The Gamble

     Time to hit the gym, buy that fresh top, and feed myself positive affirmations to build up my game: you’re the man, woman are powerless to you, blah, blah, blah.... Such is being single as a guy in this day and age. Since our culture generally still puts the onus on men for approaching woman a large aspect of being successful at it is building up both the mind set and the strategy for attracting woman. A lot of it has to do with the image one puts forth.  At the end of the day it can feel a little like crafting yourself into a product for consumption and acting...

    In North America being blasé is king when meeting girls. The key is never show too much too quickly, or ever allow yourself to show to much attraction. Romance in the new millennium is like a poker game where one’s hand must be hidden till it’s ready to be laid down. Showing interest then pulling that interest back is a regular strategy. This tactic creates a vacuum of uncertainty in the other person and often may lead them to lean forward out of their own enflamed insecurities. The dividends are twofold for this approach; first, this gives the risk and work of showing attraction to the other person, which of course secondly protects you from emotional risk yourself. As a ground rule, authenticity and openness are to be avoided... unless they can be used strategically to gain more trust from the other person. The key is to establish “hand” in the relationship by inflating oneself in the other’s eyes while chipping away at their confidence slowly as to maintain the pattern.  This can be maintained indefinitely or till something better comes along. If the latter happens the above procedure is repeated as the previous person is sent on their way – probably feeling a lot worse about themselves. Kind of whack, hmmmmmmm...? Well personally I believe there is another way.   

     Authenticity and being genuine can also be the central tenets of a single guy. Contrary to the more combative style of relationships just detailed one can also put honest presentations of the self forward. In doing this the girl you’re with can get an accurate sense of the person you are. With the right girl this approach would allow her to feel comfortable and safe to be herself too.  Another important dynamic is to show the same protective concern you would for yourself for her – if not more. Really the goal should be to see her come out of her shell – not so you can exploit it, but rather so you can bask in the knowledge that you are meeting the real person. 

    Are there risks to this approach? Most definitely – and there is no assurance either that in being authentic that the other person will, or even if they do that the connection will truly be there. We live in a world of so much variation that the “right” match is elusive – especially when the dynamics of physical and sexual attraction also come into play. The latter attributes are inherently binary in nature and really are there or not there. The most pressing danger of course is the possibility of being rejected for your authentic self. However not to put the real you out there is a sure fire way to end up with the wrong person for the wrong reasons anyway. Naturally one cannot be reckless in this regard as the pain of true rejection is as sharp as any feeling there is. Again though as the saying goes “without risk there is no reward” and the possibility of true intimacy and passion is a reward beyond anything material tenfold. Really it’s the only chance of making a true connection and because of that a gamble worth making...

Some Oldies but Goldies...

I must apologize for not blogging as of late. I've been really busy with school work. For anyone that has graced me by taking a look here I’m going to provide a link to my old blog for the time being.  I wrote a lot about my experiences in Amsterdam and Toronto in generally a light and amusing style. Take a peak... and enjoy.

http://www.iwasjustthinkingsomething.com/

My Gateway Drug

    A common theme with addiction is the idea of the gateway drug. That drug that got it all started. This drug is the users’ vice of choice and generally a vice that leads down the slippery slope of darker and deeper depravity. With that said, as a self confessed addict of travelling, my gate way drug has always been London. From the first time I saw her wide boulevards, packed streets, and diverse population I was hooked. It was sensory overload... Now time and time again as a new travel plan is hatched, I find it always begins in London than branches out.  Like any addict a compulsion draws me back each time. I’m powerless to resist.

       “Only a boring person would get bored in London.” I remember saying once to one of the cities detractors. There’s so much there. I was lucky enough to have lived all over the city. First off, anywhere you are there’s always a local pub filled with characters. In the UK, unlike Canada, the local drunk is given respect for their ability to provide drunken lore and impromptu, if occasionally misguided, conversation. As variety is the spice of life if local isn’t your thing there are countless distinct areas to go to. To name but a few, maybe you’ll find yourself in the twisting streets of Soho with London’s cool kids. Be warned though one Soho Street will have the city’s trendiest bars while the next maybe littered with prostitutes and drug dealers. Then there’s the alternative, bohemian vibe of Camden for live music and a less style conscious evening. For more conservative fare one could check into anyone of the traditional to hyper modern bars and pubs dotting around Piccadilly Circus, the Strand, and Covenant Garden. Really the options are as vast as ones imagination and willingness to try new places.

    “Every type of person under the sun is here... Honestly, per capita for every single person you meet– there’s just a higher chance than anywhere else they’ll be interesting.” My words from nine years back to a South African friend. I know it couldn’t have changed. In central London the talk isn’t of family, cars, or mortgages – it’s of artistic projects, career, and where the sick party is that weekend. In my limited time in the belly of the lion I met artists, millionaires, writers, record executives, raga bond – but chatty homeless people, backpackers from every country, cocky Fleet Street suits, uber hipsters, eastern Europeans with dreams, expat Western Europeans, ex convicts trying for a new start, a group of rough middle aged Millwall Football club supporters, a mentally unstable Scottish religious fanatic, and even Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rosdale. The list could go on and on... 

       As an addict I could indulge myself and descend further into a bender of description for London the place that has my heart. Instead I’ll leave it at this quick blurry snap shot; a snap shot of the variety that your mind’s eye might have trying to recall a walk down Oxford Street an hour previous. Maybe a mere Canadian mind is unqualified to capture the truth of London?... though really no single mind could capture it all in its full cosmopolitan glory. The reality and the irony is that London is lived not remembered – the London experience can only truly exist right in the moment. This leaves me in a never ending  Sisyphean circle of seeing it, basking in it, leaving then trying to remember as it fades and having to return again.  For that reason London always will be my gateway drug...

Above the Clouds

   I was on my way to live in the UK for a year. After I walked through the metal detectors at the airport in Edmonton I could no longer see my mom - the last visual link to the life I had known. Her resilient look of encouragement, tapered with a hint of sadness, would live inside me for some time to come. Lying before me was something new, something that no previous experience could prepare me for. Shivers went down my arms as I realized for the first time I was to be completely myself without anyone to lean on.
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Amsterdam (March 2005)
    The Dampkring is one of Amsterdam's trendiest coffee shops. The decor combines the aesthetic of an Indian bazaar with a fairy-tale motif. A flake plastic tree with a Middle-Earth Elvin appearance stands in the centre of the room. Behind the bar and on the roof murals and etchings of dwarfs, goblins, and other magical creatures peer over the coffee shop. Purple velvet curtains over the windows create a dim, moody feel; there's a real disconnect from the outside world. Hipsters, businessmen, and tourists share drug- addled thoughts with whoever will listen. Mixed in amongst the chairs, the tables, and the pot smoke a fat cat wandered around freely.
   My friend James walked in to meet me...
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Amsterdam to Edmonton: 5106 kilometers (July 2006)
- I'm in central London with my friend Shane from Edmonton. We don't have much money, so instead of paying for drinks in pubs we just carry beers with us on the streets.
- I caught eyes with a beautiful redhead going down the stairs in a hostel in Edinburgh. I was compelled to follow her down the stairs just so I could talk to her.I kept talking to her for the next three days and nights. 
-  I'm at a rave in Budapest behind the DJ box with a glass of champagne in hand. Five minutes earlier I'd offered a stranger a hit off my joint - the stranger happened to be the DJ.


   "Excuse me, sir, would you like a coffee or tea?" The flight attendant momentarily brought me back from the brief but vivid memories I was having from my travels. I was on a flight between Amsterdam and Edmonton. After six years abroad I was on my way home.
"I'll have tea please."
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Edmonton to London: 3178 kilometers. (November 2000) 
     Looking out the plane window over the Canadian landscape I realized that I was finally totally free. There would be no one to censor the way I wanted to be anymore. For the first time in my life I was the master of my own fate. The possibilities of self seemed endless. I felt intoxicated by it.
     A realization of this magnitude couldn't live solely as an abstract - it tingled throughout my body right to my fingertips. I needed to unleash whatever this feeling was. I grabbed a pen from my bag and began to write feverishly into my notebook.
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Amsterdam (March 2005)
   Conversations inside the Dampkring range from the trivial to the metaphysical, occasionally in the same sentence. I was sitting in a corner table with my friend James engaged in one such conversation. James was a well-traveled fellow expat from Toronto studying in Amsterdam. The Dampkring's cat was laid out on the chair beside us.


James: What made you want to travel?
Dave: It seems like such a long time ago when it started. It's hard to say - I think I felt stifled by my life.
James: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Dave: People around you have this way of exerting subtle control over you. Lots of people are fine with that - maybe they even relish it - they're happy to be controlled, but...
James: So you weren't?
Dave: I think in some ways I was, honestly, but it's hard not to be if it's all you've ever known. I remember feeling like everyone thought they had me pegged and that bothered me.
James: I was thinking, this coffee shop might be all that cat's ever known. I wonder how many times American tourists have blown pot in its face?
Dave: Probably a lot! Look at him, he doesn't know when to prrrrr or meow anymore.
James: Hahahahahhah... He's lived the life though!
Dave: True, true...  It makes me think, there are two types in this world: people that like change and those that don't.
James: That bloody cat is higher than Cheech Marin and Snoop Dog combined. I'm surprised it hasn't outright talked before. Hahahah...
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Amsterdam to Edmonton: 3178 kilometers (July 2006)
- "Hey gorgeous!" Femke, the Dutch girl I fancy so much, calls out to me just as I enter the bar in Bundaberg, Australia. My heart leaps...
- I'm on the night train between Zagreb and Munich. I ran out of money in my account back in Dubrovnik so I've decided to ration what I have left by sleeping on night trains.
- Three Aussie thugs have me surrounded at a phone booth in King's Cross, Sydney. "Ummmmm... Shane one second, there's something I have to deal with." I say into the phone before letting it dangle.

    Memories of moments that had previously filled me with such life now had me fearing the worst - were they over forever I thought? I could feel goosebumps forming on my arms and my eyes tearing. I fought my emotion. As I looked down at my warped knuckles from the fight at the phone booth, I remembered one of my travel sayings that explained both the good and the bad. "They were the best of times, they were the worst of times, but they were times." In those days excitement came in different forms be it meeting girls, being forced into fights, or actually having to worry about having enough money to eat. I couldn't stop a broad smile from forming. 
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Edmonton to London: 1977 kilometers ( November 2000)
   The plane was over the Atlantic Ocean. I looked down to read again what I had written in my notebook two hours previous.


The Moment
   Experience both lifts and holds one back; the recollection of experience prevents one from enjoying the zest of something new; why hold oneself back from what the world provides? The brain may be a reducer looking to make things functional and easy, but what lies beyond the threshold of idiosyncrasy? What if the experiences that the brain is experiencing are so hopelessly new that no script or memory of past experience can bring forth an old solution for a new situation? At that time we have one choice: adjust or be a colossal bore. Well to situate myself, I choose to adjust, to relearn the world, to become a kid again - a 23-year-old kid. Yeah!!!!!!
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Amsterdam (March 2005)
Dave: I bet that cat wouldn't leave if the door was wide open - it would stick to what it knew.
James: Are we talking about the cat or you now? I think you'd be the kind of cat that would head straight out that door.
Dave: What - even in a room of pot smoke?
James: Hahahahahahah - Yep, even still.
Dave: Yeah - well there's something about the unknown that draws me in.
James: I'd say. You've been traveling for five years!
Dave: Come on man, you know how it is; there's always that curiosity to peak around the next corner.
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Amsterdam to Edmonton: 1977 kilometers (July 2006)
- I'm walking through central London with Shane, Mike, and Lora - my closest friends from Edmonton. I feel so connected to them right now.

    My thoughts turned now to Mike, one of my best friends growing up. He stayed in Edmonton and built his life the traditional way. He was married to Lora and had a son with her. They owned a nice house together. The thought of him brought uncertainty to my mind. I own nothing except my laptop and the sum of my experiences.
    The flight attendant came by and took my dinner tray away. I thanked her and lied about the food, saying it was nice. She probably thought I was British, Australian, or European - not Canadian. After six years abroad I didn't even sound the same as when I left. I had formed a hybrid transatlantic accent. What would people in Edmonton make of it, I wondered? 
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Ten Minutes to landing in London (November 2000)
   London is getting closer. The pilot just announced our descent. I've barely slept on the flight - I can't sleep. Unconsciously I try to organize my thoughts into bite-sized slices of reality but they will not conform to that - I can't categorize what I don't know! Fear is present, but it's overpowered by the sheer excitement of the moment. What's going to happen when I leave the plane? It has become a safety blanket. I feel so alive. Had I been asleep the last 23 years?
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Amsterdam (March 2005)
James: Have you thought about what it will be like going home?
Dave: I have a bit, but I don't really know what home is anymore. I just hope people don't expect me to be the same.
James: You'll have trouble readjusting.
Dave: I guess. What I'll need is the courage to be the person I want to be, regardless of what anyone thinks. I wonder sometimes, why do people put so much pressure on stopping you from being who you want to be?
James: I don't know. I guess it's because they want to hold you as they know you.
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Ten minutes to landing in Edmonton. (July 2006)
- Queen's Day in Amsterdam, Holland's biggest party day of the year, a DJ's spinning funky House at Amstelveld. I'm watching a girl with white sunglasses dance - even though I'll never talk to her, I'm in love.
- I'm standing in the corner of Club Malibu in Edmonton. Surprise, surprise - the girls in here just don't like me.
- First day of grade 10 in Edmonton. I go to my first ever high school class with egg dripping down my forehead after being froshed by the seniors.


   The pilot has just announced our descent into Edmonton. Memories of Amsterdam began to fade to the background - reality was sinking in. My mind created unfairly bleak remembrances of the city I had grown up in. What now I thought? Will I quickly be swept back into old patterns from the past? I could sense a certain resignation taking hold of me, but now was the time to fight that I thought. Whatever this trip had been, I needed to bottle it inside of me as a constant reminder of my growth.
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Arrival in London (November 2000)
    I'm here. The plane touched down in London. There is no one here to meet me. People look different; they're looking at me for standing out. There is no script for this. The airport is so full. I am truly a speck of sand on a beach now. There's fear, but it's mixed with a new confidence.
    I grab my bag from the turn style and head forward. There wouldn't be time for dwelling and looking back anymore! My motto for travel is born in these fledgling moments. "Necessity is the mother of invention." I jump on the tube towards central London and the beginning of a new life.
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Amsterdam (March 2005) 
Dave: I want to believe you can travel wherever you are.
James: What do you mean? Like always do little trips?
Dave: No. I mean traveling is as much a mindset, as it's a physical reality. There's no "travel rule book: that says you can't seek difference wherever you are.
James: True.
Dave: It'll be hard when I get back, but if it was easy it wouldn't be worth anything. I need to travel without setting foot on a plane. I want to travel on the wings of something I read or a conversation that I'll have.
James: Sounds like you're getting as high as that cat. I better roll us another joint...
Dave: Yeah. I'm getting a little out there! Hahahahahah - but it's true - I want to travel forever, even though I can't.
James: Yeah.
Dave: If your imagination stays free and you let yourself remain a kid inside, at least just a little bit, you can travel where ever you are.
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Arrival in Edmonton (July 2006) 
   I was back in Edmonton on the ground now. Of course, I remembered the airport, but the people seemed different. What was this place, I'm not part of the tribe, I thought. It felt no more like home than did any of the other cities I had traveled through. My mind fumbled over the past, realizing what I might never do again. Then I saw my dad standing over by the airport entrance.


"Hey dad - it's great to see you." I gave him a big hug. I immediately felt reassured.
  
   It dawned on me this was a new beginning too. I'm not coming back here to retrace my former steps. I thought of the jubilation I had felt flying to London all those years back. Nothing previous or since had ever given me that same kind of mental and physical high and maybe it never would. Still, I knew there was room to grow, experience, and learn where ever I was. Maybe the change wouldn't be so dramatic or memorable, but, necessity could still be the mother of invention - if I allowed it to be. The challenge would be allowing it. 


"Are you just going to stand there?" my dad said looking at me oddly. "You're home."   

Role Confusion

    Sitting in tonight, my mid terms are starting to pile up. I really wish I was out having a beer and a laugh... but here I am in front of the keys. I actually should be studying. Today, I trained again to be a research assistant at my University’s Psychology Department. I’m looking forward to the experience and it definitely will look good on graduate school applications. One thing that really struck me was how much of the position is acting and taking on a role. The majority of what I have to do is following an elaborate script, and do it as consistently as I can each time. This made me think to myself; how much authenticity is surrendered when we fall into a role?

      Personally, I feel most comfortable when I’m firing off the cuff with what I say and do. I generally grant myself the freedom to do this a lot even when others might act more formally. I think it’s the residue of all the traveling I did. I suppose though a major aspect of “growing up” is submitting to roles that limit your freedom. This is a skill that needs to grow in certain people; I know it has to grow in me. Taking on a role feels like a return to childhood, you make believe again. Except this time it isn’t so fun. You make believe that you are this serious person when you don’t feel like you are. Most people seem to like not acting serious as much as they can. So why aren’t there more jobs for the non serious people?

    What I’m saying I guess is that I wish there was a larger diversity of roles that we can take on and be successful. Being really serious and having people respond to you as an authority doesn’t feel like my bag. One of my professors pointed about public speaking and the need to be able to do it by saying “there are leaders and followers... which one do you want to be?” My answer would be neither – I want to follow my own path, but I don’t care if anyone else follows. That way the only authority I need to be content with is my own. This is a challenge I face, one I guess everyone faces..., how much do you want to remain yourself. And conversely how much of your self are you willing to give up? This is a question that still broods in my heart - I want the esteem a good job brings while still being authentic to myself.

The Chav/ Redneck/ Bogan Love Potion

      You spin me right round, baby! Right round like a record, baby! Right round, round, round! That was my head after waking up from a white lightening bender in Scotland. Every country has its cheap and potent liquor. You know the stuff you use to drink when you were 16 and you wanted to get drunk fast and DIRTY! For most people by 17 they’ve moved on to better grog! However, the backpacker, like a trained basset hound, always sniffs out cheap booze and squeezes that musty old lemon for every drop of alcohol induced insanity it can give!

     In Canada malt liquor is the hobo, young persons, and backpackers drink of choice: Colt 45, Big Bear and Olde English are some of the classics. It’s kind of like beer, but with a nasty, petulant after taste and twice the alcohol percentage. Back when I was 16 at a High School bush party (and yes – my high school did have parties out in the bush...) I remember hitting the Big Bears hard one night. The results were a disaster. I tried to talk to a girl I had a crush on, very ineffectively I might add..., just before tripping over a log and ending up on my back for 10 minutes by the fire. That’s when thankfully my self-preservation instinct kicked in as I managed to pull myself up. A moment longer and I’d have been that passed out guy who has beer poured on him. (Or worse) It was then I hatched a Big Bear induced plan; I’ll use my last strength to stagger inside the bushes so I can hide out till I sober up a bit. Of course, I ended up passing out in the woods. I awoke to the early morning sun and an empty field. This was pre cell phones so I had to walk about 10 kilometres to the nearest town with a brutish hang over. Cheers Big Bear!

      In Australia a particularly cheap 3 litre, get the 4^th litre free, cask of wine was what backpackers clamoured too. Even the Aussie’s themselves had a name for this stuff – “goon.” Really the name said it all. You drink too much and you would become a drunken goon. At the various travel houses, hostels and camp grounds down under goon flowed like water. The routine results were black outs, misunderstandings, Irish/English groups getting even more obnoxiously loud, and a painful hangover that could only be slightly appeased by getting an Australian meat pie the next day. This stuff actually said that it may contain fish extracts in the ingredients!

     No list of noxious alcohols could be complete without the UK addition: White Lightening Cider. White Lightening is supposed to mimic the taste of apple cider. Though, I remember one Scottish bar men mentioning: “aiiii mate, no apples have ever come close to White Lightening.” Nights on this stuff careened out of control. Groups of well adjusted people could be expected to transform into degenerates howling at the moon within hours. As a cultural experiment, if you wanted to see some unlikely hook ups make several litres of this CHAV love potion available. Naturally, Backpackers took to it like moths to a flame.

    I can remember one fine Saturday afternoon in Edinburgh. The looks of boredom on my fellow backpacker’s faces screamed out – afternoon White Lightening Party!  So an Australian friend and I headed down to the bottle shop to get some. Upon arriving I said: “Hey mate you got any White Lightening around? We need a whole whack of it.” He answered – “yeah I do, but I keep it in the back.” He returned with 12 – 3 litre bottles. (The beauty of buying this stuff was that as a reward for buying 2 litres, the third was free!) He smiled at us wearily. “You know – there’s only two types that buy this stuff: backpackers and homeless people! “ Little did he know that only two hours later – a hostel would be coming off its moorings – with people drinking out of pots and pans, afternoon vomit in the toilets, and that stuck up American girl making out with the Australian guy who never wore deodorant! Some people call White Lightening a scourge on society – I call it a welcome reprieve.

Unchained Melody

     There’s a lot of subjectivity when it comes to a word. Three people standing on the subway might have three very different interpretations to what the word success means. In a way that’s the beauty of words – their inherent difference in each person’s mind makes them fodder for art and debate. With this said, I’ve wanted to consider what exactly is a traveler? What does that word mean to me?

         Now technically anybody who has ventured outside of their home city is by definition of having traveled, a traveler. However, this doesn’t encapsulate the spirit of the word. Traveling is an attitude more than an action. Not only stepping away from the life one knows, but choosing to do it again and again is what characterizes a traveler. Fear of the unknown is replaced by allure of the unknown.  The excitement of that which is yet undefined – that which must be defined by them - is what the traveler seeks. To a traveler, the question becomes equal to the answer – what is behind that next corner?  

      At least once in their lives, probably more, a traveler has relocated to another country. People take trips to new places and skim the surface, the traveler immerses themselves.  A new identity is born from this interaction – one that they cannot go back from. This will forever define them and mark them as slightly different to their country men.  To the traveler this distinction is something they quietly relish.

    Fluidity and freedom of movement is what the traveler wants. Cars, houses, and furniture enter the fold slowly.... if at all. Possessions and serious responsibility lock a person to a place. This goes contrary to the traveler’s pathos and propensity to dream of escaping into the unknown again. Foreign lands always beckon... and the promise of a return to that feeling they once had of freedom and transcendence echoes in their ears. Age may silence it slightly, but this is a melody that they cannot escape; a melody that they wouldn’t want to escape from - even if they could...

A UK Night Club

    The voracious, pulsating sounds of house music greeted me as I pulled back the curtain to enter the Zap club in Brighton, England. The base was vibrating the hairs on my skin. Lit cigarettes, sweat, and a touch of marijuana melded together to give the air a physical weight. Nearly every inch of the club was taken up with gyrating bodies.

   The dance floor was a melting pot of humanity. Middle-aged men in suits danced next to eighteen- year old glow stick waving students; a group of girls in glistening black formal dresses danced beside a group of girls wearing bikini tops, short miniskirts and neon coloured thigh high boots; macho Middle Eastern guys in tank tops and gold jewellery danced next to a group of scantily clad flamboyantly gay men. There seemed to be no natural pattern. With each glance I saw a style, only to see its opposite a few feet away. 

    I followed the gaze of many of the clubbers as they looked up, their hands pointing and saluting a boxed in area high above the dance floor. There the DJ stood. He was like an artist in front of his easel, his hands in perpetual motion, working his turn tables and samplers; modifying, with a twist of his wrist, the experience occurring below.

    Back on the dance floor the music slowed. More people joined my gaze towards the DJ. I could feel the warmth of steam coming off the now stationary bodies. Sharp green lasers attached to the DJ box shone through this hazy cloud of perspiration giving it an eerie, translucent green hue. An aura of anticipation and restlessness was setting in. The DJ looked over the crowd, at least two hundred strong, waited a moment to build drama, the previous song now just a murmur to the frantic scream it had been, then with a mighty flick he punched one of his dials bringing on the other turn table.  A new song, infinitely faster, more intense, and more vibrant enveloped the club.

       The mob voiced its approval with a loud roar! People, whom previously had been standing, started moving to the music, their feet pounding the cement floor, their hands searching into the air. Knowing glances and smiles were exchanged everywhere. There was a fraternity amongst these people, this moment was there’s together.

   

    

    

Traveler’s Anonymous

    Just woke up, having a morning coffee, contemplating to myself whether a traveler can actually ever stop traveling? The reason this has come to me is that at present I feel the travel itch, again...  I want to pull myself away from the safety of day to day existence and throw myself back into the unknown. I like chaos and the whirlwind of experience. Jack Kerouac (the original Duluoz) in his own words explains best the kind of people I like to know.  “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved...” Lots of these people make up my travel friends. We’re a group fighting the normalising aspects of society, and the normalizing aspects of our very brains.

      Everyday life is about establishing and building patterns. It’s even hard wired into our brains. The other day in a class I’m taking we discussed how in early adolescents the brain has a second mass growing of synaptic connections. This renaissance of connections, which brings the possibility of learning MANY new things, is then systematically pruned down so that the connections that remain can work more efficiently. In this way our own brains are looking to limit us –if we let them.  We’re built to look for and take comfort in the patterns of our lives.  Travel is a kind of fountain of youth against this. Rather than stay within the confines of pattern it forces one to leap forward into the unknown of sensory experience. The traveler’s brain has to grow; has to modify; has to transcend itself. Otherwise, you have that person on a trip that sits and complains about how it’s not like home.

      I believe certain people can get a kind of addiction to the rush of travel.  For myself when I first arrived in the UK ten years ago I scarcely needed to sleep or eat for a week. I had a natural high from experience. Now time and time again, I feel myself compelled to try to regain that feeling... to take back that sense of excitement and euphoria. Maybe, I’m chasing the original high I experienced in the UK? Many of my travel friends are the same.  We all share that compulsion to travel again even if it means altering, delaying, or just out right changing our lives to do it. If we ever are to settle into regular lives maybe what is needed is some kind of support group – a traveler’s anonymous.  Like addictions groups we’d meet and try to slow this unending impulse to travel. Or, as probably would be the case, somebody would pull out some beer and the group would share ideas for NEW even more exciting trips!

To Blog or Not to Blog?

 

    To blog somewhere inside of yourself, you have to think that you have something interesting to say. Do I? Recently, I’ve made a decision that I really don’t care how other people view me – I just want to be myself completely. With that in mind, I want to blog unrestrained. Just let it fly, like an old West gun fight, but with ideas exchanged for bullets. When somebody comes to that conclusion, the answer to my rhetorical question above is – yes, you should blog. If you are willing to be daring and open “maybe” others might have an interest...