The Ugly Thought

Friday morning

The Ugly Thought... 

"I was speaking with another Berliner recently, she said every time she goes travelling she has grand epiphanies about the direction to steer her life but they don't survive the harshness of life back home and the cycle goes on. It's an ugly thought."

I've seen myself in what she describes many times, and it seems to me like the predisposed path one will go down if there's no strategic attempt at intentional, longer-term change... but I believe we have so much agency over that.
For Berliners specifically, yeah, it's difficult... our beloved Berly is rough, and a lot of its life often coincides with cognitive impairment and altered dopamine levels that never seem to completely regulate, making it especially hard to identify and trust one's intuition... I think the issue when going home is the temptation of known commodities, leading to previous conduct. Going back to one's routine life may seem like pressing play on the golden handcuffs. I don't see it as epiphanies dying, but more as being weighed against the reality of other aspects of life we had forgotten about or taken for granted.
Solo traveling is particularly introspective, and it often comes when most needed - when one is put off from their own life, to cope with inevitable change or grief, to evolve, to grow, in search of amazement, to recognize or reinvent oneself, etc. The thing is, - besides awe of the world - not much more can be developed on a deeper level other than what lies within oneself. Deeply moving, yes, but also cut short when there is no set context where we can build off of those revelations and see them grow. Ah, back at slow things... I swear, how they haunt me. Yet time does astonishing things to prepared land and planted seeds. To me, the point of real transformation is then, if one is resilient enough not to be swallowed by commodity and aged pleasures that have since been deprioritized, and instead put in place the small actions required to remind us of that which awoke us.

Yes - there is so much to see and, oh the places you'll go, but to me, understanding that all of that is within reach for someone like me is sometimes more valuable than the act itself of going. That knowledge expands my choice, enables my decision-making, and lets me give value. The value of a nomadic life is the value of being in awe or of learning, of feeling myself so tiny in the best way, versus the value of going to the bar around the corner with my closest friends on a random Wednesday, or having a vast range of which part of me to disguise myself as through my wardrobe. Or to witness a kid learn to speak and develop their personality, or, for example, the value of privacy, or in my case, of writing to remember what's been learned. In the end, it's agency over the choice of deciding what to do with our time - the most valuable thing we have.

I don't view the hope you speak of as naive, rather an empowering thought: a set of decisions. It's exciting. What would be naive is to think that change is not circumstantial unless used as a vessel, or that no effort is required to create enabling environments for it to be truly woven into ourselves and appear easily over time through our behavior. We just need to remind ourselves of that and train our brain (your journal with five years of daily entries would be amazing for this). What does that awakening actually look like? When and how does it manifest in your persona? How could you trigger that feeling within your daily routine back home? Perhaps that looks like taking the long way home, because although it's less practical, it's prettier. Or purchasing a strange vegetable at the supermarket because you have no idea how to cook it. Or sleeping on the other side of the bed just because you can. Or choosing a certain form of communication because of the habits it makes you have for yourself.

To me, it’s not so much about imagining how to steer the ship, but about ensuring the ship itself can withstand the act of steering. That takes time. Only then can the ship be steered - and more importantly, remain on its course. Knowing that you can steer your ship, and sustain its direction, generates a deep sense of authorship. And for those decisions to endure, they must not only be carefully weighed within the context of one's life, but reinforced through the behavioral habits we build for ourselves.

That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with going home and sitting back and allowing that feeling to stay for however long it would like. Actually, I think that's what happens after most trips, in particular when we're content with where/how we live. Most adventures are pure leisure and intended for enjoyment rather than introspection. Different trip, same fun. I just mean that keeping the alteration you speak of - I think it can be done. It's a matter of where we place ourselves, our time, our attention. But then again, perhaps it is me who is naive.