Kiwis and Kangaroos

Well this is it, the end of living out of a bag for nearly six months. It would be a kitschly little example of my lameness to detail the exact figures of how far I traveled, how many places I visited, much money I spent, and how many people I met because that sort of objectivity is the surest way to misrepresent the true essence of such a journey. Suffice it to say that I spent enough time on planes, trains, busses, boats, and automobiles to be a poster child for Dramamine. Nor would it be an exaggeration to say that I’ve been to more places in Australia and New Zealand than most of the people who live there. Through the past six months I’ve spent what could have been a down payment on a condo in Greenwood or a house in Appleton and I’ve met hundreds of people I’ll never remember and a few I’ll probably never forget. But none of these were the reason for this trip. No, my reasoning was the purest form of epicurean selfishness…I went for me.

I went because I was sick of sitting in an office staring out the window as my mid-twenties rolled by. I went because my incessant reading had given me a terminal case of wanderlust. I went because I was bored. I went because I had the time and the money. But most of all I went because I just had to know what it was like.

Prior to leaving my previous life experiences had taught me that expectations are often the surest way to ruin anything, so I tried to keep them to a minimum. I can’t possibly remember everything I thought last fall, but I’ll try to cover the major ones. Part of me expected all travelers to be interesting and congenial. This is not the case. Identical to the general populace, you have a decent mix of bigots, bitches, douche-bags, weirdos, and dumb asses along with a fair portion of down-right good people. I figured I would meet numerous other American traveling the Southern Hemisphere. This is also simply not true. The guys in my volunteer program notwithstanding, I can probably count the number of Americans I met on both hands. Apparently we don’t leave our country all that often. I expected the time to go really fast; however, it didn’t, although now I understand why this occurred. I thought that I would enjoy doing nothing, when in fact it nearly drove me nuts. I never thought I would miss having a cell phone, though I secretly did.

If you are reading now and thinking that my trip was a total failure, you couldn’t be more wrong. Many things met or exceeded my expectations. When I was preparing to leave, many people couldn’t believe that I was going to live for half of year on what I could fit in my backpack. I fully expected that it wouldn’t bother me in the least and it hasn’t. In fact I threw away more clothes than I purchased. My bag is now lighter than when I started. I expected to be sick, crabby, and lonely at times. And I was. I also expected to be joyously happy, strangely smitten and quixotically confused. And I was. I expected Australia, New Zealand and Fiji to be incredibly beautifully places. They were that and more. I expected to lose weight and come back with a killer tan. I have. I expected to have a lot of time to think. I had much more than I ever could have imagined. But mostly I expected to learn. Learn about the world, about people, and about myself. It is here that all my expectations were grossly exceeded.

I tried to document some of the superficial and some of the deeper, philosophical things I learned in my daily “What I Learned Todays” at the end of each entry, however, most of the true learning wasn’t accomplished in a day, or a week, or even a month for that matter. The following is a list that is by no means all encompassing of some of the things I learned, and now pray, that I do not forget.

• Be more observant but less judgmental. Recognize differences as neither better nor worse, but simply different.
• Value relationships above all else. Do not take friendships for granted.
• Retain a balance between hard work and idle wonderment. Too much of either is debilitating
• Anything great and worthwhile takes time to grow.
• Real change, at any level, personal or otherwise, is very, very difficult.
• The grass on the other side, though a different shade, is not always “greener”. But sometimes it is, and the only way to truly find out it to jump the fence.
• I need something to work on, something to do, something to expend mental and physical energy on. Idleness kills me.
• Perception is often more important than the actual experience
• Traveling amplifies your moods.
• At any given moment life is 30% to 80% chance. Learn to accept this. Play the odds if you must, but don’t be disappointed when chance falls not in your favor.
• Never underestimate the power of a stare.
• Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. If you don’t know which way your dreams direct you, just go confidently in any direction. Something will work out.
• Everyone is just as confused and neurotic as I am. Well, at least confused.
• The world is a huge place and incredibly small at the same time.
• Accept aging and enjoy it. Reminisce with a smile and not with longing.
• Too much order is boring, too little is schizophrenic. i.e. Random is good in small doses. Relish the uncertainty in your life.
• Damocles and his Sword possess ageless wisdom.
• You’ll never know if you don’t ask.
• Control over our own mind is the only form of control we should ever strive for. This in itself is a Herculean task. Desiring control over anything more is childish at best and despotic at worst.
• The rest of the world loves American culture, America’s founding ideals, and American opportunities, however, our political system, voter apathy, gun control laws, xenophobia, and lack of trains absolutely mystifies them.
• Most people, myself included, want neither to be #1 in a village in the Alps, nor #2 in Rome, but rather would just like to have a dynamic community of good friends.
• Industriousness (in a female) is an incredibly appealing trait.
• Live in the moment.

I fully acknowledge that many of these ‘learnings’ sound a bit Hallmark-ish, but I suppose such is the nature of certain inalienable truths. All of this bullet list, made-for-the-self-help-aisle summarization aside I must proudly proclaim that not all of my experience can, nor should be, encapsulated in cute little maxims and ill-adjusted haikus. Bear with me as I digress into what will likely be a rambling, semi-incoherent stream of consciousness:
“Location, location, location” says the ex-high school quarterback now touting a real estate broker’s license. Translation: No two places are the same, each is unique in its own way. By virtue of the physics of the two dimensional space occupying the face of the earth, this very statement is the epitome of an axiomatic truth. Each of Fiji’s 300 plus islands and each of Australia’s amazing coastal vistas and each of New Zealand’s fjords and mountains are themselves unique and different in a physical sense. As humans we experience all of this variety first through our sensory perception of it and secondly through our memory of it. Basically, though chemical reactions our eight pound ball of soft tissue internalizes everything this wonderful world has to offer. After awhile Fiji’s island become just another island, and Australia’s coastal vistas just another vistas and New Zealand’s…oh, you get the idea. But wait - A caveat: This isn’t to say these places become less enjoyable, they simply begin to run together in your mind, becoming more alike than their inherent uniqueness would warrant. (Note: some places cannot be marginalized as such…Uluru, Milford Sound, the Grand Canyon, etc). Try as we might, this process cannot be avoided. Thus, the physical realities of travel begin as a million special places and wind up being collections of types of places. It is factor analysis on a grand, geographic scale.

People on the other hand are experienced in the opposite taxonomic direction. Everyone we meet begins as simply male or female, then becomes old white female, young Fijian male on down the line. This process happens lightening quick. Traveling teaches you to almost immediately identify nationality based on a vast array of qualities. For example, without even hearing the language being spoken, you can almost guarantee than any group of more than four girls or guys traveling together are British or Irish, especially if they are being abnormally loud and/or complaining about something. German and Dutch girls are likely to be found in pairs and dressed much more conservatively than their Anglo neighbors. A very thin couple found smoking is bound to be French. Canadians, regardless of their number are dressed strange, but not as strange as the Aussie men who are also given away by their haircuts. Surprisingly, I don’t know how to spot an American over here, since I didn’t meet enough of them to develop telling points. I don’t say all of this to demonstrate some preternatural power of perception I’ve developed (believe me, I haven’t) but rather to explain what goes through my mind walking into a hostel bar or at a group introductory meeting. Plus, there are always exceptions to the rule.

However, it is not until you meet and talk to people that they begin to take on a unique dimension. Well most of them at least. (As I expressed earlier, some of them are simply your run of the mill British gap year pisshead or boring, chubby Irish girls, but most aren’t.) I couldn’t possibly summarize all the different people I talked with, but one correlation did seem to underlie it all. The more disgruntled people are about their ‘real life’ back home, the more completely they have thrown themselves into their travel experience. I am not so sure the opposite hold true. Nonetheless, through this observation I came to internalize the second most important realization of my trip: I have a great life back home. Talking to all these people I now know that I’ve done a better job chasing my dreams (as shifting and changing as they may be) and building a solid community of friends than I often give myself credit for. I came to realize that I went on this trip not to run away from a life I didn’t like, but simply to augment what has, so far, been an amazing twenty-seven years on this planet. Likewise, in no way does this eschatological ‘a-ha’ diminish my trip at all. Nor does it mean I will go back to being the same person I was before I left. Quite the opposite, as I feel it can only help me build and change for the better. It has also shown me that I can do this sort of thing again (and probably will), with the knowledge that I can treat it as a learning experience and not an exodus from regular life. It will not leave me content with what I have but it will remind me to cherish my life and ultimately provide me with the impetus to improve upon it with the zeal and endless energy necessary to change.

What then you may be asking is the single most important thing I’ve realized? Here it is: I am what I am. I like the things I do for a reason, a reason that is my own and that is what makes it a powerful reason. We all live in our own realities and I happen to like mine, regardless of the praise and or criticism the world may shower upon it. The same goes for other people’s realities. Once upon a time (not long ago) I thought that the life of a permanent traveler, that dreadlocked guy with a backpack and worn out shoes, to be the ultimate life. After observing these guys and girls in action, I know that it just isn’t for me. I simply cannot sit at a table, rolling my own cigarettes, drinking coffee and talking about past concerts for days on end, trying to squeeze every penny out the money I made working at the hostel’s front desk. I am not condemning this sort of life. Rather, I’ve accepted that, at this point in my life (a life based on my past experiences and social environment), I need something productive to work on…even if it just finishing a good non-fiction book. The world takes all kinds and as much as I try to be a polymath, there is a certain segment that I fit into. Everyone does to some degree. The problem arises when we fail to accept others who don’t fit into our small, minute pigeon hole. This understanding does not mean I’ll never change; in fact it has given me the courage to accept that someday I can be the yeoman farmer living off the land in Nova Scotia, or the condo-living writer in Seattle or the small business owner on the Mexican coast. But only if these life changes come to me through my experience-built realities and not through force.

I am well over 2,000 words and in danger of repeating myself and/or sounding existentially obtuse….so, in sum, it was a wild ride. One that I’ll never forgot. One that will change my life for the better. One that I’ll be able to look back upon with tender merriment. One that I can only hope each of you will get to experience sometime (maybe with me in a few years). And, finally, one that I am glad is over.

written by

exumenius on March 14, 2008 from Los Angeles, United States

from the travel blog: Kiwis and Kangaroos

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Kiwis and Kangaroos

a travel blog by exumenius

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