Limbo.
That strange and depressing feeling that you get when you feel that you are alive, but are not living. You are just existing in time and space. You’re moving but standing still and going nowhere. You feel like you are not controlling what is happening around you. Something else is controlling you to do things, or even worse, not do things. You feel guilty everyday about not accomplishing as much as you think you should. You compare yourself to others who are doing something with their lives and you envy them. They might not be happy but they are at least doing something. Better to be unhappy doing something than unhappy doing nothing, right? At least by doing something you are exposing yourself to the elements of life that might spark that one idea that could change everything. Just the action of giving your physical body to the world, to other people, and to other experiences seems like a step in the right direction. All these great characters in movies start from somewhere and it isn’t until they have this life big adventure that things in their life start moving
We should blaze this trail!
.Have you ever watched a movie, and wish that you were a character in that world? Sure the characters might live in a dangerous environment but their lives are filled with drive, direction, meaning, and purpose. They are having the adventure of their lives where they learn about themselves and the world, and come back as different people, for better or for worse. I know I have wished to be a character in so many worlds. I wished to be a Samurai after watching “The Last Samurai”. To commit myself to a life of discipline, to master my art and to be at peace with my body, mind and spirit. I wished to be a Pokemon trainer and have adventures with my dragon Pokemon companions. To fly to different places, battle other Pokemon trainers, defeat gym leaders and be the very best (like no one ever was). I wished to be a wizard in the Harry Potter universe, to hone my skills, teach others the ways of magic and be known as a wise wizard. I wished I was the ability to bend earth, water, fire or air like Ang or Korra in the Avatar series. I wished I had the power to teleport anywhere at will like Nightcrawler in X-men, or like Hayden Christensen in “Jumper”. I could be atop Mount Everest in the morning, Okinawa Japan at lunch, and Rio De Janeiro at night.
Want to go to Egypt now? Give me two seconds to get my coat!
The closest I’ve become to being someone else was in the virtual world of Azeroth in the Warcraft Universe. World of Warcraft was the opportunity to be someone else. The opportunity for a fresh start where no one knew who you were, what you looked like, what your age or gender was, what your occupation was, what your education was. None of that mattered. You were your in-game avatar and nothing else mattered. You had the chance to be a brave warrior, a cunning rogue or an intelligent mage to name a few. What you think you lacked in the real world could be personified in the character that you played. If you were not a brave and strong person you would have the opportunity to be one in the game. You even had a story to follow, and an adventure to embark on where you would decide how your adventure unfolded. You would fight great foes in dangerous dungeons with other great warriors being piloted by other real life people around the world. Friendships would develop and you would go on adventures together and have great stories to tell, even if it was in a world of pixels. I think from all of this it, is lack of adventure that it making me so depressed. The lack of the “new”. I don’t know at what point that I stopped wanting to experience new things and stop learning. To just go through life being content and thinking that what I knew was enough to get by and that I had experienced all that life had to offer.
I have never traveled out of my country of birth: Australia. I have spent all 25 years of my life on this island with no interest in travel, at least that is what I have been telling myself. When people talk of travel the first thing that comes to my mind is wondering how much it cost. What does this cost, what does that cost? A person I used to know told me many times that I should just travel, it does not matter where. Because there I will be experiencing things that I would not have otherwise been exposed to and I will most likely see life and myself in a different perspective.
This year I will be travelling for the first time. I will be going to Spain and will be partaking in the pilgrimage known as the El Camino de Santiago. I am in no shape or form religious but I feel a good thirty to forty days of just walking will give me a great opportunity to reflect, meet new people and just have an adventure for the first time in my life. Maybe it might even be better than the ones in the movies that I watch. Who knows? I think it is adventure that I yearn for. I think this is what I need, and I’m going to make it happen.
ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE!
– Sash
Sash Mindflow 