Well before I even start the trip, or state the objectives, I'm having to deal with cold feet.
>
Yes, I'm having second thoughts. Not really second thoughts, more cold feet. It's such a big deal. I keep telling myself it isn't; I can easily afford to come back. But really, it is a big deal. But I know deep down there's nothing to stay for. I have no home here, I don't know anyone, I have no work history. But I do have a plan once I get there. It might all be a long-shot, but it's in a place where the money will generally last longer and that gives me more time to enact that plan, and there is more opportunity generally along the way. I tried to write a dialectic with myself about my doubts, to get it straight in my mind.
Chinese New Year Dialogue
A dialogue between the wise part of myself and the mundane part of myself, concerning getting cold feet about buying the plane ticket for the first leg of my planned trip
wm= wise me
mm= mundane me
wm -- - What’s wrong (this time)?
mm -- - I’m full of doubts, second thoughts about the trip. What if I hate it? I don’t know anyone there, and previously when travelling, I’ve gone a whole year without conversations. What if I’m ill of my bladder can’t take the long trips, or even being in developing cities without any toilet facilities, so I’m basically trapped in a hotel.
What will I do all night, and who will I talk to?
wm -- - Hello? Hello? You’ve been functionally homeless for well over a year in London. Who do you speak to? When was your last real conversation, and I mean -real - one, not some imagined one in your head? When was your last two way conversation that made you feel understood and happy?
mm -- - When I was at the Zen temple at the meditation weekend eight months ago.
wm -- - Right, and there’s a lot more chance that you’ll get out and join something abroad isn’t there?
mm -- - What if my last relative dies while I’m away?
wm -- - But she’d die if you were here, perhaps in front of you, which is even worse.
mm -- - What if I really like it and don’t want to go back?
wm -- - Stay an extra year and study more. By passing exams, there’s more chance that you could stay away legitimately, which has always been your long-term goal anyway.
mm -- - What about the loneliness. Like previous trips where I haven’t spoken to anyone for more than a year ? What if it’s more expensive than I thought and I’m just spending away my inheritance and end up with nothing and starving?
I only have one relative left. What if she dies? How will I cope alone? Where am I going to live in the long-term? How will I belong anywhere?
wm -- - OK. So if you stay here... what will you do?
mm -- - ... study, write...
wm -- - pretty much what you’ll do there?
mm -- - But what about the cost, the flight, insurance
wm -- - You know full well that even with the flight, visa and insurance cost, you’ll spend less there than if you were here. Plus, when you receive the inheritance cheque, all unemployment payments stop...
So where would you rather spend your own money? Here or somewhere nice? Even if you go there and travel from place to place completely alone in the world doing your work, you'd still be doing the same here.
mm -- - What if my and my bladder can’t take the travel - or if I get sick?
wm -- - if the worse comes to the worse, you can fly. Abroad, you’ll have health insurance. here, you’ve been homeless for more than a year and couldn’t even get to see a dentist
Plus, you can see alternative practitioners abroad, which you couldn’t even afford here.
You can use trains almost all of the way - where there’s a long let, limit the distances you travel per day, then take minimal fluid.
What opportunity do you ever have in this country. You remember the dream I sent you don’t you?
Remember, whatever happens, you’ll be spending your own money somewhere. Try and be somewhere challenging, with as much opportunity as possible, with as many goals as possible, casting as much bread on the water as you can. That isn’t here, but there, in Asia.
Just to make things a bit clearer
Planned trip now, and vague intentions from now until 2009
Go to Hong Kong, train to Yangshou. Study, try and volunteer at an NGO, see alternative practitioners for my health and write.
Around May/June, still studying, writing, looking for volunteering opportunities etc. travel to Hanoi, down to a beach, onto Saigon, then over to Phom Pen and Bangkok. Try and ordane in a monastery for a time. If I haven't by then, look for one and try.
From Thailand, submit work to the publishers and start phoning and sending emails to the UK Colleges to try and get on exams.
Around January 08, go to Laos, then China and back to Hong Kong. Submit CV to UK Companies for a job. Return around March, and sit the exams in May/June.
Around May, go to Switzerland and sign papers at Dignatis, to authorize my euthanasia (should I ever need it (after seeing my Mother die in the UK state health service)).
Leave UK around August 2008 for Moscow, TransSiberian to the end of the line. Boat to Korea and Japan, to cure my life-long obsession with being in these countries. Then, depending on what's happened, either go somewhere cheap and study for more exams, accept a paying job, try and work for board and food in Asia at an NGO, aim for undergraduate study, ordane permanently in a monastery or just go with some other opportunity that has come up by then.
OK, it's all very tentative, is easily changed, is fate willing of course. It could even be that I don't make the first hurdle. This is just what I'm planning at the moment.
So, in the shorter term, my objectives for this trip this year, if I can get away are:
Have a long Asian trip. Visit three/four countries I haven't been to before.
Study for and obtain at least two A/AS Levels, four is better.
Volunteer for an NGO and get some work experience.
Try alternative medicine for my health issues.
Try and practice healing on other people in some way, and see if that's a direction I'd like to go in.
Set up the website to offer my publishing expertise in some way.
Ordane in a monastery for a period.
Write, submit and publish the following finished pieces of work to publishers:
A non-fiction spirituality book
An acedemic book about study
A travel book
Try and submit more articles/make more publishing contacts.
