This post won't be about travel, I think, which would make it somewhat of a diversion from my standard. But the real goal of all the traveling that I d0, aside from eat and peruse the local fauna, is provoke thought.
My thoughts have been provoked a lot here in Kansas City. Over the last four years, I have picked up and set down many, many times. Finish high school, move all my things to Wisconsin get upset about leaving home, spend 8 weeks there, come down for Thanksgiving, two more in Wisco, then Christmas, three weeks at home, then 10, 1 week in Kansas City, 10 at school. Come back for the summer, get upset about leaving school. Go back to school, skip Thanksgiving, spend time at school, come home for winter break, wonder where all the people have gone, go back to school, get confused about where home is, go back to school go to California for spring break. 10 weeks at school, one week in Kansas City. 6 months in Argentina, 4 with one host family, 2 with another. Get upset about leaving Argentina. Come back to Kansas City, spend Christmas plus some at home go back to school in Wisconsin, no longer feels like home. Spend time at school, come home for the summer. Go back to school for 10 weeks there, 3 weeks for Christmas, 21 weeks for school spending spring break at school again. Graduate, come home, go to camp, travel Minneasota, visit mom in Pennsylvania, is that home? Go to Kansas City.
Reflecting while I write, I can still keep track of why I was upset to leave a certain place and see how friends and girlfriends stretch across certain changes in geography and time and other times they don't.
I tried to explain to someone the other day why everything around me seemed so worthy of intense observation even though it was so familiar to me. Hell, I grew up here, I used to say I was sick of being in the Midwest and in being in Kansas City. Pre-sensing the reflection I am having now, I justified my interest in my surroundings by pointing out that I hadn't been in the same place for more than nine months in the last four years, thinking of the usual length of the scholastic calendar. Now I can see that A) my scholastic calendar is punctuated by abrupt and lengthy breaks that require me to relocate and B) that actually, my stay in Argentina exceeds any stint at home or at school for the last four years. Small wonder I feel drawn to return.
So, the part of me that craves novelty is slightly fascinated in the prospect of something it hasn't seen in years (albeit, only four, but at 22 years old that still seems like quite the length of time). This novelty--so exotic, so alluring--is routine.
Yesterday, I was working in the garden of a very generous friend who compensated me far beyond what my skill level would require and I noticed that it was no longer hot. In fact, I needed a light jacket. The changing of seasons. With the exception of Argentina, where I would not have fixated on something as subtle as the changing of the seasons, I haven't been in one place long enough to really observe a shift in season. Fluctuating between Kansas City and Wisconsin, the Lower Midwest (I prefer Southern Midwest, actually) and the Upper, changes in the environment were magical and relatively instantaneous. I'm magically transported from the zephyrous early summer/late spring of Wisconsin to the angry heat of Kansas summer. Or worse yet, the variety in location obscured any reason or schedule motivating changes of temperature around me. Such as when I go from Kansas City's winter to Wisconsin, from a light winter to the dead of winter. All I had to do was sit down in an aluminum tube for a few hours and then walk out of the tube into refrigerator turned many degree's lower than the other refrigerator I was in.
So, on one hand this emerging routine (or prospect of a routine, I should say. I really would need to get a job before I can really begin to say anything about a routine) is novel and therefore delights the part of me that believes new experience is the best experience and promotes the most enjoyment and growth. On the other hand, I vaguely recall dire warnings and fail-safes I set within myself at the end of high school, a time which marked the end of a lifetime of routine and academic regimentation. I can hear echoes of my 17-year old self returning from Japan, flush with the sense of power that only a credit card and a train station full of possibility can instill, as he stares dumbly at a person who berates him for showing up late to class, a class that he himself didn't really select.
But these cries are distant, I do not feel them in the way that I once did. I remember them. Now the question is, is it wiser to heed remembered warnings or to satisfy the urges that I now feel instead of worshipping at the altar of my past ideals?
I'm tempted to "make my way in the world". I don't mean get a job, I mean make a job, make a difference. On some level I think that I feel a desire to carve out a little something of this world for myself, instead of bouncing from lily pad to lily pad. I want to create something that I can stand on and say look at me and my perch that I raised with my own two hands, my website, or my animation or my band or my compositions, my papers, my theories. Incredibly, there is something satisfying about sinking a year of my life into making something where there used to be nothing.
But the Buddhist in me cries against these desires. It seems to me that the sensation of pride of ownership one gets from creating their own business, putting forth their own theory or forming their own band is a close cousin of the well-known consumer sins of loving a fancy house, car or plasma screen TV.
The foucauldian in me sees that the similarity between these two things is power. Possessions are a symbol of wealth which is synonymous with power. The exercise of academic muscle, the creation of a website or a band are also ways of demonstrating or creating power. I think to myself, "With a website I could..." or "If I had a successful youtube series then people would..."
I guess, in part, I reject these pursuits of power because of Master Yoda, an independent study in Taoism and a Buddhist sixth grade teacher. A Jedi doesn't crave adventure or excitement, or wealth or power, either, if I remember the extended universe correctly. What would I do with power anyway? Power can't do anything about life that is really important. It can't turn back the clock, stop death or make you happy. Mo' money, mo' problems--the refrain of the guitarist from my hip hop band that never made a dime.
I should admit that I've never been at a loss for power in my life. Being a 6'4" white two-hundred pound male from a supportive upper middle class family in America, I have rarely in my life experienced actual powerlessness. Maybe saying I don't think I need power is like being a fish that says he doesn't really need water. I may not have any clue just how much I would miss the power I'm not even aware that I already have.
Two days ago, my sense of my own power became the focus of my observations. A girl struck my head in capoeira in order to demonstrate that I was not guarding my face. Physical violence is the most direct exercise of power. I realized that no one had challenged my power in such a way before. Normally I shrug off the indirect displays of power--wealth, prestige. It's a game I can always say I'm not interested in playing. Psychologists might say that that growing up bigger than everyone else never made cars and possessions very attractive to me. My power is manifest, I don't need to do anything to feel powerful.
But here was this girl who hit me in the head. I decided to ignore it just the same as when my 14 year old cousin used to hit me when she was little, but for some reason, in the moment of this encounter, this decision stuck in my mental throat like an unchewed tortilla chip and I bobbled the next steps of the drill. Then, I mulled over my decision not to strike back for a day and some. Was this a display of power that mattered? Was this actual exercise of power somehow more real than the power I simply felt that I had manifest? Did this girl think that her level of power somehow exceeded or equalled mine?
I fear that my thoughts on the topic mean that I'm actually only unconcerned about power as long as its clear that I am the most powerful.
If that's true, it's my instinct to crush this impulse. A Jedi desires not these things. Maybe the key to happiness is to flee the things that entice us because deep down we know that their promises are false.
I don't have any answers. I just have a really long post on my travel blog, not about travel. But it impacts my decision to travel. Do I want power? What about desiring power? Will it bring me ruin, satisfaction? A creative mixture? One thing seems to clear to me, though. (I'd actually like to be wrong on this point) Travelling will not give me a website, a band, an animation, or least of all, power.
What's a 22 year old to do?
My thoughts have been provoked a lot here in Kansas City. Over the last four years, I have picked up and set down many, many times. Finish high school, move all my things to Wisconsin get upset about leaving home, spend 8 weeks there, come down for Thanksgiving, two more in Wisco, then Christmas, three weeks at home, then 10, 1 week in Kansas City, 10 at school. Come back for the summer, get upset about leaving school. Go back to school, skip Thanksgiving, spend time at school, come home for winter break, wonder where all the people have gone, go back to school, get confused about where home is, go back to school go to California for spring break. 10 weeks at school, one week in Kansas City. 6 months in Argentina, 4 with one host family, 2 with another. Get upset about leaving Argentina. Come back to Kansas City, spend Christmas plus some at home go back to school in Wisconsin, no longer feels like home. Spend time at school, come home for the summer. Go back to school for 10 weeks there, 3 weeks for Christmas, 21 weeks for school spending spring break at school again. Graduate, come home, go to camp, travel Minneasota, visit mom in Pennsylvania, is that home? Go to Kansas City.
Reflecting while I write, I can still keep track of why I was upset to leave a certain place and see how friends and girlfriends stretch across certain changes in geography and time and other times they don't.
I tried to explain to someone the other day why everything around me seemed so worthy of intense observation even though it was so familiar to me. Hell, I grew up here, I used to say I was sick of being in the Midwest and in being in Kansas City. Pre-sensing the reflection I am having now, I justified my interest in my surroundings by pointing out that I hadn't been in the same place for more than nine months in the last four years, thinking of the usual length of the scholastic calendar. Now I can see that A) my scholastic calendar is punctuated by abrupt and lengthy breaks that require me to relocate and B) that actually, my stay in Argentina exceeds any stint at home or at school for the last four years. Small wonder I feel drawn to return.
So, the part of me that craves novelty is slightly fascinated in the prospect of something it hasn't seen in years (albeit, only four, but at 22 years old that still seems like quite the length of time). This novelty--so exotic, so alluring--is routine.
Yesterday, I was working in the garden of a very generous friend who compensated me far beyond what my skill level would require and I noticed that it was no longer hot. In fact, I needed a light jacket. The changing of seasons. With the exception of Argentina, where I would not have fixated on something as subtle as the changing of the seasons, I haven't been in one place long enough to really observe a shift in season. Fluctuating between Kansas City and Wisconsin, the Lower Midwest (I prefer Southern Midwest, actually) and the Upper, changes in the environment were magical and relatively instantaneous. I'm magically transported from the zephyrous early summer/late spring of Wisconsin to the angry heat of Kansas summer. Or worse yet, the variety in location obscured any reason or schedule motivating changes of temperature around me. Such as when I go from Kansas City's winter to Wisconsin, from a light winter to the dead of winter. All I had to do was sit down in an aluminum tube for a few hours and then walk out of the tube into refrigerator turned many degree's lower than the other refrigerator I was in.
So, on one hand this emerging routine (or prospect of a routine, I should say. I really would need to get a job before I can really begin to say anything about a routine) is novel and therefore delights the part of me that believes new experience is the best experience and promotes the most enjoyment and growth. On the other hand, I vaguely recall dire warnings and fail-safes I set within myself at the end of high school, a time which marked the end of a lifetime of routine and academic regimentation. I can hear echoes of my 17-year old self returning from Japan, flush with the sense of power that only a credit card and a train station full of possibility can instill, as he stares dumbly at a person who berates him for showing up late to class, a class that he himself didn't really select.
But these cries are distant, I do not feel them in the way that I once did. I remember them. Now the question is, is it wiser to heed remembered warnings or to satisfy the urges that I now feel instead of worshipping at the altar of my past ideals?
I'm tempted to "make my way in the world". I don't mean get a job, I mean make a job, make a difference. On some level I think that I feel a desire to carve out a little something of this world for myself, instead of bouncing from lily pad to lily pad. I want to create something that I can stand on and say look at me and my perch that I raised with my own two hands, my website, or my animation or my band or my compositions, my papers, my theories. Incredibly, there is something satisfying about sinking a year of my life into making something where there used to be nothing.
But the Buddhist in me cries against these desires. It seems to me that the sensation of pride of ownership one gets from creating their own business, putting forth their own theory or forming their own band is a close cousin of the well-known consumer sins of loving a fancy house, car or plasma screen TV.
The foucauldian in me sees that the similarity between these two things is power. Possessions are a symbol of wealth which is synonymous with power. The exercise of academic muscle, the creation of a website or a band are also ways of demonstrating or creating power. I think to myself, "With a website I could..." or "If I had a successful youtube series then people would..."
I guess, in part, I reject these pursuits of power because of Master Yoda, an independent study in Taoism and a Buddhist sixth grade teacher. A Jedi doesn't crave adventure or excitement, or wealth or power, either, if I remember the extended universe correctly. What would I do with power anyway? Power can't do anything about life that is really important. It can't turn back the clock, stop death or make you happy. Mo' money, mo' problems--the refrain of the guitarist from my hip hop band that never made a dime.
I should admit that I've never been at a loss for power in my life. Being a 6'4" white two-hundred pound male from a supportive upper middle class family in America, I have rarely in my life experienced actual powerlessness. Maybe saying I don't think I need power is like being a fish that says he doesn't really need water. I may not have any clue just how much I would miss the power I'm not even aware that I already have.
Two days ago, my sense of my own power became the focus of my observations. A girl struck my head in capoeira in order to demonstrate that I was not guarding my face. Physical violence is the most direct exercise of power. I realized that no one had challenged my power in such a way before. Normally I shrug off the indirect displays of power--wealth, prestige. It's a game I can always say I'm not interested in playing. Psychologists might say that that growing up bigger than everyone else never made cars and possessions very attractive to me. My power is manifest, I don't need to do anything to feel powerful.
But here was this girl who hit me in the head. I decided to ignore it just the same as when my 14 year old cousin used to hit me when she was little, but for some reason, in the moment of this encounter, this decision stuck in my mental throat like an unchewed tortilla chip and I bobbled the next steps of the drill. Then, I mulled over my decision not to strike back for a day and some. Was this a display of power that mattered? Was this actual exercise of power somehow more real than the power I simply felt that I had manifest? Did this girl think that her level of power somehow exceeded or equalled mine?
I fear that my thoughts on the topic mean that I'm actually only unconcerned about power as long as its clear that I am the most powerful.
If that's true, it's my instinct to crush this impulse. A Jedi desires not these things. Maybe the key to happiness is to flee the things that entice us because deep down we know that their promises are false.
I don't have any answers. I just have a really long post on my travel blog, not about travel. But it impacts my decision to travel. Do I want power? What about desiring power? Will it bring me ruin, satisfaction? A creative mixture? One thing seems to clear to me, though. (I'd actually like to be wrong on this point) Travelling will not give me a website, a band, an animation, or least of all, power.
What's a 22 year old to do?
Comments
Your writing has gotten so nice. I'm jealous.
I think you're one of the few white male 22 year olds that can deal with lack of power. After all, like you said, you love new experiences as they are the best :)
I don't have any wise words to say except that I have faith in you. I miss this side of you; I liked our conversations about changing the world, and how different our ideas of that concept were. I know I'm supposed to be a social worker but there's another part of it I haven't quite figured out yet. I know you'll figure yours out too.
do you remember when you wanted to be a monk?