10:55 p.m. / May 23, 2005 - -
vagabonding, ho!
i used to be a lot more bitter. a lot more angry. a lot more depressed. now it seems as if every day i wake up is a beautiful day, a great day to be alive. not that i don't have awful days sometimes. not that i don't wish other things for my life sometimes. it's just that even with the awful days, life is great. they're part of what makes it great."the president just has a good heart! he's trying to help those people! some of them don't even have television!" oh the horror. people by and large have an unhealthy view of travel. they take their two weeks alloted time each year, sometimes even four (wow!) and zip off to some exotic location where they attempt to cram as much entertainment into their timeframe as possible before heading home. it's not about how much you see or do but what you see and do. it's about being delibrate, slow, taking notice of your surroundings, listening, seeing, smelling a new place, meeting new people. every day i wake up i'm one day closer to being out of here; every day i work i have that much more money to do so. at night i lay in bed and try to imagine all of the things i'll experience, of the places i'll end up. i try to think about hardships. hunger. fatigue. loss of funds, possessions, emergencies that may arise. i try to think of the embarassment i'm bound to face. i'm trying to think of all of the things that i could learn. but most of all i'm trying to think postively; i'm trying to avoid most self-destructive tendencies, in both the people i deal with and in my actions. i'm reading more, enjoying my free time more than i ever did with a playstation or gameboy. i'm walking around small towns with my backpack filled with books and clothes, trying to get a feel for what this could be like. i'm talking to strangers i run into, waving instead of averting my eyes. and, like thoreau did, i'm attempting to live my life deliberately, to look inside of myself, to look at my actions, see what's neccessary and what is not, why i do the things i do. i am more happy than i have ever been.
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