30052013
One challenge I set for myself when I
set off to travel was to break away from my usual routine of working
throughout my waking hours and to teach myself to just be and do
nothing. I realize that stress is a big problem for me because I do
not know where to draw the line in-between recreation and escapism,
and so I feel guilty for every bit of non-work and push myself to
work more from the starting point of fear.
So at first I noticed a tendency to
think that now that I am here on the other side of the globe I should
not “waste” a single day. I pushed myself to go sightseeing and
stuff and tried to make “each day count”, so that within every
day I would get an experience that would make the day feel
meaningful. Many times I did, and even really small and seemingly
insignificant things would give me that experience that “all right,
today I lived”. For example, one day the most awesome thing that
happened was that I ran into a dog in a forest and hung out with the
dog for a while. Not much else happened during the day, but it still
felt like I had actually learned something.
Now in Tokyo there have been days where
I have felt like nothing has been happening. I have staid at one
place for an entire week, not moving around every two days like
before, and I have given myself time to just do nothing at all. I
have done small everyday things like gone to the supermarket and
walked around a park and sat in a library and sung karaoke. I have
sat down with other people here at the hostel eating and drinking and
talked. And at the end of the day I have felt guilty about it: Today
I did nothing. Did I learn anything? Did I grow at all? Who was I
today? Has it been four days already? What the fuck did I even do
yesterday? Was it really five days ago? And so forth.
It has been really good to stop because
I have thus been able to see more clearly what it is that moves me in
my “normal life” (a term/concept I have come to question lately).
But I am not sure if what I'm doing is entirely a good thing. Tokyo
as a tourist environment is not very enabling if one doesn't have the
money to shop and dine in restaurants, so I have perhaps been
passivated by my environment which is “lacking” in possibilities
for activities. But here I forget that I am able to come up with some
ways to utilize whatever happens to be here – I just have to
actively get up and do it.
So enough of this bullshit. If it seems
that my environment is not “offering” me enough stuff to do, then
I've got to get up and do something and make it worthwhile. I am not
here to live on a hyperdrive for three months, sucking in the culture
of other countries as if it was the last thing I'll ever do – I am
here to live as myself within and as breath within the possibilities
of the environment I am in, not to compromise myself and feed off on
experiences and energy kicks. So just live as I would live in a
familiar environment, moved by necessity and opportunity; allow
myself the time I need to get my shit together. It's not about
achievements but about who I live as within all this.
SF up next.
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