Lessons from a Vagabond

Stuck in India: Enough is Enough (for now)

I don’t want to travel anymore.  I just want to be home.

A series of events have unfolded at warp speed over the past few years. Starting in 2004 when I got struck by a taxi and broke my leg, I turned my life of stressful routine into a life of adventure, accumulating dreams and fulfilling them with an aggressive enthusiasm. I’ve taken my happiness seriously when it should have been taken with lightness. I have made life’s leisures into a life. But I don’t want it anymore. I’ve proven you can make travel your life and, to myself, I have proven that it can be just as lonely as it can be fulfilling.

I’ve overcome hardships with as strong a positive attitude as possible, wondering when I would hit rock bottom. It never happened. I just kept going - floating for fear of drowning, or “rolling with the punches” as one friend put it. Before Jet Set Zero came along I had let already my stubborn enthusiasm 1) guide me to Europe, 2) volunteer in Kenya and become embedded in rural Kenyan politics, 3) produce my documentary A Chance for Peace (with zero prior experience) immediately following Kenya’s post-election violence, and lastly, it was all topped off with my apartment burning down rendering me homeless and broke as I struggled to finished school. Why am I tell you all this? Because I could pretend that this life of travel is all sunshine and freedom, but it isn’t. The reality is that it is also extremely taxing and I don’t want to keep it up anymore for me or for anyone. If anything it is a job I love, not the entirety of a life I want to live. Not for me. Not anymore.

I’m so thankful for Jet Set Zero and for everyone I’ve met along the way since I first started walking again after breaking my leg those years ago. I’m eager to carry out all the mental, emotional, and spiritual acrobatics I have tumbled through, but I can’t do that in flight. I need roots. I’ve been uplifted by so many experiences and have been empowered to continue traveling as I see so many people becoming inspired by my trips. More will come, undoubtedly, but for now I have to stop.

Today I write you still stuck in India and I don’t know how and when I will be home. I consider my stay here one last lesson that’s telling me its time to go back to California and build my home and life. Again. Hopefully this one wont burn down like the last one. The night I watched it all burn I said to myself, “Destruction gives way to creation.” It’s time to lay the foundation. I can worry about adventure - and appreciate it more - once my roots are firmly planted.

Happy holidays, ladies and vagabonds. See ya when I see ya. It’s been hella real.

PS: I’m working hard to get onwards and upwards, but if anyone would like to make an offering of Frequent Flier Miles in exchange for some grade-A karma, I would not object. So holler. Peace and love, y’all.

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Stuck in India: My confession

I am a fraud.

I’ve espoused to others what I consider my wisdoms, my “lessons learned from a life of travel” and I have been deluded by my own ignorance.

I used to say that my outlook on life was based on a keen awareness of the fragility of life, but instead of nurturing it, I have strangled it, tying a wire around the neck of the world and squeezing out its wisdom, join, and pain. So don’t listen to my “words of wisdom” because I know nothing. If anything, I can tell you that wisdom is not something to be taught or learned. It is a consequence of life. It doesn’t lie in your will to achieve your goals or your desire to “be a better person”, nor is it stamped in your passport, as I mistakenly thought.

Achievement and desire have been my downfall. In the West, it’s conditioned by society that time is limited, so hurry up, work hard, and do “right”. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m tired of that tension. What some call “the American dream” has taken me further away from enjoying the reality of each moment, and into a  future where the only thing that is certain is a constant sense of want and reach. My drive to be something extraordinary, I now realize, is totally ordinary and not noble at all. And the strength of my desires has produced just as much stress and suffering as life-changing moments. But life is always naturally in flux, it doesn’t need me to hurry it along. In short, my mind needs rest from want.

I have said before that the more I see the less I know. On JS0: Thailand, I wont be surprised if I am, at least in part, portrayed as “the spiritual one”, but my search is coming to a close. I’m learning that the best thing I can do for my spirit is to let it breathe, not smother my mind is philosophy, theology, and history. All these years of travel and circumstantial transience have taught me that there are no answers and there is no “me”. I know nothing and this supposed-former-wisdom-junkie would happily rather be your fool.

That is my confession. Little melodramatic maybe, but sometimes you find that comes with the territory.

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Update: Stuck in India

It’s been 4 weeks since JS0: Thailand wrapped filming.

Here’s a brief synopsis of events:

• Show finishes filming after 3 months, 2 months of pre-production on my end.
• Everyone disbands, we leave our house.
• I contact my discount airline ticket connection to book my ticket home.
• The connection falls through without warning.
• And now I’m unexpectedly stuck abroad.
• With no job.
• Or house.

The money I budgeted to get home is not enough for the full fare ticket I now have to pay for on my own.  I had to leave Thailand so I got myself to India. Thank God, Buddha, Allah and all their disciples that I have a friend here I can stay with. I accept my role and accept the work ahead, but I am nevertheless stuck.

Although I’m glad to have this experience, I’m not going to lie: it’s been rough. Partly because India is fucking intense, but mostly because I just need to rest. Try to balance the levity with the gravity of the past few months. Instead, I’ve been trying not to cry alone in public, constantly wishing I was home (especially for the holidays), and longing to hold my best friend’s newborn baby girl.

Today I write you alone in New Delhi on Christmas Day. Tomorrow who knows what will happen. Now this is an adventure of a different color. Hoping for some grade-A karma to kick in.