Friday, January 16, 2004

posted by: copernicus on 1/16/2004 04:04:00 PM
Ok, I figured I should say something before I leave the country.
It's off to Akumal, about 1 hour south of Cancun and 1/2 an hour south of Cozumel. It will be a Corona commercial (without the Corona) in about 16 hours. Toes in the sand, local Mexican beer, clear blue water, snorkeling, scuba diving, eating, trying not to exploit the eco-system and napping in hammocks tied to palm trees.
Oh, and reading in those hammocks. I'm bringing 4 books:
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (no it's not what you may think)
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
TSOG - The Thing That Ate the Constitution by Robert Anton Wilson

We leave for the airport at 4 am, we'll be in Mexico in time for lunch, and we get back on the 24th.

Vacations always seem to be a good time to think. Once you get out of your home environment, where all your comforts and securities are, your perception changes. Through the window of this new perception, you can sometimes see things about your life that you may have missed before, or you can see a problem you've been having from a different angle, thereby allowing for new solutions.
I'm kind of typing as I think without refining it, so I may not be making sense.
But it seems to me that when I'm on a road trip or far away from home, I am able to think more clearly about the puzzles we try to solve in everyday life.

Perhaps that is part of why I love to travel.
I hunger for constant change, for new paradigms, for new perceptions.
There was nothing like getting into a car for the first time in downtown Sydney, Australia with the wheel on the right side and people driving on the left, setting your mirrors, taking a breath and pulling out into downtown rush hour traffic with your entire immediate family in the car relying on your neurons to forge the new synaptic bridges required to deal with the wheel on the "wrong" side, people driving on the "wrong" side and all traffic and traffic laws "backwards". That is what's called a "paradigm shift", and I love it when they occur. Of course there really is no "right" or "wrong" side, only "different". A lot of people can't grasp that.

Anyway, it was one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done, and I try to seek out things like that as often as possible. It's good to give your brain a little jolt every now and then. Shake things up a bit. Let it know not to get too comfortable with what is "the way it is", because shit changes folks, and the sooner I learned that in life the better off I was.

There comes a moment in some peoples lives when they realize that their "reality" isn't necessarily "the" reality. In my experience, it usually happens by way of their reality hitting the floor and shattering like porcelain. This is a crucial moment in the development of their soul. Either they pick up the broken pieces, find some glue and begin to rebuild their reality into a new and stronger form, or they sit there and cut themselves on the broken pieces and spend the rest of their lives crying.

Once again, I find myself returning to that Hemmingway quote:
"Life breaks everyone, but those who survive are strong in the broken places."

To my sister Ericka who could use a vacation right now, and my new friend Molly who's a kindred spirit:
I will be drinking, scuba diving, napping in the shade of palm trees and taking it easy just for you.

-love, Jamie-