April 23, 2005

• Topic: follow your bliss

  
  

  Course is over!!! It was good, great at times, ok at times, but my course is over.  My labor has been exploited, a measely few hundred dollars to show for spending the last 5-days, 24hrs a day, taking high school kids backpacking, helping them feel more confidant about themselves…lighting sparks for sure, but…like myself, likely to run into life as usual at some point.

  
  

  but…i got myself some time off.  Till May 10th!!!  That’s 2 weeks vacation, so I go home tomorrow, catch the 2nd seder, celebrate a little Jewish exodus from Egypt, eat some matza this week, make some life plans, then, May 5th, bus it to Virginia Beach to meet a good friend from college I haven’t seen in nearly 2 years now!!!

  
  

  So…the big thing on my mind, is what to do come June.  The month of May…i’ll be finishing my bried and personally challenging tenure here at OB Baltimore/Philly, will do 3, essentially back-to-back-to-back courses in the city of Philly.  Should be a fun experience, something that may benefit me down the line, but…come June, w/ whatever little cash I have, a decision must be made.

  
  

  1) go back to camp….make about 2G as a canoe instructor, cushy job, maybe meet a cute foreign Jewish chick, make a few int’l friends, be in a comfortable environment, but…possibly feel like I’m in a place that I’ve overstayed.

  
  

  2) go abroad…w/ what little cash I have, by a plane ticket to another country, w/ hardly a plan.  Find a hostel, hopefully find work there.  Make enough money to begin the vagabond lifestyle, might feel really lost, might feel really alive.

  
  

  3) spend summer in St. Louis…possible free place w/ my college roommate, find some work, be a normal person for 2mos.

  
  

  4) find other OB work…see if anything more interesting and exotic is out there for the summer

  
  

  This is an interesting and challenging time of life for me.  My goal and mission of a year ago is nearly completely abandoned.  I have neither the time, money, resources, or energy to puruse what I was pursuing this fall.  I’m not about to change ANYTHING…so, i’m not about to think and write about what it is I won’t be changing, w/ regards to education.

  
  

  However…this might open up a new chapter for me.  A chapter that I may be less deliberate about writing, and more open to it writing itself for me.  A chapter where I shed my notions of idealism, my isolation from reality, and instead, embracing the world.  Begin to form fresh friendships.  Begin to really do outdoors things, not just running organized trips.  A chapter that is meaningful to me, but no longer focussed on some bigger MEANING.  I can help people by living in the woods for a period of time, or, I can help people by living in a hostel.  I can develop skills working w/ kids, or I can develop skills picking grapes.  My priorities in life are mixing rapidly.

  
  

  I’ve discoverd that spending 2-days travelling w/ a stranger builds a friendship almost as strong as one of several years.  I’ve had strong friendships fade, and those 2-day ones last.  I feel comfort in spending time at home…and will always want to know more about my family, to feel closer to my family, but…I cannot live my life through theirs.  And…living close to someone does not necessarily ensure living closer to somebody.  I’ve grown closer to certain friends since college, and I spoke to my parentes more often when I was away at school. 

  
  

  Life cannot always be planned by logic.

  
  

  I’m feeling more open to the idea of starting a life abroad.  Like having the opportunity to experience childhood again.  New places, foods, history.  In America…I feel stupid for knowing so little about my own culture.  I am often paralyzed in conversation.  Abroad…it’s like I have a free pass for not knowing, and can comfortably ask questions again about the most basic things.

  
  

  My decisions now will alter my future in a major way…but not to worry. 

  
  

  I am coming to accept the limits of my potential…for now.  Or, at least to realize that I may come to experience and learn some things at the expense of others.  I may never enter the world of higher education again, I may never enter the world of book writing/promoting again, I may never enter the world of Outward Bound again.  I might be burrying what actually amounts to only 2 years of my life. 

  
  

  It’s actually funny how dramatic this all feels.  It’s not like in college, where you can transfer, change majors, change identies, all on a whim.  But…i’ve also heard that your 20′s are the decade to do all the same things.  I’m feeling the social pressures, the idea that I’ve had my chance to “take time off,” to “play around.”  I’m feeling the social pressures to do something stable.  I’m feeling all that…and I’ve let it take it’s toll on me.

  
  

  Well…my next trip, I hope is the trip that I break through all that bullshit.  That I feel comfortable doing whatever it is I want to do.  That I feel content, “following my bliss.” 

  
  

  So…a week of family lies ahead, a week of waying pros/cons of various plans.  A week of making plans, setting goals.

  
  

  -dan 

  • 8:24 pm
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