Indulgence

full moon in Paris, sunrise in Mexico

Antoine de Saint-Exupery
What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

I've been chatting with Djong on the yahoo messenger today and we kept talking about our dreams to travel the world. Live the lives of bohemians and live by the day, throwing caution to the wind and really making the most of what this life has to offer.

But fear is stopping us from making that step forward. We are easily deterred from taking that monumental journey that will complete our way of making ourselves who we want to be. But once it happens, once we get to that next step, BLAM! We will be able to fully realise who we are and we're going to be unstoppable.

I've been thinking a lot about the things I want from the world and all of a sudden, while being rich and having money is a great fantasy, it's more and more falling down on my list of priorities. I want to see more exotic sunsets in gorgeous beautiful locations. I want to have more and more interesting, deeply personal conversations with interesting people, characters who have done things and seen stuff.

I want to be able to zip in beaches that are not in the Philippines. I want to read more books and read them in weird places like in a train station in Vienna or in the airport in Iceland or in a coffee shop in South Africa. I want to drive down a street in Hyderabad or ride a boat in the rivers of Malaysia or Laos. I want to find myself bargaining with a street vendor in Egypt or haggling over the price of a finely woven carpet in Morocco.

I want to write a book and be read by an Englishman on his vacation in Paris, a New Yorker reading at home on the weekends, an Indian professor in-between checking his student's papers at the University in New Delhi. I want to have pictures taken of me in The Great Wall of China, The Taj Mahal and the Outback.

I want to go dancing in a club in Russia and walking in the streets of Amsterdam or go shopping in a mall in Singapore. I want to kiss the Blarney stone in Ireland (is that right?) and work in a sheep ranch in New Zealand for 3 months. I want to go surfing in the beaches of Japan and sun bathe in Cape Town.

I want to see the new moon from the streets of Shanghai or get crazy with the full moon in Paris and find myself in some thrilling, romantic experience with a stranger that lasts for the 3 nights of the full moon and to always wonder if that was the one? I want to watch a sunset in a beach in Indonesia and find myself in a cruise around the Mediterrenean. I want to find myself on a beach in Acapulco, watching the sunrise with a half-full glass of Zombie and a smile on my face. I want to have a cup of coffee with 3 good friends in a beautiful little shack in Alaska while watching the Aurora Borealis and throw another coin into the Fountain of Trevi.

I don't see myself ever settling down. I don't see myself with a sedentary life. I'm not a tree but a vine. I'm not a lake or a pond but a river and a waterfall. I'm not a satellite with a fixed orbit but a comet that travels that universe in search of something brighter than my own brilliance.

posted by wanggo @ 6:25 PM