An Update After 2 Months on the Road: The Dying of Seeking through Traveling

So I’ve been living on the road for two months now, mostly sleeping in my car, but occasionally throwing up my tent when I feel like camping somewhere beautiful,  grabbing a hotel room when we get a snowstorm, or staying with friends along the way. It’s been really nice and it’s amazing how valuable I’m finding social interaction and friendship to be. I’m not sure I’ve valued it more my entire life than now after spending so much time flying solo. Have you ever seen the movie Into the Wild? It’s very much been a source of inspiration as me, with a kid my age, living here in Atlanta, with the similar driving forces, taking off and heading out to travel solo across the country. Anyways, at the end of the movie, there’s a quote where the main character, who earlier in the movie had said that God’s place is all around us so the joy of life doesn’t come principally from human relationships, but at the end of the movie, he changes his stance and says that happiness is only real when shared.

There’s been many changes here, many of them amazing and many of them challenging, but they have all contributed to my growth and expansion.

I’ve got to say that the time I’ve spent with people has been some of the best time I’ve had thus far, even if it’s something as simple as sitting together on a couch without saying anything. Quality time together is very valuable to me, and from the bottom of my heart I am grateful beyond words to everyone I have had a chance to spend time with thus far.

As I started writing this last night, I was actually feeling a bit heartbroken. It feels like my lifelong dreams, my current way of life, and my familiar sense of self are all being crushed right before my eyes. Those things I had been clinging to for years, it’s like I’m being swept right off my feet and there’s nothing left to grab onto. Just a falling into an abyss. Death. Resisting this is incredibly painful and so there’s just a letting go of trying to do anything and allowing what is to be.

Seeking through Traveling

It’s funny.. most every time I tell people about what I’m doing, just taking off to go wherever I want whenever I want and traveling across the country by following my intuition, the typical response is something along the lines of “That’s so cool! You’re living the dream! I wish I could do the same thing!” and yeah it is amazing, but actually going through this process really takes the rose colored glasses off your head. A lot of naiveté about “living a free life” is all smashing down in the face of reality. I had a chance to talk with a friend tonight who’s gone through a similar experience when he spent several months hiking 2,000 miles up the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine and it was nice to be able to relate to someone as they went through the process of watching their romantic notions about taking off on an epic adventure all get swept away too. I suppose you could say it’s part of the maturation process. People always think that this whole experience is amazing and that this is some sort of dream-life, but my experience of it after two months is that it can be fucking HARD at times. It’s truly not what I was expecting. It’s a lot of growth and much of it has been painful. When people suggest that traveling the world must be some sort of ideal dream life, I used to agree. For a while it would make me wince. I used to think so too… For years I did actually. It’s NOT the key to happiness!!!

See, I’ve always loved traveling and I’ve been blessed to have many opportunities to do so over the years. Admittedly, much of my fun travel has stemmed from the idea that “out there” there’s something that I want, whether it’s fun new experiences or whatever. One of my favorite questions to ask people for years has been, “If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do?” Invariably more than 90% of the responses would include “travel.” There’s a saying (I think it was Yogi Berra) that no matter where you go, there you are, and that’s so true! You take yourself with you, your happiness and your pain. You can’t run from your pain or towards your happiness. Try as we may, it just doesn’t work this way.

This desire to “grab happiness” manifests in many ways, whether it’s trying to gain the approval or love of another, control another, be a good person, be successful, make a lot of money, be a good manifester, live the life of your dreams, or whatever it is… how much of our activities come from the idea of trying to “get more happiness,” really, as if it was an emotional thing to be obtained? Intellectually we may know better, but how often do we feel and act that way regardless?

I don’t know what the answer is for you, you have to look for yourself. What I’m finding happening here is that I’m watching lots of the old familiar dreams (the ones based in seeking something outside myself, primarily) be torn away while simultaneously finding that I’m losing the drive to try and resurrect that familiar sense of grasping. (Thank God…)

I thought I was gonna be moving to Boulder, CO, but now it seems that the intuitive push was simply to get me to go out into the world, to make the move, to grow comfortable with not having a home, to make a home in the unknown, to be at home in the here and now, quite literally and even physically. Where I am in any moment, this is my home. Here I am.

There has been much avoidance of simply being in the here and now. The thought of “what’s next” or “how can I make this moment better” can be very tantalizing and a great way to avoid noticing and being present with what is, in this moment.

Going Anywhere from Here

Just had an ‘aha’ while writing this. I can go anywhere from HERE. Everything is HERE.

When my traveling is seeking based, it always ends in a let down. The experience of actually being “out there” is never the same as my dream of out there.

Being HERE, there is the ability to go anywhere without ever leaving HERE. By this I mean the locationless Here, the spaceless and timeless Here. It’s totally okay to travel, but if we fail to recognize the present moment, the world can never be a satisfactory replacement.

We can experience this over and over and keep trying, thinking that the next adventure will be different, but it doesn’t work that way. When there’s a grounding in being Here, there’s a freedom to enjoy wherever you are, whether you’re traveling or not. It seems like when you give up your focus on being in any particular physical location, you find that you’re both always traveling and never traveling. This sounds kinda paradoxical, but it’s kinda like realizing that you’re always in the present moment and the deeper part of you within (not sure how else to word it), which is not based in space and time, never goes anywhere. Simultaneously, there is the recognition that every experience here on planet earth is a trip through space and time. Even if you’re sitting at home in your room, you are traveling.

Traveling without seeking feels very different from traveling with seeking. It’s not the traveling itself that is the issue, but the seeking energy behind it. Traveling with seeking feels like chasing that elusive carrot and thinking you’re enjoying that carrot now when you’re out there. Traveling without seeking, there is no carrot, and it’s realized there need not be one. Being HERE is already sufficient and there need not be a something else to be viewed as a source of happiness.

This seems to be reflected in many areas of my life. Seeking love/joy/happiness/approval/whatever in relationship repeatedly ends poorly. Experiencing relationships without seeking something from people I have less experience with, so that’d be something else to discover. What are human relationships like when you give up that grasping movement that manifests as neediness, clinginess, control, attachment, aversion, conflict, and so on? What’s it like to completely and totally give up needing something from another and yet still fully being present with them and enjoying the experience? Again, let’s find out, without desperately trying to find out.

Moving Right Along

So yeah, where do I go next? What’s next in store for my life? I don’t know. I really don’t. That question doesn’t seem to be the most important thing right now, as it feels good to just BE, and not because I’m making it feel good, but because the seeking energy has dropped. At the same time, I am open to this sense of at-home’ness that is already here now manifesting in physical form as well and finding somewhere dry to live and with rugged landscapes and wonderful people to enjoy. Right now I’m enjoying being at home within, and this is enough. It feels heavenly and divine.

The idea that “traveling must be a dream life” doesn’t even make much sense anymore. Just doesn’t even register. In the dream world, it very well may be. To the soul, or whatever this is, that is very secondary. To dream about that is to miss this. I have no idea what this is, but here it is. Spacious and empty.