As
I’m sure most of you know, I got laid off a few months ago, back at the end
of August. At the time I thought
it would be a great opportunity to take advantage of not having anything I had to do in order to do more of the
things I wanted to do.
I
thought that I could use the time
spent writing – try to finish another novel, revive the blog, and “get shit
done.” What I didn’t realize,
however, was that by staying at home I was basically shutting myself away from
the very world I wanted to write about.
Now
don’t get me wrong – I love my house (the new one, that is – our old apartment
in Salem was… Well, in Salem), but in staying home to write
I was neglecting the most important part of writing – which is to live a life
worth writing about. I was afraid
to leave the house because my unemployment benefits/insurance, being a finite
amount, were going to dry up eventually, and I didn’t want to spend money that
wasn’t, necessarily, going to be replenished.
That
was a mistake.
Jump
forward to today which started out with a massive depression kicking me in the
teeth. What caused it is
unimportant, as it passed soon enough with the help of a good friend (who also
happens to be a professional counselor), but I spent a little while beating
myself up over a series of “If Only” thoughts. If only X-Y-Z, then where would I be? What would I be doing? I spent too long a time staring at my
computer wondering these things and letting it get the better of me until Jason
called and set my head on straight again, so I was feeling better.
Then
I took up Ruth’s idea of hitting up a movie during the day while she was at
work.
As
a quick aside here, I don’t even want to imagine where I’d be or what I’d be
doing if I didn’t have Ruth. It’s
a cold, dark place without her and I’m fairly certain I’d be languishing in
some self-made hell if I didn’t have her in my life making every day better.
So
Ruth, knowing me so well, let me know that she would not be upset if I went out
and caught a movie during the day sometime, so I went to go see The Secret Life
of Walter Mitty.
It’s
not the book, it’s not a remake of the Danny Kaye movie – it is its own thing
and it was brilliant. The movie
was about an hour of incredible awesomeness, fifteen minutes of kinda crap,
then another 45-minutes of amazing.
Seriously, go see it, I highly recommend it.
Anyway,
I came out of the movie feeling great again and more important than anything
else it reminded me of a simple fact…
The first and best reason to do something or
go somewhere, is that you haven’t yet.
When
I went to Japan back in 2003 I spent the first month there paralyzed by fear
and uncertainty. It’s a very
strange feeling to be somewhere wholly alien to you; where nothing is familiar
and it makes it nearly impossible to find comfort. You don’t know the words you overhear on the street, you
don’t know how to read the signs and advertisements surrounding you, and IM
chats on the computer are a distant second to actual human interaction. I spent quite a lot of money going to
the movies because they were comforting to me – they were something familiar
that I could visit and feel like I’d found a piece of home. There was only one other person I’d
really connected with when I first arrived (another teacher) and he lived
rather far away and I’m not very big on long phone calls, so I was very
isolated.
My
sister, gods bless her, came to visit at one point as she was on her way to
Taiwan or Singapore (I don’t remember where she was headed on that particular
adventure of hers), and it really helped me out. But as a veteran world traveler she helped get my head on
straight and encouraged me to go exploring.
That
right there turned a nightmare trip that I was beginning to think was a huge
mistake into one of the best times of my life.
There’s
a story in a Robert Fulghum book where he talks about the old-time pioneers and
explorers and how, on the first night of any trip they would always camp out
within easy distance of home. This
was done so that if they realized that they’d forgotten something or something
broke or someone got sick early, they could easily get back and get it taken
care of. So it was with this
mindset that I began to explore Japan.
From my front door, I’d turn left and walk a few blocks, check out the
scenery, the landscape, the shops, and then I’d head back. The next day I’d turn right and do the
same. The next day I’d do it again
but maybe take a different route home.
So on and so forth until I could pretty much go anywhere and see or do
anything with no fear of getting lost.
The times I did get lost were
ever better, I found, because the fear and uncertainty was kind of a
thrill. I’d done it enough that I
knew that I could get home eventually if I really needed to, so I might as well
take advantage of the situation and really check things out and find something
new.
As
I’ve gotten older I think I’ve lost some of that. I’ve let the weight of the world push me down in a lot of
ways and put the fear of “things that might be” inside my head which is silly –
if something might happen, then there’s
also a very very good chance it might not
happen, so why worry about it anyway?
Living
here, close to Portland (easily one of my favorite cities on the planet), and
surrounded by every bit of geography I could hope for, there’s literally no
real reason I can think of not to
explore and take advantage of it.
I’m married to the best traveling partner I could ever hope to have; who
is equally adventurous and loves taking trips and quite often keeps me from
rushing headlong into danger (often, but not always), so why the hell shouldn’t I go see the world I live in?
22
days into the year might be a little too late to make a New Year’s Resolution,
but I don’t care (this is my blog,
after all, if you don’t like it go read someone else). I thought long and hard about what to “resolve”
this year and nothing had taken hold – not the usual “eat better” or “lose
weight” or “get in shape” or any of the other self-serving masturbatory
resolutions that so many people swear to themselves, but this one shines bright
in my mind.
Go
more places.
Do
more stuff.
(And take more
pictures – but that’s kind of a side-note to the first two)
So
that’s the plan. For those of you
who are already doing something similar, I thank you for the inspiration and
hope you do even more. For those
of you who aren’t, do it. Try
it. Start small and build up.
We’ve
got one chance on this planet, and we all get the same amount of time here –
you’ve got precisely one lifetime, so
live it.
I’m
gonna go look some stuff up and make some plans for the rest of this week. I’ll let you know how it goes... After all, isn't that what blogs are for? *grin*
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