i got a taste of the world and now i want more
before i left italy for indonesia, i thought i was perfectly content. i cried regularly and thought "the best days of my life are over" and "can life ever be worth living again?", but i thought that was normal
when i say i doubted whether life was worth living, what i mean is that i felt i had experienced the best of all things (the things which people rant and rave about) and (1) i was not that enthused and (2) i didn't know what was left to experience
but nonetheless, i was happy. or i thought i was as happy as one could be, because (1) no one around me seemed any happier than i was (2) no one around me was doing anything which made me think "i want to do that too!" (if anything, i was the one doing the things which evoked this reaction from others) ... it seemed that i was lacking in nothing.
my happiness then consisted of friends, books and simple pleasures (i suppose this sounds rather typical of italy)
- friends - 2 norwegians, a cypruit/italian/greek couple, and a whole hoard of international sailors who were more like acquaintances but who made a familiar and "small-town" impression in the sense that we all knew each other (i must say, this international group was a step up from our life before...i'm learning that i have a taste for novelty and difference)
- books - i was exploring genres and just before leaving italy, i was intrigued by the untapped literary potential of COMEDY FICTION
- simple pleasures - sunshine, yoga, bike ride, chores (all done on bike rides), buying groceries (on bike of course), cooking, eating
but in indonesia, the whole world felt like my friends. everyone was friendly, it didn't matter where we went. in indonesia, i didn't read, because i didn't need to, because there was always something more exciting to do. in indonesia, pleasures were exalted and dramatic (wild monkeys blocking the road and majestic cuttlefish hovering serenely under the sea and playing chess late at night with a native tribe member), albeit "simple" too in a raw and natural way.
now that i am back, i feel so utterly bored.
walking the streets here, i see leather pants and high heeled boots and thick-rimmed black glasses. people hardly smile. the streets are easy to walk on, and the only thing to watch out for is dog poop. (i miss walking on logs and mud in the jungle, where every step was a careful deliberation and where we learned to read where to step -- just walking was fun)
i'm back to the world inside my head, a world of books and audio interviews/podcasts
the world outside myself seems entirely uninteresting.
i'm happy to make my own food again, but i now miss indonesian food and ripe indonesian fruits
i'm reading indonesian literature though, which prolongs my trip considerably. i enjoy the setting of the book i'm reading (island off of east sumatra) and the culture/psychology of the characters
but thinking about the boat work and the sailing season ahead makes me feel as dull as i first felt when i landed in the suburbs after living my whole life in a big city.
sailing has not been fun, with or without indonesia, but even so, i genuinely thought that, at this point, the sailing life was as fun as life could get (i had such disappointing experiences of life in general)
now that i've experienced staying overnight in the jungle, for 3 days at a time, for 5 days at a time, i want more of that kind of nature
i'm bored of beautiful sterile beaches with nothing to look at
i want to trek and see stuff
i want green