Monday, June 27, 2011

Here we go

I realized something today as we were flying around London at breakneck speed. The team that I took to Uganda basically had 4 hours to spend time in London and instead of staying in one spot, we basically just went all over Central London. It felt really familiar, especially for a place that I really hadn't spent any time in for about 3 years and even then only for a day. I realized something that I've tried to "grow" out of for a very long time.

I'm better if I'm mobile. It's a fact. I've spent most of my life fighting my nomadic instinct, trying to comprehend the complexities of what makes me itch to travel. I process and process and overprocess what makes me what to settle. But there's no escaping it. As much as I want to fight it. I'm better adrift. I'm bold, I'm aware, I'm reckless, I'm more likely to be vulnerable. I'm also usually out of my mind freaked out about what's going on, but that's not a bad thing.

Sitting still usually means complacency for me, which usually means regression, or apathy. Whatever the case, I have this real tendency to end up sitting and doing nothing. I'll call it rest or much needed recovery, but most of the time I'm just loafing. And I fall into this really self focused kind of mood where I'm not really aware of what's going on around me. Unfortunately this is what defines the better part of my life. I work. I rest. I work. I rest. I repeat as necessary. In the meantime, I'm kind of useless.

But give me wheels or wings or tracks and it's a whole different scenario. I deal with junk. Meaningful junk. The kind of junk that helps you get places. I'm aware of what's going on around me. I'm considerably less moody... well, at least lately... still working on that one. I'm far more likely to take risks of faith, life, relationship. I get stuff done. And I get into this weird contented place where I'm on the move. This place where stuff that normally would bother me rolls off of the back a lot faster.

This is a lot of nonsensical rambling, but I'm really just trying to figure out what to do with the fact that I think I'm better nomadic and figuring out where to go with that. What does that look like if I try to apply it as a positive rather than run from it as a negative. Everybody tells you you have to settle down at somepoint. What does like look like if you don't actually think you're supposed to do that?

2 comments:

Adam Heine said...

A random, possibly-unrelated thought: Paul never settled down.

Whytey said...

Yeah... things like that are usually random/unrelated... unless they're not