When I have no clear excuse for myself to be sad, I disappoint myself and become more so.

  By acknowledging this peculiar feeling, however, I realize I often put myself on a pedestal of happiness. I want to be a happy person for myself and for a desire to be liked, a desire to be approachable, and worthy of admiration. So I end up ridiculing myself for not being happy… the funny thing is, that’s what causes the melancholy.

Happiness cannot be constant. With that said, It doesn’t seem right to call this melancholy a problem. By calling it a problem, it becomes heightened. By insisting in continued happiness, we’ve already failed. So is it an issue in it’s own right? Without outside judgement melancholy can become a strange sort of pleasure. Oh, the joys of wallowing in self misery with no rhyme or reason. There it is, self help can’t exist without a desire to help yourself. You can’t help yourself without looking at the problem and realizing its existence.

If you’re funny like me, you’ll find that the melancholy is a created expectation of a false reality. I expect myself to always be happy, that’s not reality. Maybe we shouldn’t be seeking self help so much as an acceptance of our sadness. Solutions are impossible without a problem and sometimes problems are just what we create by calling it a problem.

Unfortunately, not all of sadness comes from self created, looping melancholy. Shit does happen, but I have an optimistic belief that the same approach of acceptance of sadness is the key to overcoming anything. Too often we want the shit to just go away, but solutions are impossible without knowing a problem and it’s hard to know the true nature of a problem without looking at it first. You don’t have to pay for that advice, just look at it yourself.

Misfortune

Hello Everyone,

I’d first like to thank you beautiful people who read and enjoy Existentialtravel.com. One of the best things on this planet is getting feedback from readers. I probably would have quit writing a long time ago if it weren’t for you all. Sap aside, I wish I could be posting some good news in this new year, unfortunately, I’m writing this unconventional post today to tell you a story of woe.

Moments after posting my last blog entry, I headed out into the night on my newly acquired scooter to enjoy the festivities of New Year’s Eve. The night and the countdown was pleasant, if not extremely uneventful, until I returned home at about 1:30 am. Exited to read a book I had just bought on kindle, I burst into my room only to find the device gone. A quick glance and I saw my dresser drawers had been left open and emptied of all valuables. I had been robbed.

In the list of items that were stolen; I lost my laptop, my DSLR camera, and all of my backup files and recording equipment. Expensive items and nic-nacs aside, the most devastating part of this robbery was the theft of my work. I had spent the last year traveling to ten different countries and collecting the most beautiful and inspiring interviews from people of this planet. I had worked countless hours of my own time editing and preparing the footage to debut on this website as entertaining and inspiring webisodes. The backups on my SD cards, external hard-drive, and the files on my computer have all been lost.

It’s with this dreadful news that I must apologize to all of the beautiful people I had interviewed. The episodes wont be made, but I thank you for sharing your hearts and views with me. I also have to apologize for the future lack of updates, it will be difficult for me to keep this site up to date without a computer. (I’m at the local library right now.)

If you’d like to help remedy the lack of a typing device in my life, I had some good friends remind me that I have a donate button. If there was ever a time to humbly ask for donations, I have to admit, it would be now. I sold all of my possessions before heading out on the road over a year ago, so the handful of items that were taken from me are basically all that I owned in life. (They even stole my makeup.)

But life’s not all about money. It’s about love, kindness, and supporting our friends… at least I’m pretty sure. So if you can’t donate, do my ego a favor and subscribe to this website, leave comments, share, and all that jazz.

Cheers to a luckier new year,

Sarah Kate Larsen – Travel Zazz

Seasons Greetings, Spirit Animals, and Other Fluffy Things

It’s a new year, it’s time to reflect on the year’s past; right? This year the holidays snuck up on me. Being too consumed with trying to find work, housing, transportation to my new job, and handling visa papers, I haven’t had much room to reflect on the things we’re meant to reflect on.

The consequence of being a lone traveler relocating to a new town means being alone, and busy. I’ve been telling myself that it’s just any other day really, why hold so much importance to yet another day? As true as this might be, I can’t help but feel a little in denial. Even with all of life’s great distractions, it’s hard to not realize the lack of really close friends in proximity to me this season.

I had a moment of melancholy on Christmas eve, but after going on a walk and having a moment to think, I realized that I was exactly where I wanted to be. All of my actions in the past year have lead up to this moment and I was missing it in self pity for what I didn’t have. There’s great satisfaction in realizing I was living a scenario I had only dreamed of years ago. I realized then, that there will always be something a bit lacking in life. It’s up to us to look at what benefits us.

I also remembered that though I might physically be alone; my friends and family, far away, would be thinking of me as I thought of them. The cheesy cliches win out again in the circular pattern of my thinking. Love, positivity, and rainbows are realities sometimes; and I have become afraid of these bright omens, for they are uncool.

And now, on the eve of the new year, I’m sitting on my new back porch under a gum tree, watching the neighbor’s escaped rabbit run between bushes. I tried catching him this morning, but right now I’m content in knowing he’s having the time of his life right now. The rabbit and I are like kindred spirits- free to go where we please, if only for a now.   Well, I’m off to go party. Happy new year!

Traveling Was the Goal; Where’s the Goal in Travel?

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travelfree — Watercolor painting by Sarah Larsen

Over a year ago I wrote an article about meaning. You can read it here but to summarize: I got caught in a flood in Laos and ended up aiding a woman in need, which lead me to wonder about fate. I concluded that destiny is just life happening, and we create the meaning behind it. We choose to take action or to not take action, and we choose to see a moment as meaningful or meaningless, thus perpetuating our fate by our chosen meaning and actions.

In this we create mental situations that lead to related situations, and those related situations build the consequences that lead to more related mental and actual situations; We don’t choose our own fate, we create it step by step.

I’ve come to a point in my travels where, once again, I can’t stop wondering about my fate. I’ve become uncomfortable not knowing exactly what to do next. I don’t care to look at a crystal ball to see my future, but I would like to see my purpose. If I used my own advice I’d tell myself to create my purpose, which is easier said than done. The problem I’ve run up against is that if I were to state my desired purpose, it would be a blanketed and vague resume-style answer.

Help others
Create something beautiful
Reach personal success

These things are noble and worthy of effort, but they’re book covers. Packaged to summarize and look good, but by opening them up you’ll find each contains a world of it’s own; full of ups, downs, options, antagonists, landscapes, and time. The action of, “reach personal success” is deeper than the statement and calls for more elaboration. Or in other words, what the hell am I going to do to reach these goals? The bleak but honest answer is that, I don’t know.

When I was a kid, all I wanted was adventure. Adventure movies were always my favorite, and I’m not joking when I say it saddened me to the core realizing there were no real wardrobes with magic portals. What appeals to me in these stories isn’t just the adventure or the travel to far away lands, it’s the purpose. Whether the hero finds the purpose along the way or sets out with it from the start; meaning is what differentiates travel from a vacation.

So why do I write this? Originally I began writing this article as a personal plea to the universe or whatever governs order and fate. Apparently it worked because what I realized halfway through writing is that the articles I write have the potential to be and do each of those three points. I hope that my writings and ramblings are able to help, inspire, and comfort others. I hope my articles are beautiful. And I hope they’ll help me reach personal success. I write for myself, but I publish this as a reminder to whoever is reading to seek meaning and purpose in your own life and travels; create your own fate.

As Steven Pressfield said in his book The War of Art, “The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.” Would you rather be a tourist in your life, or the action hero? Would you rather create your fate, or let life just happen to you? I know my answer. Here’s to remembering to keep on keeping on.

The Importance of Authenticity

I have been lucky to find myself amongst some wonderful and unique characters in my short life. From sharing drinks with old Hollywood legends, sipping tea with an old monk in the jungle hills of Myanmar, to sharing a joint with a police officer from Berlin; All off this travel induced social jumping I’ve experienced has taught me that there is no one 100% correct way to live a life.

We like to dress ourselves up differently and prescribe to certain styles of music and art of which we define ourselves by. This is a beautifully wonderful thing, but it’s easy to forget the similarities of people amongst the differences and it’s easy to get distracted by the masks and costumes we wear.

I can tell you one thing that I’ve learned with all of my social jumping, and that is the importance of authenticity. Be genuine to yourself. This isn’t a call to the world to be more original. If yooou channnge your bbbehaviorrr wwwiitth the goaalll notttt to bee like everone elllse, you’re already over thinking it.
Fuck this keyboarrrrdd..

Cover photo by Nugget Little

Home Shock

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I recently returned to my hometown after being away for over a year.

As my plane flew over my great salty lake and soured parallel to those ‘oh so familiar’ mountains, my heart began to beat faster. The excitement I experienced upon touching down at the airport easily rivaled the excitement I got from first leaving 14 months ago.

The plane needed to dock faster because I was about to surprise my friends and family and the exhilarating part was that no one knew I was even coming. I missed my friends, their familiar faces had frequented my dreams as I anticipated seeing them again. I had been planning this surprise arrival for months and what made me nervous was that they were going to experience the new travel me.

When it comes to travel, what we don’t often hear about is home shock. Often, most things remain the same back at home, yet us travelers have quite literally seen the world and travel has a way of speeding up the inevitable. Long exposure to change, differences, and experiences tend to alter a person, and the realization of the contrast can cause a bit of an identity tremor.

Accompanied with the excitement of seeing friends I hadn’t seen in a while, was a slight concern of my expected behavior. How much had I changed? Was it enough to shock the people who knew me? One thing I’ve noticed about human behavior is that folks tend not to like change. We appreciate when our friends and surroundings are familiar, and the dislike of alterations have spawned negative associations to the statement, “she’s changed.”

I’ve noticed something about the emotion of nervousness; it’s that it’s identical to the feeling of excitement only with different thoughts behind it. So I decided to sit comfortably, or as comfortably as I could, in my new skin. If I changed then I changed, and my friends and family would have to be happy for it.

I quickly found that the acceptance of my friends and family was the last thing to get nervous about, after all, I was still me and they love me. However, home shock came from an existential realization of change. We all eventually reminisce of days past and who we used to be; it’s the consequence of time.

Twenty years from now I’ll be a different person, and twenty years from then I’ll be another different person; and forty years from now you will be a different person too. This is because change always affects us, and change is inevitable. While driving along my old streets I realized that even my city will dramatically alter in another 50 years or less.

Culture shock affects us because it forces us to look at life and ourselves in another light. Home shock affects us because it forces us to look at our past, future, and present in another light. That new perspective on things lit up the realization that living in the moment is the only way to truly live.

A Questioning Mind

I teach English in Japan, and one of my advanced students often has questions that give me a delighted shock. The thing is, his questions are so simple that I’m always surprised as to why I’ve never asked them or thought about them myself.

Why do they say “sweating like a pig” and not another animal?

How can you be thrilled to bits? Does that mean you are literally falling apart?

He’s a university professor, which might explain his questioning mind. All the same, last night he had yet another silly yet brilliant question.

We were reading an article about racism in Australia and he wanted to know what ‘Down Under’ meant. I explained that Australia was referred to as ‘Down Under’ because of its position on a globe or map of the world. He nodded to show his understanding and then I saw his brow furrow; I knew another question was coming.

“Does it include New Zealand?” he asked. “

No,” I replied and then thought, why DOESN’T it include New Zealand? “That’s a really good point,” I said, “And a really good question because New Zealand is even further south than Australia!” We paused for a moment to think when suddenly he inspired me to have a like-minded moment of wonder.

“Maybe New Zealand should be called, Really Down Under.” I suggested.

In the English language we have many idioms that to us, are just what we say. It’s not often we stop and think about the actual words and it’s rare when we question the origins of a saying. That’s one of the best things about teaching English as a second language: you learn so much about your own language.

Already this year I’ve discovered the origins of a number of idioms, including ‘in seventh heaven’ and ‘on cloud nine’. The first refers not to Christianity, but too much earlier in history when the Sumerian civilization was flourishing. According to their beliefs there were seven heavens and to reach the seventh was to be closest to God. ‘On cloud nine’ is a phrase that is believed to have come from meteorologists who often refer to nine types of clouds in terms of altitude. A cloud with the number nine is the highest in altitude and hence, a person who is on cloud nine is literally on top of the world.

I’m so thankful I have students with questioning minds, for without them, I would probably never discover so many things myself. They say a teacher is there to teach and that the teacher is the one with the knowledge. I think that teachers and students are both learning and teaching; from each other, from the world, about each other and also about ourselves. Never stop learning, for each time we learn something new, we grow just a little bit more.

Judgements From a Pocket Monkey

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There is a monkey on my sweater with a stern look on his face. I can see him looking at me through my bedroom mirror. I bought the sweater from a thrift shop because I thought a front pocket was a fun spot to place a stern looking monkey. Surrounded by shitty half finished paintings, I’m questioning my purchase while I’m drinking horrible tasting wine and smoking far too much weed. Is the monkey judging me? Where am I? What am I doing? I’m momentarily obsessed with questions like these, yet I love when I feel the need to ask them.

I’ve been traveling the world alone and I’m currently in Australia, working in cafes and living in a shed for a few months while I work on my paintings.   Considering my situation, I’ve had a couple of people ask me if I’ve found myself yet. I suppose it’s a cliche’ for people to travel while in search of themselves, so I can’t blame them for asking. But I can’t help but wonder, where is the finding when the found is always with you? What excites me is the thought that we’re always finding ourselves.

Whether stationary or not, travel is a metaphor for life. Confronting the world forces you to confront the different aspects of yourself in relation to the different aspects of the world. Because the world is full of changes, so are we. Since I was a teenager my goal in life has been to create myself through experience. What new things can I explore? What new sensations may I feel? I have inadvertently “found myself” while traveling, but that’s only because I’ll find myself everywhere I am.

Zazz and sweater-Pocket Monkey in her art shed.

This doesn’t mean I don’t get scared. In all actually, I’m often fairly terrified. What am I doing with my life? Why have I anthropomorphized a pocket monkey? Where will this all take me? I’ve recently bought an expensive professional camera with the goal in mind of creating a traveling podcast. I know nothing about cameras, filming, or editing. The other day I was playing around by recording random things, when the reality of what I’m trying to do freaked me out. Talking alone into the camera is actually pretty damn hard, it can make you feel vulnerable and a bit crazy. Especially when you find yourself doing it with little friend support in some crummy and cold shed in the backyard of a crummier house in Melbourne. Are my goals a joke? Even if I pull this off, who will watch it?

I travel in order to explore and open myself up to possibilities, but I also originally took off in hopes of finding an opportunity that I can commit to. I often feel constantly torn in the directions I want to take in life. Some days I just want someone to simply tell me what to do. Yet if there is anything else I hate more in this world, it’s someone telling me what to do. I’m a walking contradiction in that way. I think my desire for instruction is derived from a fear of responsibility. If someone else is dictating my life, I can blame them for my disappointments; but I can’t live that way because I know it’s a lie. I’m responsible for my own life, I have no one else to blame if I fail.

This realization of responsibility has been an enormous thing to take in. I’ve always thought of responsibility as this thing associated with a career, children, or doing the dishes; but it’s more than even that. We are responsible for our entire lives. Not just our current, living, and breathing in this moment lives, we’re responsible for everything leading up to our inevitable deaths. What’s worse, failing or never doing? The answer is never doing. Because if we fail when we reach the end of our lives, we’re failing anyway; but we’re failing without having even tried.

I ended up in Melbourne after a series of bizarre and fantastic events and my mind is still reeling with the freedom I currently possess. The pocket monkey might be looking at me disappointingly, but I love my situation. I’m living a dream of mine since childhood and I’m free to explore the world and myself as I please. This is a good thing. The more things I explore, the more things I try, the more I learn about myself; my true self, not the self filled with “shoulds” and “can’ts.” And whatever I end up doing or abandoning, at least I’ve learned something. At least I’ve DONE something, instead of sitting on my ass complaining about life and wasting it. Judge that pocket monkey.