preparations (kind of rambles)
Preparations
What would you say if someone asked you to accompany them on a trip around the world? I think most people would say no to such a proposal, citing the cost, bills, cats and dogs, dangers, bills, cars, apartments, lawns to mow, etc.
Some would say “yes” immediately, then change their mind after talking to friends about it—those envious, most practical, successful allies—would cite the above and crush ones resolve. Know this, “people are like birds, they will peck at your dreams”. I learned that one hitchhiking through Boston to Waterville Valley in 1975. A kindly Arab man picked me up and we sat in traffic talking about our dreams and goals. I wanted to start a ski area. He thought that was a great idea, but the ski area was never made flesh.
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has great genius, power and magic in it.” Just starting something, especially if it is something that you really want to do, is pretty powerful. Providence, luck, introductions and opportunities just occur as a result of your beginning. I know, it sounds like magic, but it isn’t. I stand before you as a willing participant to Goethe’s couplet. Actually I already know this works.
If you can understand and believe this couplet, you can plan a trip around the world no matter what your situation is now.
If something you want becomes fact inside you before it is actually fact around you, there is a tendency towards the germination of that fact. After all, what is actually standing between some dream or goal and its fruition? Some money perhaps? Logistics like arranging a sabbatical or actually changing careers or jobs? If one looks at the changes that are needed to do some grander-than-normal thing (rather than look at a list of why you can’t do something) there are usually precious few reasons not to boldly go.
I worked at a non-profit for a few years and when great ideas were shelved the reason was never “inconsistent with mission” or “bad idea” or “not enough staff” or “no audience”, the reason was always money. Money was the only obstacle. I think it is the same in life, that money or the perceived lack of money or some other pivotal resource keeps one from realizing dreams and goals. Another way to look at the situation is, how nice that only one obstacle stands between a person and their dream! Only one mountain to climb—could be much worse.
I guess one way to interpret these thoughts is to say you can have nothing until you believe in yourself. Once you believe in yourself you can see or do anything. Commit yourself then to a focus of your dream and you receive momentum from the universe around you. You become that goal and people notice, comprehend and expect that about you. It is exciting when someone comes up to you and asks how you are doing in the context of a past focus or goal they knew you were pursuing. It illustrates the power of being committed to something and you remember that time. You believe in you and then others will.
As positive as one might be about it, planning and executing a trip around the world requires a kind of courage that some might call foolishness; a kind of relentlessness and absoluteness that cliff divers and ski jumpers have. The energy and resolve it takes to change the course of your life and take up any new interest or adventure prohibits many from doing so because there are sacrifices that pop up everyday in the planning of the thing, logistics, storing of stuff, visas, unexpected changes. It is difficult and expensive and one must be totally committed to undertaking the journey without trying to control every variable. One must want to not always be in control, to go with the flow of things. Really what one is doing is creating chaos, allowing all of the diversity and change and uncertainty of the world into one’s life. Yeah, Awesome. To leave the safety and warmth and comfort of your home everyday and just expect some sense of home on the road is valiant in today’s America where everything is so easy, so convenient. To want to leave that, to many, sounds like insanity. To others it is true freedom.
Poor health, extreme old age, illness and addiction are all shackles to this kind of freedom. There is the wisdom in retiring early (maybe “retiring” is the wrong word). It is so wrong that we are taught to work all our lives to make a living, and then many of us die of the results of that work or just are plain too old to spin a dream of travel into our lives. We should play in our 30s and 40s and work into old age…
There is nothing you can do about being sick or debilitated, though with the world waking up to the needs of our handicapped
For example, addiction to television can skew ones perception of what is real and place unreal limits on a person. The idea that the world is too dangerous (like our daily news can conjure up) makes change risky sounding, scary. Fear rules many. Like muscle or joint inflammation, fear limits our range of motion, keeps us inside a set of boundaries, lets us feel safe. Ironic, isn’t it—fear lets us feel safe.
Well, safety is relative, and usually an illusion. Just ask anyone who lives in New York City, Bali, Madrid or Sumatra. We are rarely actually safe when we think we are. Knowing that (as long as it doesn’t paralyze you with fear!) can be very liberating, like being freed from the illusion that closed spaces or heights can make you panic; alcohol can help you deal with your problems; or TV is reality. All of life can be an illusion and in some ways probably is—like a dream. Might as well be a pleasant dream!
That is not to say that people who might be shackled don’t find themselves roaming the Nepalese countryside. They just may not be conscious of the reason they are there. I grew up with shackles. My mother divorced our father when I was 15 years old, the oldest of 3. That event left mom with the chore of bringing us up through the 70’s and early 80’s. We were lower middle class at best, and welfare poor when dad left.
I still managed to hitchhike across the country to California in 1976. Talk about unconscious and traveling…
In 1999 I worked as a scuba diver harvesting sea clams in Massachusetts. Every once in a while a morbid fear of enclosed spaces would create a seed of panic in me. This panic would manifest itself on those dives when there were few clams, lots of looking. I would get a little out of breath in my searching and start to feel as though I was sucking way to hard to get air. After checking my tank and seeing plenty of air a sense of unease sets in because the perceived difficulty inhaling still existed. That is when I want to surface, scrub the dive, and lose a lot of money in the process. Since I knew this about myself, my claustrophobia, I would give it a minute, just stop and stare at the sand in front of me, hum a short tune or just try to quiet everything in my head. Then I would say to myself “you are safe, there is plenty of air, the regulator is working fine” and start looking for clams again. This always worked.
My point is, again, fear rules many. And the fear comes from a rational source, albeit fictitious sometimes. The illusions we live in can be very beautiful. Or terrifying. The reality we create for ourselves is our environment, we can shape it, rule it.
Just a short caveat to those who are bringing up children and mortgaged like many in the States and elsewhere—you are right, I have no children. I admit that a trip around the world may be a bit too much for you, too insane. Though not entirely out of the question, maybe not a terribly good idea. Depends on what you want to get out of it.
Let’s face it, not everyone will go on such an adventure, just as it is impossible for everyone to become a millionaire, everyone to have a car, buy a house, live like an American. There just are not enough resources. I am, however, quite lucky to realize that those possibilities exist for me in my lifetime.
So! The trip begins. Reading this far you realize that I am just like anyone else, with fears and addictions and phobias. I feel each one of those fears, I panic in closed spaces even today after over 300 dives. I know the compulsion to drink for the sake of getting drunk. Though I no longer drink or drug, the trap of that behavior is well known to me. What I try not to do is forget my own history, and the history of our country and our world. I try not to blame anyone else for my problems, actually try to grow. So my answer to the question “Would you come around the world with me? It will be expensive and take a lot of time, but I want you to come with me and share the experience “ was an immediate and emphatic yes!! To do this has been a wish of mine all of my life, and now I get to do it with someone I love and trust. Wanna come along? Wait a minute, what about your job, the kids, the cat and dog? Tell you what, read this and tag along vicariously for now. We take off from JFK on March 31st 2005 at about 3pm, land in Dublin in the morning…the adventure begins…see you next installment.
What would you say if someone asked you to accompany them on a trip around the world? I think most people would say no to such a proposal, citing the cost, bills, cats and dogs, dangers, bills, cars, apartments, lawns to mow, etc.
Some would say “yes” immediately, then change their mind after talking to friends about it—those envious, most practical, successful allies—would cite the above and crush ones resolve. Know this, “people are like birds, they will peck at your dreams”. I learned that one hitchhiking through Boston to Waterville Valley in 1975. A kindly Arab man picked me up and we sat in traffic talking about our dreams and goals. I wanted to start a ski area. He thought that was a great idea, but the ski area was never made flesh.
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has great genius, power and magic in it.” Just starting something, especially if it is something that you really want to do, is pretty powerful. Providence, luck, introductions and opportunities just occur as a result of your beginning. I know, it sounds like magic, but it isn’t. I stand before you as a willing participant to Goethe’s couplet. Actually I already know this works.
If you can understand and believe this couplet, you can plan a trip around the world no matter what your situation is now.
If something you want becomes fact inside you before it is actually fact around you, there is a tendency towards the germination of that fact. After all, what is actually standing between some dream or goal and its fruition? Some money perhaps? Logistics like arranging a sabbatical or actually changing careers or jobs? If one looks at the changes that are needed to do some grander-than-normal thing (rather than look at a list of why you can’t do something) there are usually precious few reasons not to boldly go.
I worked at a non-profit for a few years and when great ideas were shelved the reason was never “inconsistent with mission” or “bad idea” or “not enough staff” or “no audience”, the reason was always money. Money was the only obstacle. I think it is the same in life, that money or the perceived lack of money or some other pivotal resource keeps one from realizing dreams and goals. Another way to look at the situation is, how nice that only one obstacle stands between a person and their dream! Only one mountain to climb—could be much worse.
I guess one way to interpret these thoughts is to say you can have nothing until you believe in yourself. Once you believe in yourself you can see or do anything. Commit yourself then to a focus of your dream and you receive momentum from the universe around you. You become that goal and people notice, comprehend and expect that about you. It is exciting when someone comes up to you and asks how you are doing in the context of a past focus or goal they knew you were pursuing. It illustrates the power of being committed to something and you remember that time. You believe in you and then others will.
As positive as one might be about it, planning and executing a trip around the world requires a kind of courage that some might call foolishness; a kind of relentlessness and absoluteness that cliff divers and ski jumpers have. The energy and resolve it takes to change the course of your life and take up any new interest or adventure prohibits many from doing so because there are sacrifices that pop up everyday in the planning of the thing, logistics, storing of stuff, visas, unexpected changes. It is difficult and expensive and one must be totally committed to undertaking the journey without trying to control every variable. One must want to not always be in control, to go with the flow of things. Really what one is doing is creating chaos, allowing all of the diversity and change and uncertainty of the world into one’s life. Yeah, Awesome. To leave the safety and warmth and comfort of your home everyday and just expect some sense of home on the road is valiant in today’s America where everything is so easy, so convenient. To want to leave that, to many, sounds like insanity. To others it is true freedom.
Poor health, extreme old age, illness and addiction are all shackles to this kind of freedom. There is the wisdom in retiring early (maybe “retiring” is the wrong word). It is so wrong that we are taught to work all our lives to make a living, and then many of us die of the results of that work or just are plain too old to spin a dream of travel into our lives. We should play in our 30s and 40s and work into old age…
There is nothing you can do about being sick or debilitated, though with the world waking up to the needs of our handicapped
For example, addiction to television can skew ones perception of what is real and place unreal limits on a person. The idea that the world is too dangerous (like our daily news can conjure up) makes change risky sounding, scary. Fear rules many. Like muscle or joint inflammation, fear limits our range of motion, keeps us inside a set of boundaries, lets us feel safe. Ironic, isn’t it—fear lets us feel safe.
Well, safety is relative, and usually an illusion. Just ask anyone who lives in New York City, Bali, Madrid or Sumatra. We are rarely actually safe when we think we are. Knowing that (as long as it doesn’t paralyze you with fear!) can be very liberating, like being freed from the illusion that closed spaces or heights can make you panic; alcohol can help you deal with your problems; or TV is reality. All of life can be an illusion and in some ways probably is—like a dream. Might as well be a pleasant dream!
That is not to say that people who might be shackled don’t find themselves roaming the Nepalese countryside. They just may not be conscious of the reason they are there. I grew up with shackles. My mother divorced our father when I was 15 years old, the oldest of 3. That event left mom with the chore of bringing us up through the 70’s and early 80’s. We were lower middle class at best, and welfare poor when dad left.
I still managed to hitchhike across the country to California in 1976. Talk about unconscious and traveling…
In 1999 I worked as a scuba diver harvesting sea clams in Massachusetts. Every once in a while a morbid fear of enclosed spaces would create a seed of panic in me. This panic would manifest itself on those dives when there were few clams, lots of looking. I would get a little out of breath in my searching and start to feel as though I was sucking way to hard to get air. After checking my tank and seeing plenty of air a sense of unease sets in because the perceived difficulty inhaling still existed. That is when I want to surface, scrub the dive, and lose a lot of money in the process. Since I knew this about myself, my claustrophobia, I would give it a minute, just stop and stare at the sand in front of me, hum a short tune or just try to quiet everything in my head. Then I would say to myself “you are safe, there is plenty of air, the regulator is working fine” and start looking for clams again. This always worked.
My point is, again, fear rules many. And the fear comes from a rational source, albeit fictitious sometimes. The illusions we live in can be very beautiful. Or terrifying. The reality we create for ourselves is our environment, we can shape it, rule it.
Just a short caveat to those who are bringing up children and mortgaged like many in the States and elsewhere—you are right, I have no children. I admit that a trip around the world may be a bit too much for you, too insane. Though not entirely out of the question, maybe not a terribly good idea. Depends on what you want to get out of it.
Let’s face it, not everyone will go on such an adventure, just as it is impossible for everyone to become a millionaire, everyone to have a car, buy a house, live like an American. There just are not enough resources. I am, however, quite lucky to realize that those possibilities exist for me in my lifetime.
So! The trip begins. Reading this far you realize that I am just like anyone else, with fears and addictions and phobias. I feel each one of those fears, I panic in closed spaces even today after over 300 dives. I know the compulsion to drink for the sake of getting drunk. Though I no longer drink or drug, the trap of that behavior is well known to me. What I try not to do is forget my own history, and the history of our country and our world. I try not to blame anyone else for my problems, actually try to grow. So my answer to the question “Would you come around the world with me? It will be expensive and take a lot of time, but I want you to come with me and share the experience “ was an immediate and emphatic yes!! To do this has been a wish of mine all of my life, and now I get to do it with someone I love and trust. Wanna come along? Wait a minute, what about your job, the kids, the cat and dog? Tell you what, read this and tag along vicariously for now. We take off from JFK on March 31st 2005 at about 3pm, land in Dublin in the morning…the adventure begins…see you next installment.
posted by squid | 5:25 AM
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