THURSDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2004
Travel packages for life, note I
1) Settle down or keep roaming?
2) What do you do before you settle down?
FRIDAY, 10 DECEMBER 2004
Travel packages for life, note II
In an earlier note I mentioned that people either settle down or they keep roaming; also that necessary preparations must be made before you can put roots down somewhere, if that is your choice.
I myself spent five years at university and obtained three qualifications – things that normally qualify as good preparation if you had wanted to settle down and establish yourself somewhere.
These preparations were however not enough for me. Of course I did not know ten years or even five years ago what I know now … even though I had this idea if I could only get this or that done I will be ready to settle down somewhat.
What I know now is that “The Personal Agenda of Brand Smit” weighs more in terms of preparation than five years’ worth of so-called professional qualifications did ten years ago.
What I am therefore saying is that I don’t want to keep roaming …
* * *
All I am saying is that a lot of things I had wanted to say, many questions I had wanted to at least formulate, that I had wanted to find answers to if possible, do not have to be said, or formulated, or answered again.
Many things are still being written and will be written in the future. Nothing, however, can take anything away from the fact that a lot has already been said …
Incidentally, the very students to whom I had said a minute ago, Excuse me please, I just want to quickly make a note, just told me in all seriousness that they never talk to themselves. Is this even possible? How can you have a proper Consciousness of Self if you don’t talk to yourself?
SUNDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2004
Travel packages for life, note III
Continue roaming or settle down, right? The image of the Wanderer is often of someone who doesn’t have access to significant financial resources, who does odd jobs here and there for a paltry, irregular income, and who then drifts off once again to look elsewhere for his salvation, or for new excitement.
Now imagine an affluent wanderer.
Also take into account that place, or rather a home, serves a purpose. Besides being where you feel safe, it is where you give aesthetic expression to your uniqueness and your particular experience of reality. What if you do not experience the latter need as intensely anymore? What advantages are there to a nomadic existence?
MONDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2004
Travel packages for life, note IV
Another word for “wanderer” is “drifter”. I don’t like the implications of that – someone going from point A to J to C to P to X to E, not knowing where he’s heading. A better word is “traveller”.
Travel packages for life, note V
17:06
Does a Traveller have a home? Sure. A Drifter does not have a home – it is implied, just as the word “drift” implies aimlessness and lack of direction.
17:20
A Traveller travels from place to place, but the understanding is that he is following a certain direction or that he at least has a final destination in mind – and also that he has a reason why he travels, that he may even have an agenda that he serves or wants to serve.
17:52
So, the question should be: are you are a Drifter/Wanderer/Nomad, a Traveller, or a Settler?
[Or perhaps all three at different times in your life? Circumstances also change. Maybe you start out as a Traveller. Then you decide to settle down. After twenty or thirty years you become a Traveller again, but you end up as nothing more than a Drifter.]
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