The more I write the more I write. When I slack off I lose the motivation, it’s almost like the tubes get clogged and it’s much harder for me get going again. I was on a really good streak there for a while with the 750 words thing but then the technical problems and self inflicted criticism conspired to work against me and I fell off that wagon never to return again. I have this fantastical idea that if I hadn’t missed that one day I would still be doing it and kicking so much ass but the thought of going back is like having to admit that I failed before and that is a shitty way to start something new so I just abandoned it. But I need to write, and I need to feel the need to write, and so this post is filler. It’s just me flowing whatever comes to my head to try and clear the tubes and get things moving again. If you think of a sink in an old house that hasn’t been used in 10 years or something – you turn it on and wait, you hear something gurgling but still nothing comes out, you keep waiting, and then finally there’s a little sputter of rusty brown shit water that is filled with bits of gunk and is really the last thing in the world you’d want to touch, that’s what starts flowing. But you keep waiting and the brown becomes tan becomes cloudy becomes clear and then all is right with the world and you can fill up your glass or take a shower or whatever you were intending to do. The next day when you do the same you still have that rusty shit but not for nearly as long.
That’s what this post is, it’s the rusty, cruddy shit that is clogging up my pipes that I need to clear out. Of course I could just write something privately but for whatever reason, call it masochism or exhibitionism or just plain egotism I need the audience. The audience of the 3 or 4 people who actually read my blog, but it’s the exposure that works for me. If I know ahead of time that no one is going to see what I’m writing then I just give up and feel like I’m wasting my time. Knowing that in a few minutes I’m going to hit publish means I do have to try and make real sentences and convey some kind of tangible idea. So if you are reading this I appreciate you being my muse, even if you weren’t planning on doing that today.
So I need to write because I have decided to take the plunge and full on really write a book for the purpose of writing it. Not just collecting shit I wrote before and calling that a book. But starting from zero with a final goal in mind and working towards it. I thought this trip would be a good venue for that since I’m writing what is basically a life philosophy manual pretending to be a book about travel, with traces of self help. Though the help may be one sided, I’ll benefit from writing it but who knows what kinds of take away you’ll get from it. I’m writing about the multibasing idea and how, in addition to that being a shitty name, it’s more than just travel and taking less luggage with you. It’s about a way of life. A perspective. And a suggestion or two about how the perspective you hold decides what you see. If you think the whole world is nothing but the single room you live in, then chances are you aren’t going to spend much time trying to get out of that room. However if you think the whole world is the house which is filled with many rooms that you bounce between without any real decision to do so, well then you have a bit of a bigger world view, but it’s still limited by the walls you built yourself. See where I’m going with this?
One of the things that set me off was a friend, actually several friends, hearing about the trip Tara and I were about to go on and calling it “the trip of a lifetime.” I thought about it and realized that most people would be excited to go on the trip of a lifetime, but hearing those people say that was very depressing for me. It made me feel like this trip is some big built up one off thing that could never be achieved again. And of course I didn’t want to think that because I see this as a continuing step in a direction I’ve been heading for a long time. And those people knew that, they know about other trips I’ve been on and they know about my penchant for being transient and mobile, so WTF? But then I realized they were projecting – if they were going on this trip it would be the trip of a lifetime because, some of them anyway, hadn’t left their own counties in many many years, if ever, and hadn’t left their cities in a pretty long time as well. So them looking at the itinerary we had laid out was overwhelming and impossible, where as to us, it’s cool for sure, but it’s just the trip we’re taking this year, and there will be more like it later, just like there were some like it before. For me, this isn’t the trip of a lifetime, it’s the trip of the moment.
Realizing this changed my thoughts from being bummed that the idea was I’d never do something like this again, to being bummed other people thought they could never do something like this on their own. And that’s why I decided to write the book, because seriously anyone can do this, and they only reason they don’t is because they have convinced themselves it would be too hard. They couldn’t get the time off work, couldn’t save up the cash, couldn’t just leave things behind. Fuck that. It’s not that they don’t take big trips because big trips are too hard to take, they don’t take big trips because they have convinced themselves big trips are too big to take.
There is a saying about trying and not trying. If you don’t attempt something, there is a 100% chance you won’t pull it off. The only way to ensure you never go on a trip, is to tell your self going on a trip is too hard, expensive, time consuming, etc. I’ve never thought that way, I always assume if something is too hard I’ll fail somewhere in the process of trying. I can’t stomach the thought of not trying and then wondering what life would have been like if I did. I don’t want to think about the memories and experiences I could have had. Trying and failing is much more rewarding than playing it safe. So while the book is about traveling, and about traveling regularly to several places – maybe even “living” in some of them simultaneously, it’s also about how to use that same way of thinking in life in general. You’ll only ever pull off what you try, and if you think the world is only the one room you live in, then there is 100% change you’ll never walk out of the room and see the rest of the house, or the front door and see the outside.
So I’m writing this book while I’m on the road. Trying to write a little every day. It’s going, not as fast as I’d like, but it is going and if I just keep chipping away by the time I get to the end of it I know it’ll be something I’m proud to have done, even if only the 3 or 4 people who read this post read the book. Wish me luck.
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