You know how garbage is less likely to be taken out once it REALLY starts to pile up... And that mountain of dishes in the sink just NEVER seems to get clean? Well, in much the same way, because there is just SO much to cover, I have been avoiding the monumental task of restarting my blog after such a long hiatus about which there is just so much to tell.
I arrived in Santiago late on Saturday night after visiting several "once-in-a-liftime" places back-to-back-to-back (to-back). Since then, I have basically had a staring contest with my computer screen trying to figure out how to begin to summarize my time away from Santiago. Since I was neither so dedicated nor so foolish as to bring my computer along with me on my travels, I managed to scribble some notes into my journal at a few stopping points along the way. So rather than try to create new entries retrospectively, I will simply transcribe my journal entries into this blog. Before I delve into these entries, though, I feel it is necessary to warn you that my hand-written thoughts tend to be more personal, more melodramatic, and less lucid. Don't be surprised, then, if you find the following entries to be little more than esoteric ramblings dripping with sap.
Here is the first entry that I made. It was written by candlelight at a hotel constructed out of salt after watching the sunset on the outskirts of the Salar de Uyuni.
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7/16/07
Where does one begin to write a short treatise of all the ways this world can captivate us?
The day-to-day routine often numbs us to the life we are living. A potent anesthetic of chores, habit, and general predictability put us to sleep and we focus our energy shutting out the world around us. Still, at times, that world attempts to perform surgery on our soul. A procedure to repair us. To wrest us from our waking slumber. To abandon what we think we know about the world - what we have seen, what we can predict, what we know and feel - and teach us what the world is really all about.
When you escape from the web we have spun for ourselves, the insidious hypnosis that we call "the REAL world", you can once again open your eyes to colors that you didn't know existed, to music that no instrument can play, to a symphony no orchestra could perform.
It is funny the way the Mind works. When you are trapped in the mire of obligation and responsibility, He yearns for freedom and adventure. Yet when given the exactly that, He directs his thoughts to the more pedestrian habits of daily ritual. Acting without your consent or direction, the Mind returns to worry. It is as though He cannot roam free. So long we have domesticated the Mind that in a truly unconstrained environment He would starve in the process of awaiting orders rather than flourish and blossom with fruits of innovation. In essence we only wish to escape insofar as our escape will eventually lead to our recapture. That way, we can maintain the illusion of a free spirit. Afterward, we can forever point to our ability to pick up and leave everything behind, knowing full well that we never intended to maintain our nomadic course. Instead, free though we seem, we at once hope for and fear our return to civilization.
For now though, you mustn't dwell on such thoughts. It is now time to embrace the opportunity to wander, to be young and directionless. Turn your anxiety into arrogance, knowing full well that you don't know, and that's okay. For it is this awareness (hope, fear, anxiety... Whatever you want to call it) that will eventually enable you to find your way.
Until then, laugh with others at the joy that life brings. Breathe in the air so full of youth and the promise that youth carries. Admire the artwork of the unadulterated world around you. And when the splendor of the world fills you up to the point that you can no longer bear it, find someone else to hold and let that joy spill over into their life as you sob tears of joy into their shoulder.
Most of all, rejoice for the time you have been given. It won't last long, but it will be with you forever.
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