Musings Of A World Traveller

A couple years back, I made a fairly significant decision in my life. I decided that I would give up everything that I had accumulated to that point and travel the world. What followed was a very intense time of doubt about the choices that I made and also validation for the choices that I made! And growth. By no means a smooth growth curve, and the writing below reflects that! But growth none-the-less! This was a while back, it is now 2013 and Ive smoothed out (a bit) since then. I am still on the road and it is always good to look back and see where Ive come from!

WhyAmI DoingThis?
May1st, 2011 BuenosAires, Argentina

I could, here, talk about the amazing, heart breaking, and heart opening process Ive gone through the last nine months since I initiated this process of letting go of my life in order to travel the world. It has been an amazing lesson amazing lesson in appreciation. Everything around me, all things that have become familiar over the past twenty years feel alive. But I will start even further back. My life shifted 13 years ago. Back in January of 1998, I hurt myself pretty bad playing hockey. Busted my spleen and along with bursting my invincibility bubble. Yhis event unlocked some deeply seeded questions - who am I really and what is it that Im doing here? I had almost died and I didnt even know who I was other than a reflection of what I picked up from observing what was going on around me. Happy enough just to fit in. Happy and not so happy at the same time. To make a long and arguably interesting story short, much of my time over the last thirteen years has been spent not only contemplating these questions, but also actively searching for answers. Its been good, bad and downright ugly at times! And exacerbated by the fact that each time I peel back a supposed layer of myself to get a glimpse of who I might be underneath, Im met with this unnerving, cold feeling that beyond the image I have created to get by in this world there is nothing. A sense that if I strip it all away, peel back all the layers well, the feeling is Why do this? There is nothing there! A very cold and a very lonely nothing. Had I not injured myself that night thirteen years ago, the question of who I really am and what it is Im supposed to really be doing here may have remained a whisper to be ignored. Instead the volume of these questions have steadily risen and have underscored much of what Ive done the past thirteen years. And of course they are the very foundation of what Im about to launch myself into! One thing is clear to me though. I get a strong sense that expression for me right now is key. Give voice to whats rolling around inside of me. To give voice to my awkward attempts to gain insight into the questions. To the angst and fear, and not so quiet desperation that comes with that asking or more the answers! I touched on this stuff with a friend of mine. He was like Dude! I have no idea what you just said. I can totally not relate to that! Fair enough dude! It was good to say it though. I will gladly risk not being understood to express myself.

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Express what is very much in my face right now as I let go of some big chunks of what has come to define me these past two decades. As I contemplate why Im doing what Im doing and contemplate the doubt that creeps in.

LivingMy Dream?
May5th, 2011Somewherein Argentina!

Old habits seep back in like a stubborn persistent tide Bringing with them a wave of nausea and heart break And boredom, worthlessness and lifelessness Whats the fucking point if this is always what it comes back to? I feel like such a coward right now Living my dream or cowering in a hostel? I dont feel on fire with the passion of life I feel bored and scared and falling into same old patterns of escape Plotting my next move which also feels cowardice Worrying about money and cold and money Not exactly in the moment is it? Wanting to run as far from this place as possible

MoreHot WaterPlease?
May17th BuenosAiries

Ive just realized that I am going through life petrified of making mistakes. Absolutely paralyzed by it. Well actually Ive known that for a while though didnt know how deep it went. How pervasive it was my fear of doing something wrong for fear that someone might see me and think Hey that guy just did something wrong!. The horror!!! How ridiculous! How fucking paralyzing can you get? So just very recently Ive been purposefully doing things wrong, which is way outside my comfort zone! And then see how people react. Like tonight okay this is going to sound ridiculous I asked the waiter for more hot water. I had it in my head that you just dont do that here (Buenos Aires). Its not allowed. And believe it or not it took a lot of courage for me to do it! Pardon mas caliente agua por favor? I asked in my best pigeon Spanish and then braced myself for the NO YOU CANT have more hot water. How fucking inappropriate of you to ask that!!! Because somehow this is what I expect. (Where does that come from??) Anyways, as you can imagine, dude just says Si! No problemo And I am left kinda stunned and disappointed for all those second cups of tea I missed out on for being so afraid to make a mistake. I hope I have the guts to continue this little experiment and take bigger risks. Oh like maybe making a post to another blog with verbage that Im feeling is way too long and irrelevant to the topic : ) Continue to push past my fear of being wrong and deal with whatever consequences come with being wrong. Whats that saying? Its better to ask forgiveness than permission.?

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I am not just a little excited to get out there and make all kinds of mistakes push the envelope and just see what Ive been missing by being so uptight!! So scared to do something wrong. I will keep you posted!

AngstIncorporated
May18th 2011 Argentinasomewhere?!

Fuck! Talk about a house of cards! Almost everything has folded up. Everything but the fear and anxiety. Okay Deeper Place what do you say about that? or am I talking to the thing that doesnt want me to access that deeper place? I know what that thing wants to do! It wants to avoid, avoid, avoid. Hence the ice cream later tonight! (Yum by the way!) I end up listening to that things voice a lot. That thing is trying to tell me that this writing thing is useless, boring, and stupid and that I need to quit kidding myself about even doing it, let alone dreaming about making a living out of it. That feeling is up! What is it? Where is it? It happens when Im writing. It happens when Im not writing. It is with me like an open wound saying You cant! Hmmm - a talking open wound. I just got a visual of that. Weird. An exhaustion about the writing thing. And my age. IM TOO OLD FOR ANYTHING!!!! Fuck, there it is. Im too old for anything. Ive missed my chance at everything and all thats left is to lurk in empty shadows, and eat the table scraps of the young and hip. Maybe write a book filled with angst poetry. Darren the writer? Sound suspiciously like Dead in the water! Fuck. I risk my whole life on a whim! A fucking fleeting feeling that perhaps wasnt even real. Ah yes but what was real and necessary was to fold up the life I was living. A kind of half existence where retirement was the goal not the back up plan. One foot in the grave, the other in mud. If a computer isnt working, you reboot it. If its still not working after youve done everything you can to fix it, you reformat it. It feels like thats what Ive done with my life. Ive tried rebooting and massaging it back to health though in the end, what it really needed was a good old fashioned reformat. Fucking re-install the operating system baby!! Oh and maybe put in a new one! This HAD to happen! Totally HAD to happen! Otherwise where did I have to go? This is, for better or for worse, telling me who I am. Oh and as usual for worse. It is an odd thing. Always with that annoying quiver of fear eh? It is not my karma in this lifetime to get to the root of my pain but to find creative ways to cover it up. Thats what it seems anyways. Because whatever dents Ive put into what ails me have not seemed to have an impact on the wellspring from which the pain flows. Not sure if Ive got a bigger wellspring of pain than everybody else on the planet or that Im just really lame at covering it up. Or maybe cause Im consciously trying to navigate through it. And of course that pain is going to look and feel huge when I am poking around in it! Maybe do something somewhat hedonistic to take the edge off it

Freedom?
June17th 2013SouthAmericamaybeBolivia

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This last bit has been a lot of time spent contemplating my freedom and experiencing and exploring my freedom. And shifting my perspective of what freedom means. I had locked in my departure date before Jen(not her real name!) and I started dating. I also locked in the idea of not having any ties while I was travelling. When Jen and I got together, this was a potential game breaker, though she chose me knowing that on departure date we would no longer be dating. I was too set on my freedom to have it any other way. I would like to say how much I admire her for taking the chance to be with me knowing there was an end date to our time together. I had mixed feelings as I began my travels. I was greatly anticipating that no strings feeling that for me was one of the huge pushes to get me on the road. At the same time Jen and I had grown close and it felt odd to let go of something so good. Odd to say the least. Wrong even. We did break up. At the airport amongst kisses, hugs and tears. Actually those were about the physical separation. My mixed feelings persisted as time went on and my anticipated feeling of freedom refused to manifest. Hampered by my feelings for Jen and not knowing how or even why to let go. I got the impression Jen was feeling the same and we remained in touch. I know I am going to get absolutely crucified by this next bit but oh well. Part of wanting no strings as I travelled was because I wanted to be free to explore my feelings as they came up with all the interesting people I know I would meet. Mixed. Still feeling so much love and affection and attachment to Jen on one hand and experiencing feelings of attraction towards women I was meeting in my travels on the other. It tore me up inside. I so wanted to feel free to explore my attractions, yet I was riddled with guilt anytime I did so. Feeling I was betraying Jen or not honouring what we shared. Torn up. I talked to her about having and exploring them. I had to -not out of cruelty- it seemed appropriate for her to know. I got the impression she was having difficulty in letting go of what we had and as we were still communicating almost like two people still dating, I needed to let her know where I was at. I didnt want to. I really didnt want to. Though it felt right for her to know. Only fair. Hearing from her how she took this was hard. I felt like a complete jerk. Asshole. Feeling terrible for the process she fell into because of me. My commitment to myself to follow my feelings, to be true to them, a commitment I made several years ago, has caused a lot of people a lot of pain. Myself included. Especially around the attraction thing. And I believe it was mostly because of this that she decided to end contact with me. Mixed. Freedom at a cost. The loss of trust, love and respect from Jen and the knowledge that my actions have caused her a lot of pain. Freedom? Why do I feel so hollow? So wrong? I fully understand why she pulled back though it landed with a thud. I have my freedom. A very cold and a very lonely freedom. A scarred heart and the searing knowledge that what feels right for me hurt her. It has caused me to take a good hard look at myself, my feelings, my actions around connecting intimately. How is it that me following my heart causes so much pain? Too much pain. Ive pulled back on connecting. If I feel an attraction, I hold it in check instead of opening up that big can of hurt that would inevitably follow if I chose to explore it.

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Im not sure what to do here. With all this. That feeling of attraction I get is one of the handful of things in life that makes me feel fully alive. And it hasnt been my experience that that feeling is ever reserved and focussed on one person. For some reason, for me, love does not grow from this, or it grows to a point and then it just falls off. I dont seem to have the ability (will?) to deepen in love with one person. Love is gentle, love is kind? For me love is sticky, love is flawed. This last round with following my heart and my attractions has brought much insight. Mostly by observing how much pain I cause and by wondering how to be true to my feelings without causing so much pain. Losing my connection with Jen hurts. Heck losing my connection with anyone hurts! Though Im finding that my pain is tempered greatly by the fact that I remain true to myself. As flawed as I may be. That line in a U2 song comes to mind. Trying to throw your arms around the world. Is this what I m doing? My heart wants to open up to the world yet as I try and embrace the world, I am left feeling cold and lonely looking back on a trail of destruction. I have no answers. Though I continue to trust what goes on in my heart, flawed as it is. Just need to figure out how to follow it without hurting anyone. And without being alone for the rest of my life!

Love?
June26th, 2011 Damn!I wishI wouldhavewrittendownwhereI wrotethis stuff! MaybeBoliviastill??

I want something that makes me feel deliriously good and I want to own it, possess it and hide it away from the world so no one will steal it. And hoard over it jealously and milk it to make myself feel good. My Precious!!! WHAT IS THAT???!!!! What is the antidote? What is the preventative medicine? Curl up in a ball and hide under a rock? Sadly this is perhaps the only way to protect myself from being hurt. And even then not! I will try to write my way through this. Fuck - I just got a sense of how cold love is for me. So cold and complicated. With love comes jealousy and a head full of worst case scenarios and they come with any little action that might suggest that the heart of who Im liking lies elsewhere away from me. WTF? What a losing game this love feels like. Either live like a monk and risk nothing or open my heart and the flood gates to all the horrible, dark feelings that come with it. I admire anyone who refuses to shut their heart and dives into all the shitty feelings that come along with that love. I dont want to be a monk and I dont want to shut my heart and I dont want to feel all the horrible shit whenever I feel like Im in love. This is the challenge I face. Or is what Im chasing after even love? Maybe its just a classic celestial diversion. If so its a cruel one! Yet any alternative form of love feels like not enough. So I guess the search continues. What is love right now? What would it have me do when Im feeling that intense feeling I think of as love? Would it make me walk away? Short term pain relief? Or would it want me to feel this. Feel what Ive witnessed others feel towards me. And were remarkably poised about. Some karma being returned to me. Breaking my heart open.

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Do I really want to go through life with a half open heart? No. Am I going through life with a half open heart? Yes. I feel this. And Ive felt it as each episode where I open my heart I am punished for it. And at times it feels like the only logical thing to do is close it down. Fuck, even now! Because leaving it open is just too painful. But mama thats where the fun is!! Fuck! As if I havent done enough work already!! Now I gotta go digging around in THAT pile! That pile that has been piling up with every single rejection of the last two oops three decades. Well I guess the positive thing is I have lots to work with!!

PinchMe
July 12th, 2011 Sucre,Boliviaha!!

My big heart opening happened in a taxi cab on the way to Sucre. Piled in with my three amigos, something hit me like a tidal wave. Not sure what triggered it the joy of riding in style the 187 kilometres to Sucre in a taxi instead of a dodgy bus or the fact that the taxi driver was playing Spanish covers of 80s love songs! I dont know. All I know is that as I was sitting there in the front seat of the taxi, listening to Spanish versions of Love Hurts, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Unchained Melody, and many many more and watching the beautiful scenery flow past my window, and my good friends in the seat behind me my heart just started opening. Im not sure how else to explain it. It was a physical sensation. It was like there was something really pleasant pushing from inside the middle of my chest wanting to get out. Tripping over itself to get out. Insisting. It was overwhelming. I couldnt catch my breath or stop the tears from leaking out. And believe me I tried! I didnt want to freak out the taxi driver. Though he was the one who put on the cheesy love songs!? Of course as I was feeling it, I couldnt just sit there and feeling it. I had to figure it out! What was this about? I think it was everything coming together. Feeling of belonging, reconnecting with Jen and a deeper understanding of the nature of her love for me. And a painful realization that for a very long time, I stopped risking fully opening my heart. And along with that, having my wish to scream my wish to live life to the fullest had been reduced to a yawn. My vitality trapped behind my lack of courage. Would someone PLEASE pinch me? God, please pinch me, I dont want to sleep walk through life. Please someone! Well I got pinched. More than once in the last while. The first was during my first skype conversation with Jen in a few months. To get to the heart of it I witnessed on my Skype screen, this beautiful woman who I have known for five years and shared six amazing months with as a couple, instead of closing down with anger and shutting me out because of what had happened over the last few months, she instead exposes me to her deepest pain. She shows me how hurt she is with her tears. It touches me deeply. It hits me that I am witnessing what a wide open heart looks like. It hits me very deep. My heart remembered when I allowed myself to feel this deeply and embraces her in her pain. A pain caused partly by my heart not willing to risk feeling the depth of pain I am witnessing before me. I am filled with regret for choosing to not risk feeling. To not risk being hurt.

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Something sinks in, and I know that if Im ever to live fully, as Ive been telling myself I want, I need to somehow open my heart and risk feeling the deep pain I was witnessing in Threza. Risk? No, no FACE the deep pain. Because I know it is there. I remember it from back when I had the courage or more the innocence to open up my heart which opened the floodgates to all kinds of hurt. Pain that I have felt ill equipped to navigate. The logical thing seemed to be Dont go there!

Angstin Cusco
August10th, 2011 Cusco,PeruTwofor two!!

Okay so here I am in Cusco a spiritual place only Im not feeling so spiritual. In fact Im feeling pretty flat. Im alone and not liking it one bit after the month I had in Sucre, which was perhaps the best of my life. Im prickly not wanting to connect with anyone. What up dude? I have exactly 20 days left. What am i doing??? AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I just ordered a Pisco Sour. WTF? I dont even drink and its happy hour so Im getting two of them!! Yeah After a month and a bit of wonderment in Sucre I am flailing here. Not sure what to do next. Went searching for a Shaman today to see about doing San Pedro but it all just sketched me out. Felt like a bit of a scam the whole works. Like the metal readers at the fair in Sucre. Not sure how much I want this because it doesnt feel legit. I just sent a message to the most legit sounding company that does San Pedro experiences. I hope they get back to me. If not I may do Saturday with the two Swiss chicks with the shamanic dude up the hill. Do I really want to do this? To what end? What do I hope to gain from this? Am I really going in the right direction here? I am totally questioning that. It feels so self-indulgent. Very tantric. Very almost hedonistic except Im not having that much fun at it. Starting to wonder at the meaning of my life again. Fuck!!! It wasnt supposed to feel like this at this stage. My angst free days in Sucre seems to have created a bit of a creative block!! Who knew that being happy would be the demise of my ability to express myself! Fuck! Bring on the angst! Plus it was hard to read Brennans work. So much deeper and real than my own. Kinda took the wind out of my sails. :( How do I get back on the wagon? I guess I could just write about my travel experience? What Ive been doing since Sucre? Yeah, why dont I go there? Last days of Sucre, Isle Del Sol, Machu Picchu, Sick, and San Pedro And I would like to write a bit about Why I Write. Maybe I will do that here? Por que no? :)

WhyI Write
August10th, 2011 Cusco,Peru

There is a reason why I am doing this why I bleed in front of people with my words. It all goes back over a decade to the early weeks when I was recovering from my spleen injury. I remember

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lying on my couch in my house probably in a haze of codeine pain killers and contemplating what had just happened to me. I was kinda obsessed by the fact that I almost died. And that didnt bother me as much as the fact that I had almost died and no one really knew who I was. Fuck! I didnt even know who I was!! I had been living a shallow version of myself and it took almost dying to wake me up to that. It tormented me that I had been living a life of survival. Simply doing what I needed to do to survive, to fit in in the most superficial way: to be as close to being like other people that I could. Survival. I almost died. And I didnt even know who I was. I did know who I was I was a facade. I could have died and all anyone would have known of me was the facade I was presenting to them. All I would have known of myself was the facade I was presenting to myself and the fact that the brilliance that I was was carefully tucked away. What a waste of a life it seemed I had been living. Thank GOD I didnt die then!!!! A resolve formed in those early weeks as I was recovering. A resolve to express myself. To let people know who I was. In those early weeks a resolve formed to be real and to express that realness to whoever wanted to hear it! Even with that it took several years to actually be able to do this! My pattern of fitting in and stuffing my brilliance was far too ingrained to just start expressing myself or being who I knew I could be. Well actually I didnt know who I could be at that point. I was just too conditioned to survive for anything resembling expression to emanate from me. It took many years to peel away whatever it was that prevented me from expressing myself. In fact even now that I have found the courage to put some of myself on these pages, I still feel so cold inside sharing like this, so exposed and vulnerable. So open to judgment. Sometimes after sharing like this I just curl up in a ball on my bed and numb out. Sometimes I seriously question why I do this and not to mention the judgment I lay on myself for doing something so bloody self-indulgent as travelling the world!! Yet it burns in me to do this and only this. I dont want to do anything else. It feels childish and unsustainable and selfish and at the same time it feels as though by opening myself in this way, I am actually doing something profound. I am exploring the human condition through my own fumbled experiences. And sharing what I learn as I try to live my life as I feel I was meant to live it. I get that what Im doing goes against all conventional wisdom but I embrace it because it feels right to me. I hurt, I love, I laugh, I cry, I fear, sometimes I feel nothing but its real and I want to share it. I write because I want the world to know who I am. I no longer want to live a life of quiet desperation spending way too much energy just trying to fit in to a world I havent resonated with for a very long time. I want to live a life of quite loud desperation until I break through to a place where there is no desperation and I am living the life I was meant to. And fuck it if that never happens! I know its there so I will keep doing my best to get there, because it is a worthy goal to shoot for. And I will keep writing about it, because it is a worthy thing to write about. And even if nobody cares, I will keep living it and keep writing about it. Because actually I care! And I know that what I have to say has importance even if its just to me. Though I know that that is not the case. I know that many others can relate to what I write about and that they benefit from what I learn from my experiences.

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I dont feel compelled to be anything or save anyone from anything or change the world. I just want to live my experience, learn from it and share it!! I feel I could do nothing more profound than this.

HeySanPedro! August21st, 2013 Cusco,Peru

I had heard that San Pedro was known to provide a glimpse of enlightenment, which who wouldnt want to experience that?! This was my motivation for wanting to try it and Ill be damned if I didnt get what I was looking for!! Time will tell if this was a life changing experience or just a very cool passing sensation. All I know is I had a kinetic experience of concepts and even objects melting like silky chocolate into a big primordial puddle. I couldnt hold a concept for the life of me they just kept melting into the pool and I was left just being absolutely completely present. Thats all I was presence! Any time my mind attempted to conceptualize what was going on the concept would melt and it would be back to just raw experience of the moment. I described the feeling in the closing circle as a soul orgasm. Felt so good when my perceptions relaxed and melted into that pool of primordial chocolate! What was this really? A frivolous experiment with a hallucinogenic? Was I really looking for something more or just a fun high? Considering my trip over the last month or so had been not much more than indulging in the good feelings I had stumbled across perhaps I was looking to heighten the good times with a little hallucinogenic escape? Well, if so it delivered on that level! I could not wipe the smile off my face as I walked the side of a mountain in the moonlight with my equally ecstatic San Pedro participants!! At this level it felt like the best bush party ever!!! Though my deeper purpose for taking San Pedro also shone through. At that last break, at the focal point of the beauty of the Sacred Valley with the moon shining on the mountains that surrounded me, in the cool mountain air and the odd pod-shaped flowers staring at me whispering Finally!!. I laid there taking it all in. In my chullo cap and borrowed pancho, a smile plastered on my face. This is where the walls of perception evaporated. Separation melted. My soul relaxed and let it happen. I could not have hoped to experience this in a million years of the meditation I used to do! And now I have it. I have a sense of what enlightenment might feel like, what oneness might feel like and why breaking down the walls of duality might be a good thing to keep hashing away at. What better than a deep experience of something to keep me motivated to continue shooting for i
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