The Whale.

June 1st, 2013

May was a month of internal turbulence. There are several stages to long terms trips, and I now recall that these bumps are part of the process. Long solitary trips are equal parts inward journey, and outward process. As one slides deeper into the belly of the whale things accelerate, and the known world gets sealed off. Where are my friends, where is my family, where is a familiar place which I can call home? Going, going, gone! For now.

Indeed, new and unprecedented events in the Universe are about to take place. For the pervious thirty Earth trips around the Sun, a bundle of cells, known collectively as an ‘Andrew Overby’, have always found themselves in the same place during upcoming months. On this lap that bundle of cells will not, for the first time in their history, be in the place they’ve always been. Whatever it is that controls them is going elsewhere. With regard to the Earth, the Sun, and the location of a bundle of cells known collectively as an ‘Andrew Overby’, the Universe is trying out an as yet untested configuration. And people say there’s no such thing as progress.     

So where am I? I’ve returned to Bangkok to make arrangements for shipping the motorcycle to India. I’m looking forward to this change of scenery. It’s getting far too hot here. I plan to spend the summer in Northern India: Ladahk, Kashmir, and Jammu. Hopefully, I’ll be high, dry, and cool; the antithesis of SE Asia in the rainy season. Most of India will be in Monsoon, but I’ve heard that places in the north stay dry enough. I ship the bike to Delhi on Friday. The trip to Leh should take a few weeks and ought to be interesting.  

I was chatting with a fellow traveller yesterday, a French musician whose name I never got. I mentioned that I’d soon be shipping my motorcycle to India.

“India!” He said, with wide eyes. 

“Oh, I love India. I was there once for six months. In the middle of that trip, I’ve never felt so unlike myself. I forgot about guitar, and everything else. I had to keep reminding myself who I was.” He continued, expressing the requisite eccentricity of a proper Frenchman.

That was think kind of news I wanted to hear. Travel has yielded similar sentiments for me as well. I have described the simple act of long term travel as the most transcendent experience of my life. Away from all distractions the long term solitary traveller can gain insight into who and what they truly are. During long journeys, much of what constructs a sense of identity is absent. There are no friends to remind one how to act, no demands to be in a particular place at a particular time, doing particular things. Instruction from culture is largely absent. Automated behavior becomes discretionary behavior, which can be either good or bad depending on how one manages unparalleled freedom.    

The trip has officially swallowed me whole, and is taking me to a new place. What I’ll find, I’m unsure. Into the belly of the beast I go.