thoughts

~ An Original Path ~

~ An Original Path ~

It’s okay wild warrior. You feel different from them because you are different. There’s nothing wrong with you at all. You don’t need to change and there is no reason for you to hide or compromise who you really are. There are as many ways to see reality as there are as many people on the planet. The secret they don’t want you to know is that there is no such thing as ‘normality’. Normality is relative and changes from culture to culture, from country to country – from decade to decade. It is nothing more than an ever-changing, collective hallucination about how life should be lived. Recognise this simple fact and liberate yourself from the masses out there frantically tripping over themselves in the rush to fit into the same mould. Trust in yourself and embrace your alien madness. We all face the same fate at the end of the road anyway, so just go for it: live a life that is true to yourself. Live a life that contributes to the human adventure. Live a life so ferocious and free that even the gods sit on the edge of their seat as they marvel from above.”

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thoughts

~ Into The Wild ~

~ 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

~ An Invisible Prison ~

~ An Invisible Prison ~

“The blocks flew open and suddenly I entered into a race I didn’t even ask to be a part of. My immediate thought was of escape, but everywhere I turned it seemed the coordinators were there to usher me back onto the track of the rat race. I looked and looked for the alternative but it was near impossible to find. The people who called themselves alternative wore hippy clothes and tattoos, but were still tied down with careers and cars and televisions and credit cards. The track was hard to leave and even if you wanted to – the warnings were there. The homeless people on the side of the street. The mental asylums. The prisons. The cemeteries. Abandoning the arena of normality may have sounded grand in my head, but the reality was that it a dangerous and even deadly affair. Many a man or woman has hit the bottom after leaving the state-owned racing track towards death. Such an undertaking was not something one did lightheartedly. But on the other hand, what about the others who found the gold in the wilderness? What about the Kerouacs, the Dylans, the Edmund Hillarys? The wilderness of the world had many dangers, but the static life of the suburbs that awaited me seemed like a death sentence. Anything seemed better than being silently imprisoned in an invisible prison which no one else could see. How could you explain the pain of a prison which many people aspired for? The pain of a prison where the fridge was full but the soul empty? The pain of a prison which came with a shiny automobile, a high credit-rating, and a HD television?”

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

thoughts

~ Out Of Character ~

~ Out of Character ~

“I thought I was walking into the wonderful wilderness of life but suddenly I found myself upon a stage. The spotlight shone down on me and I was forcefully ushered in one direction. I was then given a state-approved script to follow and a character to play. Slightly confused, I looked down at that script, opened it up and read away. As I scanned through the lines I quickly realised I had little to zero interest in it. From what I could see it was a bad play. The plot was stale, the acts monotonous, and the characters one-dimensional. According to their script I was supposed to define my entire existence in the universe by a singular job title. I was supposed to buy things I didn’t need to seek the approval of people I didn’t like. I was supposed to save for a distant retirement while toiling away the best years of my life in some company that saw me as a number on the screen.

I was only young, and I faced pressure from people all around me to join their little stage act, but I decided to toss their script in the bin and walk off the stage. Screw them, I thought, and screw anyone who tells another person the way they have to live their life. I’m not sure why I was spawned on this planet with these strange humans hiding behind masks but it certainly wasn’t to ‘fit in’, pay bills and die. Life is precious and I will not waste it doing things I have no interest in just because it’s culturally expected. I will not allow my imagination and creativity to be slowly murdered by a blinking television screen. I will not sit in traffic jams every week of my life as the fire in my eye slowly fades. No, no, no: I will not allow any of those things to happen because I am here to make my life a beautiful adventure. I am here to help and inspire others to live a life true to themselves. Even if it means an early death, I am here to live a life that fills me with so much wonder and passion and joy that the flowers around my grave blossom with the colours of insanity and freedom.”

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