It’s my last day before I go back to the States.
Tomorrow.
And I still only have moments of clarity, where I seem to understand what has and is happening. I got dinner in a bar last night, then wandered around looking for a pub I couldn’t find, getting an original Budweiser and explaining (and drawing) what a whale is.
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I’m being disgusted with tourism by eating and drinking in a hotel restaurant. I resisted, but my feet and back hurt. My inner monologue is in the third person and often Portuguese, which means I haven’t had enough conversations in English, I guess.
Back to the point. I’m really disgusted with tourism. I see thousands of people walking around, taking pictures of everything, getting souvenirs, having a decidedly European experience. I’m in a hostel where people talk about places they’ve been and will go like fishermen after a catch. And mostly with American accents. As if the world could be conquered in two weeks, two months or two years. I feel like I’m one of a very few who has some clue as to how enormous the world is, and how you don’t know a place, however small, even after two years. You can’t know a people unless you were born there and have a permanent attachment. I left because that’s what people do – because I miss everyone back “home.” And because I’m afraid of being forgotten – how do we exist if not in the minds of others? If I lived a reclusive life in the woods, born and raised by wolves, I would most likely try to advance the lives of the wolves I was among so that I wouldn’t be forgotten. The point is, that’s how we’re remembered.
Jenna and I will be on opposite ends of the earth.
I have confidence that I will find love.
I am not confident that I will find meaning in life. I know it needs to be unique -- for some reason, I’m unhappy doing something someone else is doing, mainly because they’re likely to be less religious about it.
Enough about me. What about you? What will you do, the reader of this journal, after having read and felt (hopefully) two and a half years of the life of some person who might as well be (still) thousands of miles away? Are you motivated, inspired, disillusioned, cynical, challenged, apathetic, insane because of me? Have I had some impact, tangible or not? And what are you going to do with yourself? Navigate to the next web site, ad infinitum, get back to work, go home to your family, make love and go on as if nothing happened? Why don’t you let yourself be irrevocably changed? Why don’t you go up to the store clerk, ask how he’s doing, how he feels about his job, if he’s ever experienced a different culture, and consider running away with him to a place where they can’t even pronounce your name well? Why don’t you start a homeless shelter that offers conversation and ideas instead of just soup and cots? Why don’t you cement your political ideals and run for office, promising to change everything everyone complains about – then, do it? Why don’t you reach down into that deep down somewhere and get out the very thing that scares you and just go and do it? What are you waiting for?
Soon, people in Mozambique will be expected to live about 30 years. Who says the US couldn’t suffer the same problems? Who says there are guarantees in life? That because your parents are comfortably retired in some banally warm climate you will be the same (and if you were, would you be happy?). That everybody gets theirs.
Victims – mortal – never get to voice their concerns or regrets. If they could, people would be a lot more urgently living their lives.
So what are you waiting for? Ask her. Go! Do it! Quit your job! Sell your house!
If I had any impact on your life, I hope I’ve inspired you to just do what scares you – and it scares you because it runs contrary to what’s easy and comfortable, but it offers possibilities that will make your life vastly more interesting than it ever was.
Every day, I try to do exactly that. And now I have to try and do it in the US.
Peace,
John
