I was studying at a café this morning, and there were some friends chatting at the table behind me. I wasn't really listening to them, but I could here a constant noise from behind my back. When they left I felt a silence, coming from the stop that just held four people. And I thought, how crazy, for ten minutes, we were right next to each other, and now they are completely gone. But I realized that they are not gone, they are still there, still doing something, still in the same body and mind, and with the same life, just not next me. How nice it would be, to leave your own life for a little bit, just like that. Just leave your body with your friends sitting there chatting at a table, and walk away for a minute. Away from your everything that defines you, your name, your appearance, your history, and just exist without all that for a little. If you consider it, life is a very solid thing. Your life has to have an identity, a place, an activity, and even certain papers. When you are with yourself, you are always with your life, and everything that your life was, is, and will be. Even if there is nothing bad, nothing you want to change, wouldn't you want to be able to just wonder off sometimes? Cut off some of those things that define your life?
I think that is why people who travel a lot are so attractive. It's like their life is not so solid, it's more like air, it can bounce around from one place to another. It's like they have less ties, they exist according to where they are. That is also why traveling in general is attractive to people. When you relocate your life, there are some things that you can cut, put a gap in, and start new. But than it just builds up again, the gaps get filled, and you realize it's still that same life.
This is also the reason I felt so good when my purse got stolen in Madrid. For once, I had no phone or phone number, no documents, no money. The only thing I had that said, "this is me" was myself. I felt light, I felt like all those things that tie me to that life are gone. The only thing that existed was the moment, and whatever I was in that moment.
An interesting story, indeed! Thanks for sharing! In your second paragraph you write, "I think that is why people who travel a lot are so attractive. It's like their life is not so solid, it's more like air, it can bounce around from one place to another. It's like they have less ties, they exist according to where they are." Although I've traveled in Europe and parts of North America in the past decade, and I still like traveling, I wouldn't say that a person is more attractive to me because they travel a lot--I did use to think that earlier in my life.
ReplyDeleteWhat I realize from physics is that what you claim as "their life is not so solid", begs the question in my mind as to whether anything at all is solid whatsoever. All particles have a wave nature as well which describe them, so according to some quantum theory articles, I've read, when not observing an object, it can best be described as a wave, whereas when the observation is consciously made, it takes on a particle-like nature. Anyway, I'm not going to get into anymore details about that.
As far as ties, well, we're all tied to each other and to the universe, as we are all part of it, and not separate from it. Education would have you believe that we're all separate, but I don't believe that to be true.
Thanks for your comment Christian. Very interesting, it's true, most of the time I also think that nothing is solid. Just in this instance my pure existence seemed like such an unchangeable unmovable thing.
ReplyDeleteWell put, Sonya :)! That's a powerful, profound feeling that is so full of life, vigor, and vitality. If only we could live like this all the time throughout our lives, or at least, much more often.
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