I left the U.S. on August 1st, 2008. A year ago.
Even as I write now I know I have no profound reflection of my time here, no epiphany that I have arrived to after 365 days. I am just as lost as when I arrived.
What I have been able to do in my time here, as day after day have gone by, is compare my life as it is and as I desire it to be to a life that may have been if I would have stayed in The Sates.
It seems (as the world or my society tells me) that at this point in my life I am supposed to have some direction, some stabilization. I should be moving with steps in the direction of career, or plan. Yet, daily I realize that I have no desire for stabilization, and that my direction is multi-dimensional.
In a constant effort to create my individual life the only thing that has meaning is following whatever I am passionate about at the moment I am capable of realizing that passion. On any given day I might want to go teach in Brazil, travel through the Andes on horseback, paint and write in Barcelona, be a dirtbag climber in The States or Europe, travel through Japan, China, India. I want to fall in love with beautiful women. I want to be alone in the mountains. I want to finish my projects with my students. I want to start new projects. I want to learn a new language. I want to adapt to a new culture. I want to discover and know true beauty. I want to never have to work again. I want to teach. I want to learn. I want to live happy.
I am realizing that the more I live like this, wandering and teaching, the more I lose my desire to live within the conventional. All of my desires, all that I am passionate about, keep me moving and wanting more. I think of what my future life could be, of all the things I could do or could try to do, and I want to make them all happen. It seems that perhaps I have made a plan then: live pursuing my passion, whatever it may be at the time.
May this first year be the beginning of a life of constant movement toward new adventures around the world. I smile to think of where I might be next year.
-Josh
2 comments:
yes, what really counts is being passionate about something.
beautiful Josh. I agree with you...even about the beautiful women. hopefully you end up in Squamish again someday to spend a couple more hours on high V zero.
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