In the end, the journey wasn't all that much about traveling.

My soles brought me places, but immersion taught me places, taught me people and lives.

________

as seen on

As months became years and then yesteryears, the initial journey became a nomadic lifestyle.

hurling little answers at the big questions in life

tales from alongside the road, where the journey is not all about traveling

a stream of words and rattling trains of thoughts going just about nowhere 

a selection of very short very true stories

Why let any guidebook, travel blog or superficial advice shrink your leaps of discovery to baby steps in their footprints?

Indeed, marvelous sights adorned the beaten path, but between the guidebook lines, miles astray the planned out route, the beauty didn't vanish. And beyond beauty there was authenticity behind the touristy facades, there were challenging discoveries, unsung heroes and cultural normalities that were ever new, different and captivating.

Stark contrasts paved the road, but conspicuous similarities were underneath it all. Lives and settings differed vastly from one place to another, but the more so within one nation, region or group. There were extroverts and introverts everywhere, clerks and bosses, dreamers and doers, dreaming doers. Our universal differences unite us as one species of monkey merely disguised in a human wardrobe. In the same breath our distinct experiences assemble unique minds, feelings and memories - our very own worlds.

"Are the people living there unhappy with their situation?” I asked upon looking at the huts. "Why? They have a roof and something to eat. It suffices them,” were the kid's exact words.

It's not so much the place itself that becomes special to one or a mere side note to another. It's the individual experience you live or suffer through there, the people you meet, the little coincidences, which ultimately write the narrative.

These kids are poor, but they aren't “pity-poor”; they oughtn’t to be thought of as “aww these poor children”. It doesn’t do their strength and fortitude and grace any justice. It denies them the agency to make the best of a hard lot. They have lives. They play, they laugh. Having less is not a problem in this world. But having fewer opportunities and limited access to resources like education or healthcare, is an injustice considering how easily it all comes to others. Pity doesn’t help these kids. Awareness and action does. There is little merit in most of us being where we are and a false sense of entitlement keeps us from redistributing resources and opportunities in this world more evenly, from the life lottery winners to these kids, the runner ups.

And many strive for a Western lifestyle. All I can tell them is that they seem much happier than the ones who have more possessions, but fewer moments in their lives.

The less money I had, the more interesting my life on the road became. Everybody I met went home, once they ran out of money. When I was broke, I figured there were ways to not go home.