Home.
June 23rd, 2010 | 
Author: I feel absolutely ridiculous complaining about it, but it’s been tough. I just don’t know what to do with myself. An existential struggle, I suppose. Some would call it a good problem, but it fills me with doubt and I have no clear path or vision for my future.
I must disclose to you my immediate circumstances. I live with my extraordinarily generous and patient parents who support me fully and ask for less than a pinch of responsibility in return. I generally laze about the house and accomplish little to nothing with my days. I drink too much and spend most of my active time socializing. That, in all fairness, has been great. But it can’t go on forever.
And I had a dream once. I wanted to wander through some places that, in today’s world, count as difficult or dangerous. It wasn’t slashing through the Amazon, sure, but it was something that took preparation and confidence. I would go overland, circling the Arabian Sea from India and making my way south through Africa. And I was ready.
And then I skidded off the road and flipped over my handle bars. The doctor could have felt my heart hit the floor when he told me I needed surgery.
I sought a second opinion. I confidently told my parents the big, private hospitals would take care of me. World class medicine, all that. At my third hospital in two days, I watched the doctor lean back, lifting the x-ray to the light. He looked at me evenly.
“I believe your best option is returning to your home country.”
Finished.
So here I am. And I’m more lost than I ever was on the side of some rural road with an idling bike and a map and a gaggle of English-free rice farmers smiling at me.
Is it ridiculous, saying something like that? I have money and no obligations, and I could just ship off and wander a bunch more, either back in South Asia or, really, anywhere else in the world. But it doesn’t feel right. I just don’t find inspiration in it the way I used to. The wanderlust seems to have dried up. I think.
The other main option – workrentgroceriesdataplan – has its appeal, but it is also far from inspiring. When I returned from my last trip, I’d been away for two years and felt ready to settle down and live a centered life for a while. But this time I got cut off halfway through. It was a forced homecoming.
Hence the doubt. I’ve started preparing cover letters and sending in resumes. If I get a good job that makes me feel like I’m contributing I could see myself staying. But it’s hard because the jobs I really want I’m completely unqualified for.
I’m about eighty percent sure that I’ll slog it out for now. My life as a traveler isn’t over, I hope, but it is on hiatus. I’m sorry for taking so long to wrap up my trip and explain what happened, but I have only recently come to terms with it myself. There was supposed to be so much more.
I’ll try to post a few retrospectives soon. I hope it won’t take me as long to come up with them as it did to write this.
Category: 
| 
Hey Evan,
Sorry to hear about your unfortunate accident, but at the same time I’m not. I believe things happen for good reasons, reasons that are in line with our Best and Highest Good, and also that the true challenge of living an inspired life comes from being able to appreciate those and that which do not at first seem inspiring. It is easy to feel great and wake up everyday excited when we are on the road and unattached to anything except our travel budget and various impulses to experiment and explore, but unless you decide to be a gypsy, eventually such an existence will lose it’s sparkle. It is a fact, for instance, that neuroscientists have discovered that the brain’s pleasure center (i.e. our ability to enjoy) shrinks the less we engage in what could be labelled as “work” or “struggle”. Such is the nature of the human experience. It seems to me that what you are seeking is only a state of mind and being, and, like happiness, you could try to create it in other ways. It is hard once we have been deeply bitten by the travel bug to settle into “normal” life and feel genuinely happy, but it seems the longer we try to avoid it, the worse off we get. I was able to relate very closely to your words, thoughts, and feelings, to the point where I felt like I was proof-reading something I had written myself, and I applaud the honesty of your transmission. I really felt your pain and confusion, and it takes a lot of courage to come right out and divulge some of the things you did. I applaud you for that.
You remind me a lot of myself, and on that note, have you ever heard of the Puer Aeternus complex? It may be worth your while to look into, for it could teach you some important things about the dangers of prolonged wanderlust, some of the deleterious drives which underlie it, the holistic benefits of steady work, hopefully work you enjoy, and grounding. I, too, am seeking to create and/or find such things after my own travel adventures, and what I am finding is that I am very afraid of being “trapped” in any forms of commitment that end up not to my liking. This is typical of the Puer Aeternus type of man, which is what I seem to be in many ways, and maybe you fear the same. As such, I have been avoiding commitments like the plague, and I can see and feel that I’m getting nowhere. I don’t know, but what I do know, what I need to be true, is that life can be beautiful and inspiring and challenging and deeply rewarding on a day-to-day basis if we choose to see it that way and work to create that as our reality. It definitely is work, but, like anything else, all it takes is practice and mental reconditioning, and we can change the way we think and see our lives so that seemingly ordane things become more meaningful. I think that is the true test, for what else are we here to do besides suffer, overcome, and learn? Certainly having fun and giving love and being creative and all other good things, but it is only a matter of time before suffering knocks on our door again refusing to leave, and there we go again.
I would love to hang out with you sometime and talk about these and other things. What do you say? Also, like you, I have started my own blog about health, wellness, personal growth, and spiritual matters, and maybe you will gain some inspiration from it: http://healingtalker.blogspot.com/
The last thing I will recommend is to HAVE FAITH. I know this isn’t easy, and I have struggled with it for as long as I can remember, but the more living and suffering I do, the more I see how valuable it is, and that what is meant to be for you will be. Don’t get me wrong, I believe we create our own destinies and are responsible for our own lives, but I also believe that some things, places, and people just seem to be meant for us, for to be with another, or somewhere else, or doing something different just doesn’t compute.
The End.
Traveling is one of those things that has unexpected existential (and sometimes literal) consequences; you think you’re going one place and you (or at least I) never seem to end up there.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve spent the day in a meditation center, but it seems as though doing what feels right at the moment is your best plan… if that’s sitting and wasting away money and time on your parents’ couch, do it; if it’s traveling somewhere, do it; if it’s working at some job to fill time, do it. None of these options are permanent and any of them will be un-doable at any time. So pick the most currently desirable one and start — you can always change your mind later.
(And I apologize if this is totally unhelpful and too full of Buddhist philosophy, but please remember where I am at the moment
)
my goodness evan, to have such friends!