Mediocre Travel

Holly Butcher died at a very young age.  She posted a letter to Facebook that has gone viral, so eventually it made its way to me.  The two statements that resonated were:

"Say no to things you really don't want to do."

"Don't feel pressured to do what other people might think is a fulfilling life..you might want a mediocre life and that is so okay."

Around the same time I was reading her heartbreaking letter, my Macclesfield host told me about a  "slow journalist," Paul Salopek, who is walking the human trail from Africa to Australia.  It's called the Out of Eden walk. It sounds fascinating.  It's a long-term goal, but not as long-term as Peace Pilgrim's:  after her enlightenment she literally walked until the end of her days.  She stopped counting miles at around 25,000.

I cannot be either one of these amazing people.  I don't want to be, although I envy their certitude and purpose, and I think they have lessons for me.

But meanwhile, I have this obvious, but shame-faced, bent towards mediocrity. I combine it with my love of travel, and the result is slow travel. But it's not intentional slow travel as my friend M practises it, nor V's "organic" decision-making; nor is it the more rigorous experience of slow journalism. It's mediocre travel. I don't study or research my journeys, and I don't get out there and interview people.  In fact, I meet very few people indeed.  I'm more a hermit than anything, a  non-meditating, non-spiritual hermit who relocates to a new retreat every few days or weeks or months.

I think about the dichotomy of living in the moment vs recording the moment. I know it need not be a dichotomy.  My cousin has come to terms with the fact that he often experiences the moment through his camera lens.  For him, it's only partly about creating art or recording an emotion/event. I get that.  When I'm in a museum, I often use my camera to zero in on something that intrigues me, usually textures and colors.  I don't always capture the image, but I usually do.  There's something about that final click, the "ah, yes.  That's what I am seeing!"

Still, why do I feel the need to share that moment, to publish that image?  Is that the slow journalist coming out?  No, because I don't research it;  I don't analyze it.  I just do the travel version of the selfie:  looky, looky, I was here, I saw this! Behind every photo and every haiku and every blog is my plea: Make of it what you will. I hope you like it, I hope you validate it, and that might validate my life choices. 

I share these things, because I don't want to examine my life, a la Socrates.  Apparently, I want others to do so for me. Yet, what would I do with this self-knowledge? What do I do?  What should I do? Ah, that "should." Beating myself up is no fun for anyone.  Artificially creating a purpose is counter-productive, oddly unpurposeful.  I revise and combine Holly's dicta:  don't do anything you don't want to do in an effort to live what others might see as a fulfilling life.  In fact, don't try to do something you see as fulfilling.  Just do fulfilling things.

Sounds like a slogan: easier said than done. And rather mediocre.