Category: thoughts

thoughts

~ Home Alone ~

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~ Home Alone ~

“Braving the battleground of normal life was never easy whenever I came back from a long trip. I found I was constantly in conflict with everything around me. Where people wanted a house full of things, I aspired to fit my possessions into a backpack; where people saved up for a new car, I saved up for a plane ticket. Often the alienation from everything was overwhelming. Whenever it all became too much, I retreated into the shelter of my own mind. Sitting there alone I would look out and watch people falling. I watched them falling onto sofas. I watched them falling into careers and fashions. I watched them falling into mortgages, marriages and high-street shopping lines. Everywhere I looked, people fell. It was raining normality and there was nothing I could do.”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ Hunted ~

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~ Hunted ~

“Forget that “you can be anything you want to be” bullshit they told you in school. This society cannot stand true individuality; it cannot stand seeing an empowered individual being happy while living an alternative lifestyle. I know this because I decided to live life my way and not society’s from a young age, and for that I have been hunted relentlessly. They have come after me with their stabbing stares and piercing comments. They have come after me with their nets of fear and hatred – with their weapons of degradation and mockery. Life can be a relentless struggle, but I have learnt how to survive. I have even began to enjoy the thrill of their hunt. I am out on the wild plains and I run with the hunted. I run with the wild horses. I run with the madmen and maniacs – with the artists and adventurers. My hair is messy and my spirit uncombed. I warm myself with the fire in my heart. I feast off the carcass of my own madness. I experience great periods of isolation and solitude, but I will never quit. I will never let them capture or tame me; I will never let them drag me down. I shall run with those wild horses until the setting of the sun.”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ A Natural Medicine ~

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~ A Natural Medicine ~

“Never stop staring up into those starry skies; never stop looking out at those vast oceans. Be wide-eyed to the sheer immensity of it all and let it sweep over you. Yes you are small in comparison, but spend enough time in nature and you will realise that it is not there to intimidate you, but rather to teach you love and humility. In the shadow of the mountain is a temple of inner peace for the soul and spirit. So if life is getting you down a bit then get out into the wild and let the immensity of nature turn hatred into humility, anxiety into laughter, stress into mindfulness, boredom into wonder. Let the wonderland of our natural universe remind you that life is a mystery to be experienced, and not a battle to be won.”

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thoughts

~ Reclaiming Your Heart And Mind ~

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 ~ Reclaiming Your Heart And Mind ~

“From the moment you can understand words, you are enrolled and controlled by a culture that teaches us that we are all marginal and that life is ordinary. But venture outside their control for a short while, and you sober up from the illusions. Life is not a formulaic journey to the grave down a grey highway of bills, television and weekend drinking. There is more. Despite what those men in suits say, there is more. I implore you to have faith in your own individual direct experience. I implore you to step out beyond the comfort zone, follow your bliss and wander into the glorious wilderness of the unknown. You may get messy hair, dirty feet and a broken heart – but on your deathbed you will be able to look back and say the thing that matters most: “I lived my life to the full”.

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ Starved ~

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~ Starved ~

“After another day at work, I came home and faced the man in the mirror. The reflection showed a tired stranger. His face was pale and his eyes timid. I could see the visible effects another week of drudgery had done to me. In an instant I felt the weight of this concrete world pull me down stronger than ever. I wanted out but in a society which left you starving for freedom on every street corner, where else was there to turn? It seemed like either you starved from hunger in the gutter, or you starved from monotony and routine in the offices and suburbs. From where else could you fulfil yourself? From where else could you nourish yourself on the flesh of existence? The bars and clubs offered a temporary escape, but ultimately left you further in the pit the next day. The shops and malls offered momentary material pleasure, but ultimately left you empty and decaying on the inside. If you kept your eyes open then those grey streets told a sad story. A great famine was upon us and you only had to look into the eyes of the commuters on those rush-hour trains to see how bad the situation had gotten – to see that we had become over-civilised and under-fed with the fruits of life. Whatever ‘growing up’ and ‘finding your place’ in this strange society meant, I was certain that I was a galaxy or two away from it.”

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thoughts

~ Into The Wild ~

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~ Into The Wild ~

“The choice between a conventional life and an unconventional life was one we all faced at some point. The period of your life where this happened was mostly in the post-education years. The first part of your life, you don’t have any real agency over – you simply follow the law and go to an institutional education facility for the best part of two decades. But when that was finished you suddenly were given an opportunity to walk whatever path you wanted to. Although there are many vehicles, there are essentially only two roads: A) You start a career and follow a linear and safe path of mortgage, kids and retirement, or B) you go down the rabbit hole and try something different. For me, the only desire I had was to travel and so, two months after my graduation, I caught a one-way flight to South America to begin my journey into wonderland. Over the next few years I continued walking down that path. The way took me to peaks of mountains, to seedy hotel rooms, to erupting volcanoes, to almost dying stranded with a friend in the woods of winter.

While it was thrilling and invigorating, I would be lying if I said at sometimes I wasn’t anxious or worried. Often I reflected on everyone else back home busying away, building their nests and bank accounts while I basically had nothing but a backpack and a worn-out passport. At my lowest point I was on the other side of the world with $50 to my name, sleeping in an airport lounge with no plane to catch. Suddenly I began to question myself; suddenly the homeless people on the sidewalks became society’s warning about where I could end up should I drift too far from the road of normality. Where was I going? What was I doing? Was it all really worth it? Yes, I won’t lie. I won’t lie and say sometimes I wasn’t apprehensive, or concerned, or that I didn’t think about turning around back onto the safe path, but it only took the thought of me slowly dying inside in a life I hated over many years to pick up that backpack and continue walking wide-eyed into the wilderness of the unknown.”

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(taken from my book ‘The Thoughts From The Wild’ available here)

thoughts

~ In The Madhouse ~

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~ In The Madhouse ~

“There I stood on that city sidewalk once again: haunted and disturbed, my mind stained with Monday morning madness as the weight of this concrete world pressed down upon me. All around me the human race persevered on like normal. The traffic jams slowly stuttered by; the shoppers trudged on with their plastic bags; the cranes of doom loomed over me constructing our grey future. The insanity was relentless. We were a species stumbling recklessly toward the future. The rainforests fell as the skyscrapers rose; the rich bought $5000 suits as the homeless begged for money; the sociopaths flourished while the most intelligent sat in therapist offices paying for the right not to go insane. When you opened your eyes and really looked at it you could see something wasn’t quite right; something had gone wrong. In our undying quest for the good life we had become confused, deranged – dangerous. We had lost ourselves to illusions of success and future and wealth. But what good were those things when the air was poisoned? When the streets were littered with the homeless? When the buildings burnt down violently because the development agency skipped on fireproof materials to save money? The chaos of it all tormented me. It left me isolated on streets of thousands. Often I worried about ending up in the madhouse – but then I looked around and realised I was already in it.”

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thoughts

~ The Dance ~

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~ The Dance ~

“On your deathbed you will look back on your life, and the question you will ask yourself before the curtain is drawn will be whether or not you danced a good dance. As the light of this life fades away and you leave the transient vessel of your body, the question you will ask yourself is whether or not you actually lived your one life upon the stage of planet earth. In this world there is no greater tragedy than a life that was stubbornly not lived – than a flower that never bloomed out of the fear of showing its true colours – either to itself or others. Too often we hear of elderly people regretting decisions about working too much and abandoning their passions. Too often it’s too little too late for so many. The question of whether you danced a good dance is the greatest question you will ever answer, and only one that can be truly answered in the last moments of your life. In all of life’s hustle and bustle, did you remember to move? Did you remember to live? Did you remember to dance?”

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thoughts

~ A Sunset Moment ~

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~ A Sunset Moment ~

“At the end of the day I stood looking out at the ocean, watching that ball of fire burn brilliantly as it always did. As its light flowed through my veins, I thought about the trivial things in the world that continually consumed us all. I thought of stress – of anxiety – of worry. I thought of the busy people rushing past me, looking down at their phones while completely missing the sunset. Here we all were: little creatures living in an infinite universe, and yet always we would choose to instead exist within tiny bubbles of thought. We’d worry about the future; we’d worry about the past. We’d worry about what other people were thinking and what they weren’t thinking. We’d worry about worrying too much about worrying too much. In a moment of realisation, I let go of it all. Yes, maybe I didn’t have a plan, or much money, or a way back home – but with my one-way ticket and a trust in the unknown – everything was going to work out. “Hurl yourself into the abyss and discover it’s a feather-bed” one of my favourite philosophers had said. As I watched the sun finally set upon the water, I knew I was going to do exactly that.”

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thoughts

~ Before The Bonfire ~

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~ Before the Bonfire ~

“One day it’s all going to turn to dust. The diamonds will turn to dust; the streets will turn to dust; the cities will turn to dust; your bones will turn to dust. The star that now gives us life will swallow everything whole. Nothing will stay solid; nothing you could possibly build here on earth will last the outgrowing fire of our burning sun. It’s all going to crumble and be incinerated in a great cosmic bonfire which will turn everything into smoke flowing throughout the galaxies of our universe. In fact, most things in your life will turn to dust just a few decades or centuries after you die. Your car will become dust, your clothes will become dust, your jewellery will become dust; you and everyone you ever loved will become dust. If this fact scares you, then it shows that you are perhaps too attached to the idea of a permanent material reality. No matter how much you cling to power and permanence, the cosmic drama of the universe will pay absolutely zero attention to your illusions. So many of us out there ignore the basic fact of transience – that we are mere matter momentarily manifested as living organisms for a brief amount of time. No doubt many of us are not ready to face this harsh fact. But if you ever have a particularly stressful day at work, then you might want to give it a try. You can look at those problems as mere dust. You can look at those hateful faces as mere dust. You can look at those mountains to climb as mere dust. With profound humility and appreciation for temporary conscious existence, suddenly life becomes a momentary dance – fleeting and free flowing. Suddenly life becomes as magical as an early-morning dream. Suddenly life becomes precious and beautiful and wonderful beyond words.”

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