you can't escape your own mind

a good friend and i, we discuss escape. escape from what? from the world, from ourselves. everyone else needs to be escaped from a some point in time. and sometimes we realise this all together, all in a rush. it makes you think. what is it, as part of humanity, that prompts us to flee our own kind? what is it within us that disallows us contentment?

from my point of view, i share with her what it is that i've learnt on my travels. the people you meet. the things you learn. sometimes, sitting on a beach under the stars, it all appears so clear. crystal. although i've seen those too, every one was flawed. humans. the most complex creatures on the planet. and we give ouselves so much credit for our own intelligence. yet we can't sort out the one thing that all the so called primitive animals have in their life, the integral thing we lack. happiness.

i tried to escape.. but short of leaving my head behind, i couldn't escape my own humanity. my mind rambles, reads meanings into things, is manically happy, manically sad. and so i move on to a new place each time. sometimes you just have to realise your own limitations. peace is such a beautiful thing. rare, crisp, enlightening. and then humanity crashes down around you again. you can never escape.

but still i try.

the people you meet

so far on my journey, the people i've met have been the one thing keeping me going. they make you laugh, they make you cry. every day is like a week in the normal scheme of things. people come into your life for a few mere days, and have such an effect on you that you feel you'll never be the same again. everything moves in fast forward - its impossible to explain unless you've been here. backpacker land time moves at the rate of a jet plane - the relationships you have here feel like they've been going on forever. its unique. part of me never wants to leave. part of me craves a return to the real world. although sometimes the relationships you make here are infinitely more real than those you make in the real world - and in turn, experiences as intense as this make you realise how facetious that real world is.