Tag: travel

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~ The Movement Of Life ~

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~ The Movement of Life ~

“Move. You were born to move. From the very second you entered this earth you were born to move. Before you could talk, you cried; before you could walk, you crawled. Wild and curious, you grew and explored the world around you. First was your home and your school, then it was your street and your neighbourhood – then your city and its fields. As the weeks went by, your world and horizons opened up and everything became bigger as you grew into the universe around you. You dreamt, you learnt, you explored, you wandered – and you moved. Because that was the most important thing; that was what was natural. To move and to grow. But what happens? What happens as you get older?

Your natural curious instinct to move and explore is stifled out of you. You become an adult and are asked to decide on things that ultimately make you static. You’re asked to have a job in a singular building in which to spend your adult life saving to buy a static house that ultimately compounds and cements one’s lack of movement. Your range of movement that once soared week-in, week-out as you grew into your world becomes reduced to the simple repetitive commute to work, the few square metres in the building of the work space and the same old journey to the supermarket and pub at the weekend. Too tired after work, you park yourself down on the sofa to watch a box in front of you every night. Your mental and spiritual world also becomes ever-harder to expand and explore; with time constraints and a grinding exhausting routine, there is no time to write that book, to learn that language or to play that instrument. You are too tired and too busy. So you no longer explore, you no longer wander – and you no longer move.

But it’s not all your natural state of being; a lack of movement in intrinsic to a lack of life after all – no movement consequently suggests no life. If one lets their physical and mental movement decline exponentially then they are left living less and less each day as they descend into old age. And so you have to respond. To live to your fullest and make the most of now, you have to move. Whoever you are, in whatever capacity, in whatever format. Go running before or after work; find time to work on your passion; travel to a new place on the weekend; save up all your money to go on an adventure – an exploration, a journey, a voyage. If you’re young and have no responsibilities to attain to, then travel and live on the other side of the world, in a new culture, a new landscape. If you’re old and encumbered with responsibilities then embrace them – take your kids to new places, try new things in your spare time, seek to learn something new and break bad habits.

    Exercise. Exercise your body, your rights of freedom, your right to explore, grow and be happy. The ability to run, to cycle, to jump or to climb is due to the ownership of the greatest device one can ever own. Your body is the most valuable piece of equipment you will ever have the privilege to operate – a privilege that is fully denied to many others. So make the most of your mobility and feel the power of your existence as you tread the earth’s vibrant soil and run through space and time. Make the most of your mobility and move.

    And keep moving. Don’t let your movement decrease; ever. Stay hungry, stay wild. Your movement is the exercise of your life, your process of being conscious, alive and a part of this universe. It’s what quantifies your existence in this moment right here – right now. Never let your life slow down to the point where you are sitting still and killing time; not while you have the ability to run, fly and soar into the space around you. Just remember that the day all your movement decreases completely and you cease to move and look forward, mentally and physically, will ultimately be the last day of your life. To move is to live. So get up, open your horizons, explore your passions, plan your adventures, keep growing and keep moving. Always.”

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

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~ The Art Of Go ~

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~ The Art of Go ~

“Go. Beyond those desks; beyond those suburbs. Go with a heavy heart and a light backpack. Go to the lands beyond your horizons, beyond your doubts, beyond your cosy little comfort zones. The most extraordinary things will not come knocking on your door; the greatest treasures are not discovered by those dwelling in their caves. This world is a living dream waiting to be explored. Every day it creates heroes, moves mountains and changes people forever. So go and explore. Don’t let the others drag you down. Go beyond them and their fences of fear; go into the lands which you have not yet trampled; go to the places where the lightning strikes as the eyes blaze bright like burning stars.

Just get up now and for god sake Go.”

the art of go

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

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~ Behind The Looking Glass ~

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~ Behind The Looking Glass ~

“Twenty hours later and there I sat alone on that cross-country bus – head pressed against the window, gazing out at the towns and villages, watching the human race go about its existence. I watched the mothers hang clothes on washing lines; I watched the old men sip coffee in roadside cafes; I watched the kids playing football in the dirt. Everybody was there belonging to a place in space and time as I passed by like a transient cloud in the sky. Many people detested those long bus journeys but I found a strange comfort and peace within them. In the temporary situation of being in between places, I had momentarily transcended some boundary of static belonging. I was invisible; a ghost – a voyeuristic stranger on a bus briefly belonging to nowhere – to nothing – to no one. As I continued down the meandering road of my life, it became clear to me why I found comfort in those long journeys on the road. On those journeys I was in my natural state; on those journeys I succumb to my gypsy fate. Holding a ticket to some vague place beyond the horizon, it was my unavoidable destiny to be a stranger on a passing bus, lost in space and time, gazing out the windows of curiosity, doomed to never step off and belong to one particular place or group of people.”

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

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~ In Case Of Emergency ~

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~ In Case of Emergency ~

“It was a backpack; it was just a backpack. But sometimes I felt like it was the best friend I had. It was one thing that had stayed with me on my solitary journey through the wilderness. It was the thing which embodied the freedom my soul desired: to be able to throw a few clothes in and hit the open road of discovery. In the times when I stayed and worked in one place, I kept that backpack within sight at all times. Just seeing that lump of worn and weathered material slumped in the corner after another day of menial work reminded me that it was all worth it; it reminded me that I still had a way to return home to the wild lands of adventure and exploration in which I belonged. I saw it as my ‘break in case of emergency’ tool. No matter how much the bosses choked me, no matter how much the monotony suffocated me – and no matter how much society scolded me – with that backpack there I knew I still had a fighting chance to taste the air of life and freedom once more.”

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

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~ Cast Away ~

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~ Cast Away ~

“I remember the moment clearly my friend. It was on the mountain that day when I saw you were a cast away soul. It was in your eyes – the way you stared into that sunset sky. I’d seen that wistful look before in mirrors of the past. You were homesick for a place you’d never been; homesick a place you’d never known. Like me, you also felt betrayed by the universe that you’d been abandoned on this rock, chained down by gravity, trapped in a cage of slowly decaying flesh and bone. This planet could not offer you the grand adventure you craved. You were a foreign thing: a wayward wanderer of the cosmos, crash-landed and stranded in a world full of things you just didn’t understand. The situation was strange, and what was left to do but stare up into those skies, waiting for something to come and take you home.

Yes my friend, I know. I know that your soul longs to sail up there through the stars and not toil in this mud, but together on this rock we shall live out a blazing adventure that will make the stars above weep with envy. Maybe we will not reach those faraway galaxies, but with a heart full of passion and a mind full of imagination we shall embark on a voyage that will have the gods on the edge of their seats. Our journey through the wilderness will be dangerous and daring. We shall cross rivers of fear and climb mountains of wonder. We will travel into the depths of ourselves and explore the places where few dare to venture. The poachers will come and try to tame our wild hearts, but we shall fight them off at all costs. We will live a life of ferocious intensity, of complete and utter fullness, and when we die we’ll leave this world behind, ready for the next adventure, ready for the next voyage – ready to sail back to that starry ocean of infinity where we truly belong.”

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~ Over The Fence ~

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~ Over The Fence ~

“Life is too short to stay enclosed on the farm of safety for its entirety. At all times one must be ready to jump those fences of normality and run with the wild horses. One must be ready to enter the woods of madness and build tree houses with the elves. One must be ready to leave this world behind with the adventure scarred into their skin and the sunsets seared into their soul.”

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

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~ The Trip Of A Lifetime ~

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~ The Trip of a Lifetime ~

“We are all on a one-way highway towards death. Stop kidding yourself and accept that fact. In every second we are cruising towards a cliff that drops into the abyss of the unknown. There is no way off this road; there is no secret turn-off hidden somewhere to the side. Life is transient and you are going over that edge whether you like it or not. So please stop wasting so much time stressing. Stop spending the entire ride trying to tighten your seat-belt. Some people rush around their whole lives trying to make themselves safe, working and toiling and creating the illusion of permanence, but I promise you that it doesn’t mean a thing in the end. The end of the road is coming whether we like it or not. This is not something to be sad about; this is not something to avoid thinking about – it is something to celebrate. It is the very thing that sets you free. Look outside your window and marvel at your environment. You are a human-being riding a rock around a big ball of fire. You live in a world of mountain peaks and dancing clouds. You are the most intelligent creature in the known universe, living at a time when horizons are easier than ever to conquer. Don’t be afraid to sit back and enjoy the ride. Don’t be afraid to stick your head out the window, screaming like an utter madman with the winds of life soaring against your face. I promise you that when the road finally ends – you will look back and smile. You will look back in complete fulfilment knowing that you were alive, knowing that you were free – knowing that you experienced the trip of a lifetime to the absolute, goddamn full.”

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

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~ Toasting To A Life Well-Lived ~

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~ Toasting To A Life Well-lived ~

“What is terrifying to me is not death, but the thought of facing it unfulfilled and full of regret. I recently started working in a bar which is frequented by old retired men who spend their day drinking alone in silence. Many of these are people who have spent most of their adult life working and saving for retirement, only to find themselves sitting alone, drinking beer and descending toward death in a depressing manner. I can’t help but think to myself – is that what retirement is for some people? Is that what we human-beings get after spending all our lives toiling away in some time-consuming, unfulfilling job? There is one guy in particular who comes in about 10 am every day and drinks until he falls asleep or unconscious in his chair in the corner. Sometimes right before he falls asleep, he stares solemnly into the bottom of his glass and there almost seems to be a silent recognition – a sort of unspoken acknowledgement that he missed the point of life the whole way along.

    Perhaps I’m just another idealistic youth, but to me there is no thought more depressing than the one of never experiencing the wonders of life in our one ticket on the roller-coaster – the thought of missing the music because you were too busy playing life safe and following a tedious script. So many of our homes and buildings are already populated with the ghosts of the lives that were not really lived. Our culture has managed to condition us to a belief that life begins somewhere in the future – right after school, right when you get that promotion, right when you get that shiny car, right when you retire. This toxic philosophy that pervades our culture has already robbed many millions of time that can never be bought back. So, it’s important to realise this sooner rather than later so you don’t allow yourself to also be fooled by the madness. The time you have on this earth is your greatest treasure. You need not spend all your time chasing material wealth and security and retirement. By all means, do that if that’s what you truly want and it makes you happy – but if it doesn’t, then just don’t participate in the insanity that mindless mass society produces. You are a goddamn human-being – you already have the diamonds in your eyes, the gold in your heart, and the wealth in your spirit. Nothing you save up for to buy is more valuable than time. Remember: your life is now. Don’t keep perpetually postponing plans to some mythical future. Don’t allow yourself to become the person who spent their best years toiling away in a job they didn’t like just so they could earn the right to sit around in silence waiting to die. This world is a playground; the present moment is a gift. So, live your life fearless and free. Live a life you can go happily to the grave with. Live your life to the full and make sure those final drinks are toasted to a life well-lived.”

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

 

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~ In Search ~

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 ~ In Search ~

“It doesn’t matter if you die in a ditch or a mansion; both have the same end result. The only that matters – the only thing that ever matters – is what you do with the time you have here. We all grow out of the universe but many a life is denied its full blossoming due to the fear of failure or being different. Too many of us abandon our passions due to the influence of others. Gripped by an urge to fit in amongst the tribe, we instead choose to dwell in the darkness of living a life untrue to ourselves. We settle for the mundane and our homes and buildings become populated with the ghosts of the lives that were not fully lived.

For me it was that haunted darkness which drove me out into the world. Whenever I was on the road, I often witnessed the blossoming of a wilted flower. I looked into people’s eyes and could see people finally shining in the light of an overdue dawn, living life with the kind of inner joy they knew they deserved. The air was filled with electricity and there was a sense that anything was possible. It was in moments like that when you realised the true power of picking up that backpack. It was in those moments when you realised the value of wandering over the horizon. It was in those moments when you stepped back and realised that the real journey – the real adventure – had only just begun.”

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~ Stepping Off The Conveyor Belt ~

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~ Stepping off the Conveyor Belt ~

“Whenever I started a new trip, I always delighted in grabbing my backpack from the airport conveyor belt. It was a standard act everyone went through when you flew to a new place, but I felt like it symbolised so much about what it was to travel. All throughout our lives we are continually placed on conveyor belts; from the mechanical process of education, to the roundabout of the 9-5, to the circular nature of riding back and forth down the same highway everyday – perpetually we rotate around and around in a repetitive and predictable fashion. To travel to a new place with no plans was to finally step off from the carousel of routine; whether for a week or a year, it was a journey away from the robotic process of normal life which required you to do the same things every day. Whenever I looked around at the people collecting their bags, I rarely saw the defeated faces that were found in those Monday morning traffic jams. Instead I saw hyper kids and hyper adults; I saw burning eyes and wide smiles; I saw the wild faces of those who knew a great adventure awaited them. And the more I collected that backpack, the more it became clear to me that we all loved to collect those bags. The reason we love it is because we know a new journey awaits us. The reason we love it is because we know the world is rich with possibility. The reason we love it is because – if only for a short and bittersweet period – we know that we are finally free.”

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