Freedom, i-dom, me-dom, where’s your we-dom?
Your ego, your freedom, your privilege. Is any of it earned, or even real? But the plight of our brothers and our sisters is real. Let’s focus on that.
All posts tagged: travel
Station Eleven and other books like turquoise blue seas
How do you choose what worlds to get emerged in? I finished a book last week and I’m having a hard time moving on. My book selections are pretty random, but afterward I usually see the beautiful symmetry of adding this particular world to the thousands of worlds I already hold within. A Facebook link led me to a Buzz-whatever like list of books that “contain horror in completely ordinary settings” and I am so down with that. Of Station Eleven: A novel they said, “that moment of genuine terror when the internet goes out forever in this post-apocalyptic world.” For all my talk of wanting to usher in a new evolution of consciousness more aligned with the planet we live on, I’m not really into dystopian, post-apocalyptic books. They are too bleak and lack the beauty I crave in my worlds. I devoured The Hunger Games, and moved on. I’m happy that the movies are somehow better. But it’s not somewhere I want to live. I went into Station Eleven blind and found something …
Angelina
I was 17 when I became infatuated with Angelina Jolie. It was 2001 and Tomb Raider was about to come out. Hollywood, the media, tabloids, everything seemed a little different back then. It wasn’t so immediate around the clock. There was less internet and no social media. An half hour interview with the celebrity you liked still had to be scheduled on MTV and taped on VHS. Magazine clippings actually mattered. And I settled in to watch MTV At the Movies: Tomb Raider, and I met my spiritual soul mate. I did tape it, and I watched it over and over. It wasn’t just how beautiful she was, or the things she got to experience while filming Tomb Raider in Iceland and Cambodia; it was the tone of her voice when she got excited. It was how she talked about love and her husband Billy Bob Thornton. It was that, for some reason or the other, she had managed to carve out a life for herself in which she was absolutely free, and I had …
Your story matters
Who else is feeling like the world just imploded this summer? Gaza, Syria, Iraq, America’s reentry into Iraq, so many refugees, an endless stream of people with nowhere to go… every place is “full” and the money supply is always dwindling as the 0.1% keep stuffing their secret bank accounts with more billions each month. And it’s all there, right in our face on social media. It’s exhausting just to keep up with all the senseless suffering. But then I had this thought. What if social media is eventually going to put a stop to all this? When enough people have had enough and join together in a massive show of civil disobedience of this bullshit system of war and profit over people and peace. Wouldn’t that be something. Soon, everyone under 20 won’t know a world without social media. Soon, it will be impossible to justify war when its true face is in our face every single day. Stories have the power to change the world. One visionary photographer, Brandon Stanton, was recently unemployed …
If the world’s at large why should I remain
I used to travel the world with songs like these on repeat. I think if I have an addiction it is the beginnings of things. I liked drifting from city to city, always just a visitor. I do not put down roots anywhere. There is a tantalizing sadness in not belonging. A sweet ache deep in your stomach knowing that you possess absolute freedom but at a cost not many people is willing to pay. For almost four years I forgot what that feeling was like. I made a beautiful home in a beautiful place with my love. There was no money to travel. I didn’t mind. I was so focused on following The Path. Finish school. Get a job. Make money. Save money. Because money is key, right? I lasted less than two weeks. That sweet ache in the pit of my stomach returned with such a vengeance I couldn’t breathe. The twist being, of course, that now I was too connected. I was no longer a ghost floating above earth. I was a …
10 Steps to a Sustainable Life: Step 4 (Value experiences over material things)
If I could sum up my master’s degree in sustainability in one word it would be “value”. The value of something is subjective and it means the importance we ascribe physical objects, experiences and even metaphysical undertakings such as learning and spirituality. For instance, I value my family more than anything, certainly more than to put a monetary value on it. I am sure you feel the same way about yours and the people in your life. But you don’t value my family as much as you do yours, and vice versa, so the concept of value is intangible and difficult to translate into a meaningful common reality. So we invented money to make it less confusing. The only problem is we took it too far and today anything can be ascribed a monetary value, including our ecosystem and life itself. When the monetary system was invented as we know it today we forgot to put a value on nature because at the time nature – air, water, soil, plants, forests and other natural resources …
The love chronicles (evolution of love)
And I remember when I met him, it was so clear that he was the only one for me. We both knew it, right away. And as the years went on, things got more difficult, we were faced with more challenges. I begged him to stay. Try to remember what we had at the beginning. He was charismatic, magnetic, electric and everybody knew it. When he walked in every woman’s head turned, everyone stood up to talk to him. He was like this hybrid, this mix of a man who couldn’t contain himself. I always got the sense that he became torn between being a good person and missing out on all of the opportunities that life could offer a man as magnificent as him. And in that way I understood him and I loved him. I loved him, I loved him, I loved him. And still love him. I love him. I’m naming this tag ‘The love chronicles’ because, much like Lana Del Rey, most of my writings have centered around love. And I …
Notes from my travels: Los Angeles (2006)
I’ve been wanting to write but then it’s also been the last thing on my mind all summer. I’ve searched for perfectly constructed sentences but I’ve contented myself with finding them in other people’s work. And I did, only they weren’t always written. Sometimes it was a sunset. On certain evenings the sky in California turns pink, not just around the horizon — all of it; cotton candy pink. I’ve been meaning to write about Los Angeles. So I might as well do it now, while my nails are drying. I’ve been alternating between blood red and aubergine for months, several times a week I’ll switch back and forth. Today is purple but when little children in restaurants and shops confront me about it, they insist it is black and their voice commend me for such a bold choice. Some mornings I wake up alone. He’ll be gone already but never without touching my lips with his and, “I love you.” We hardly ever part without those three precious words. I didn’t think I wanted …
Things I love about Hawaii
Sunshine. The perfect balance between sun and rain, making the rain almost always welcome when it comes for a day or two every six-eight weeks. The hardly-ever-below 20 degrees Celsius temperature, even at night. The hardly-ever above 32 degrees Celsius heat. The many fine sandy beaches. The fact there is still possible to find an empty beach if you know where to look. The color of lush rain forest – deep, crisp green! Tropical flowers. All the palm trees, although imported. The fact that, even carefully planted and strategically placed, palm trees always looks natural and lifts the spirit. Most Hawaiians know how lucky they are to call the islands home and do what they can to preserve and protect them. Kona Longboard beer. Fresh seared Ahi. Hono/Turtles, and the fact that they are treasured and protected. Swimming with a turtle is the most amazing form of meditation and you emerge with a new sense of calm of spirit and a desire to protect all marine life. Hawaii’s past. Every time I drive up Pali …
Weekend in Maui
A belated celebration weekend in Maui with my love. There were no end to the things we had saved up to celebrate; our fourth anniversary, my birthday, his end-of-semester, Christmas, Valentines, our engagement, us, love and life! It was the perfect way to close this chapter and I’m ready to embark on the next one now. I can tell because I have a very strong desire to dye my hair back to brown. The blonde me was a knowledge-gathering drifting student in Honolulu. Brunette me means business, in more ways than one. I really want to start a little business of my own because if there is one thing this year has taught me is that a sustainable life means live your values and value how you live. Dozens of job applications later it dawned on me that most jobs advertised are about making already wealthy people wealthier. The best thing I can do for this planet and my happiness is to make my living from an ecologically sustainable source. What a win-win situation! I …
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