30032012

Excitement over a Chinese steam pot – my last day in New Zealand.

Seddon-Blenheim-Christchurch-Auckland

We had a pawpaw for breakfast this morning, accompanied by the static hum of the refridgerators in the lifeless hostel kitchen. Maria told me that back home she had been dreaming about eating exotic fruits for breakfast in New Zealand – pawpaws, passion fruit, melons. ”I guess this was a dream-come-true then”, I replied jokingly, only to realize something about dreams, the ones that never came true.

It's about time I lay down some sour facts on realizing dreams. This coming from an everlonging dreamer - the boy whom mother found reading the same old adventure books cover to cover again, and who never heard anything from his surroundings when he was in that world - it may sound like breaking cubicles of ice in your mouth. The gnawing tension between your teeth and the salivated ice in your mouth about to be burst into splinters that never hurt.

Dreams are not meant to become true. No. The only thing that comes true is reality, the only harsh book written on life. Traveling around the world has always been my dream. The reality – teeth biting knuckles, a bitter tear shed for no reason – was not quite as I would have expected. Reality is people sitting on the streets because they have nothing better to do, cars with no destination, grey buildings with no sentiment.

Dreams are not meant to be broken, though. Chase them, engulf them, live them. Just never make the dream your reality - the most atrocious thing will happen: you will have to open your blue eyes. Keep your dreams as dreams, float through them.

Our hostel is situated in an Asian part of Auckland, the Karangahape Road. The pawpaw we enjoyed for breakfast was found in a Chinese grocery store, hidden from public eyes. Amidst the eccentric smell of spices, lines of rice, corridors of cans, we found a selection of wooden Chinese steaming pots. I smiled at the efforts of these Chinese people who try bring their culture, their lives, their dreams into a Jerusalem in New Zealand.

Dreams are meant to be smiles,

and I have been smiling for the most of time in New Zealand.

25032012

In bliss dream.


The Millenium Art Gallery is a large block of concrete with gigantic glass doors, posh people with post-modern pieces of clothing colliding into themselves in a slight white wine intoxication, and petités entrées to be served on the doorstep. In other words, The Millenium Art Gallery is a normal art gallery.


The grand opening of the National Creative Fibres was on Friday evening and as I entered the gallery, made my way through the masses of middle-aged women pretending to know (care?) about art, I found myself face to face with a statue of a face. The statue was made of a fibre, which remained unknown to me, and was sleeping in an ever-lasting dream; eyes closed, mouth resting on the lips as if they were Japanese matresses. I was caught in a staring competition with the statue and held my eyes against his, unblinking, for a ten-second too long, and was frightened in an usual way. A mental image, that the statue would suddenly open its eyes, occurred.

I have had lately dreams about being of the verge dying. I have been chased by the most curious characters and their only purpose in the dream has been to end my days. Today we sat down with Maria (whom I nowadays consider my sensible side) and discussed the possible meaning of those dreams. Death in dreams usually signifies a change, a new beginning, which in fact, is about to happen in my life. The chase has been me getting away from something, which I don't know what it is.

The unconscious mind performs tricks that amaze me.

In bliss dream.

21032012

10 days and not counting.

Homecoming doesn't seem too close but there's a special feeling lingering in the morning air each time I open my eyes for a new dawn. The thoughts about the troubles of everyday life can't quite enforce themselves into my thought stream yet, nor are there any troubles left here at the other edge of the world to pester my mood. My life at the moment feels like a purposeful shade of grey, in the colorless masses amidst the walls of black and white. The grey is there for the purpose of creating a base for a beam of luminiscent light. A light that I, myself have created by successfully (is there success in traveling?) voyaging to the current end of my world.

I can't help but to reflect on the events of this journey at this stage when I have lot standing behind my back, and still a lot facing me ahead. I know that the words that have been filtered into this blog are a cosmetic touch on the powdery face of this incident of travel - underneath, a rugged countenance of hardship and struggle, illuminated by a natural smile. I just haven't felt comfortable about releasing thoughts and happenings in my life that would harm my self-esteem, which is fragile enough when you're traveling abroad. These events I hold within for myself and a few important others to cherish with.

Days into hours, hours into minutes, minutes into a lifetime. You can count your days til their end but coming home is not measured in days. Coming home is the moment when you realize that you have been away.

I've been away and am quite ready to come home now.

17032012

Closing circles because that's what life is.

Kaikoura-Seddon

The circle of life is not a very broad concept in my opinion. I'd rather think of life as a never-ending paper chain of circles, the kind of chain where every third loop is red, white and blue. You're constantly keeping your hands busy connecting pieces of paper into loops, and connecting the loops into each other. Sometimes a loop in the chain breaks up (after all, it is just paper) and you have to go back and fix the damage as well as you can. Sometimes the chain just holds together so well - like it would have a mind of its own, telling itself to stay in one piece - and seems like using the stenchy glue was a waste of time in the first place. Yes, that's more like what life is: a red, white and blue paper chain.

I am back in Seddon, the place from where I started my journey on South Island two months ago. Looking back on the things I've done, the emotions I've gone through and the people I've met, I think I can safely say that I am richer now. Richer in mind that is - as for my wallet, I cannot say the same. People say that you learn important lessons from traveling, and all the hardships that come with it, such as 'never give up', 'every cloud has a silver lining', 'strength of mind will triumph', etc. It's always about not giving up, not letting go, being yourself, or something else as grand as that.

In all honesty, I have to say that the most important lesson I've learned within the past two months has been: 'Don't let yourself be bored.' And I think that's a reasonably good lesson, mind you. Boredom is the nasty old man in the corner of a street, wearing raggy clothes and begging you for your time and money. You, of course, do your best to walk past as fast as possible, but boredom, the mischievious little thing, will try to trip you over with his cane every time you try trodding past him. That's what I've learned to avoid, the cane of boredom.

Now, before I go on blabbering more about old men and canes, I will come back to the initial idea of text - circles. The people living in a circle of life are bound to two things, birth and death, the beginning and the end of the circle, and everything else in between is null, boredom. The people living in a colorful chain of circles are bound to only one thing, which is hanging up the chain on to the ceiling to make your life festive. Keep yourself busy connecting the circles of your life together and boredom won't have a go at you.

15032012

Shredding my last coherent thoughts into expressions of love.

When with sullen eyes you look upon a person and a glimmering light still sparks up inside your irises, you become aware that you have fallen hopelessly in love. No matter how hard your eyes are trying to close the lids of their sleeping capsules, they still force their shutters open to have a final glance at her smile. The radiant smile, which is more than a good deed every day, is what my world revolves around.

In three days it will have been a half of a fully lived year with my head in the clouds, like a red balloon floating aimlessly through the silky surface of the sky above. It's as if I haven't even noticed the time fly past me at some points. I blame her for distracting me. How do you distract a balloon in serene mid-air, on its way to innocent happiness?

I hope that the balloon, the boy with dreams too big, jumping in a castle of clouds, will be distracted by the same, enthrallingly magical smile for more whole-heartedly lived years to come.

Sincerely.

06032012

Planting hooks and unfinished books.

Allanton-Dunedin-Omaru-Lake Tekapo

Time has a constant, non-changing speed with which it moves forward, taking no notice of others. Independently it flows through every particle in this universe. No matter whether you have your watch with you, no matter whether you're eagerly waiting for something, or someone, no matter whether you're focused on something, time will still move at the same speed. However, there is a way to cheat time.

If every week is a countdown to something you're waiting for, the wait will be rewarding everytime. This, in turn, means that the week will be rewarding everytime. If you plant something at the end of each week, something to look forward to, and start counting your days, your nights, towards it, you will eventually notice that your time goes by quite swiftly. Expand this idea and plant these time hooks on a wider space of time. Every period of time will become rewarding eventually and at some point you notice: 'Where has all the time gone?'

The emerald colored waters of Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki told me that this tale, this part of my life, is coming to an end. I am picking up the last hooks up from the turned-over soil. Time has gone past me in an instant that was two months. An ending tale doesn't mean an ending book. Mine is still unfinished and my hooks have been planted way ahead, making my life rewarding.

04032012

Like dog, like owner.

The man calls himself a farmer. Another farmer told me over a beer that farmers in general, they drink way too much. Our farmer, he left yesterday for a party and we haven't seen him since. I'm quite certain that he will appear out of nowhere tomorrow, sobered up – at least mostly – and will wear the same, hospitable smile on his face and begin his week from a Tuesday. Mondays are for staring into the cracks in the walls the bathroom and wondering where all the years went, vanished.

The farmer has two dogs. A black, vital female and a light brown, old male. They have barely any shelter, and nothing to shield them from the winter that's already blowing its first breath onto the land. We've been warming up the house of the farmer for a full day and it's still cold. The wind seems to find its way through the walls that are nothing more than a grid fence. But what the farmer offers the dogs for accommodation is worse.

The farmer and the dogs seem alike. Both have seen their best years by far and both have the same look in their eyes. Ever hopeful, never resentful. Both have lost a great portion of their selves. The farmer has probably lost more.

It makes me sad in a way, to see people becoming cadavers with lively smiles. The only thing that they can still cling onto is the bottle, and the bottle doesn't love you back.

29012012

A merchant's face.

The Stop is what the locals called it. I never understood why someone would label a booth with such a name. The Nelson market has always been a busy place with tens of various entrepreneurs trying to commerce, smiling, hollering, chit-chatting, laughing, answering bargains. Throughout the whole Saturday morning there was never room for stops. The whole marketplace was a single, living organism until the Cathedral's clock slammed its iron pointers on one. That's when everything stopped.

I don't think the name of The Stop came from the halt of the market. I never asked anyone what they thought of it but I'm quite convinced that it came from the booth's merchant's face. A single, living organish on top of another. A face living its own life on top of a swinging body.

The merchant of The Stop sold bread - any kind of bread you could imagine, that is. White bread rolls, ciabatta, sour dark rye bread, wheat bread, bread on a stick, buns, flat bread, toast, bread with sesame seeds, bread without sesame seeds. To be honest, there was that nothing special about the bread. You could walk over to the local grocery store just next door and buy bread that would be just as fresh and just as good. But the way he sold the bread, I think that's what caught the busy, little customer bees into his daisy of a booth.

One morning I left for town quite early to acquire the best possible seat: the park bench directly in front of The Stop. You could watch the business of the booth with both eyes open and you wouldn't seem like a spy with only mischief in mind. I took my seat on the bench right before the merchant opened his booth and started his dance of commerce, the coreography of sales.

The merchant's face was never expressionless. When a potential customer arrived at the booth his face would light up in a thousand smiles, he would lean slightly towards the customer suggesting a closer look into his selection. The customer would always look at him, questioningly: "How d'you s'pose I look at yo bread if yo head is all ova the table?" At this crucial moment, in which no words were exhanged, the merchant would withdraw, take a little step backwards, cross his arms over his coat-covered chest and change his face into a stern expression of a waiting man. The customer would look at him quickly and glance right back into the sea of bread, hesitate, and eventually point a loaf of something wheaty. At this, the merchant would smile and crack a joke, which was always as funny as it had been for the first time.

That is when I learned that accomplishments are made by smiling. Sitting on that park bench that felt older than my country, I learned that the simple gesture of a smile is what this world revolves around.

26012012

Zen and the art of wood carving.

A task, in which I am fully concentrated on, is something I find very meditative. At some point I lose track of time, then track of thoughts, track of my surroundings even.

Imagine:

A man sitting with his legs crossed on a flat piece of wood under a shadow cast into the ground by a small tree. There are twelve medium-sized sticks by his side, a handaxe and a blunt kitchen knife whose days of glory are but long gone. The man's aim is to carve a sharp end to one end of each stick, to drive them successfully into the ground for a gardening fence. He sits down, grabs the axe where the blade resembles a Neanderthal-like rock rather than a stainless steel edge of a tool. The task seems impossible but he decides to put all of his mind into it -  a strange dedication for a simple purpose. He starts chopping small pieces off from the end of a stick, leaning the piece of wood against a red brick, with the axe. The progress is slow and sometimes he has to use the knife to smoothen the surface of the stick. Little by little the stick starts to obey the axe and its master, and changes warily its form into a spearlike object.

When sharpening his fourth stick, the man notices that it is, in fact, the fourth stick already. Time doesn't seem relevant and he can't remember any of his thoughts for the past fifteen (twenty?) minutes. His right hand aches from all the work but little did he notice the pain when his hand was flinging the axe. Only when he stopped and lost his concentration, did he notice that he has been using muscles for the job, not only his mind.

The man feels relaxed, and somehow satisfied. In front of him, four wooden sticks with sharp ends. Not a breakthrough in any science, not a victory in any war, but a thorough feeling of wellbeing and peace of mind.

Try:

A simple task, which takes some effort, requires some concentration and doesn't wear you out too much. Do it for a while with a small goal, some form of achievement to be reached, and notice how much more you feel yourself enjoying your feelings.

12012012

A coherent summarization on my current views on the matter of life and death, which is subject to change.

There are not too many people whom I have met that have had their thoughts together on the subject of being born, living and dying. After brief discussions the conversation always tends to run into a brick wall with a totalitarian comment on religion and its views on life after death. This is a shame, in my opinion, because I find it intriguing to propose ideas on the matter without the presence of religion. I guess that even if a person is not religious, they still try to explain things they don't know about with religion - in this case, denying the conversation using religion.

However, as of lately, I have decided to abandon the religous mindset for once and deal with the subject of life and death from a perspective that is new to me. Samuel Butler suggests in his novel, The Way Of All Flesh, a cycle of life that begins before our birth. The ouroborus begins from the time when you are an embryo, waiting to be born - waiting for your current life to end - and comparing the wait of being born to the one of an old person who is, in turn, waiting for death of another kind. Butler doesn't verbally implement the thought into his novel but one can easily conclude his suggestion that the same rebirth would apply to the time after death. A cycle of being born and dying, a snake eating its tail, perpetual motion in a larger scale.

The same thought is applied in another context in modern literature as well, where a wise man in a grey cloak states: “No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take."

If I were to return to a religious mindset now I would mention the concept of Heaven and afterlife. For me, this has always been quite the opposite to what most religions suggest, except for, ironically as I'm a Christian, Buddhism, which says that we should not fear death for there will be rebirth. Life will continue in one of the six Buddhist realms - all of which seem quite logical, even if science is taken into account here, though I think science plays a very small role of relevance here.

In conclusion, I think life consists of cycles. An action in now will meet us again in the tomorrow. The cycles vary of size and length and our life is just one them, ending in the matter that we call death, beginning from the end of another cycle - our time as an embryo.

As a sidenote: when alone, let your thought stream develop a wave further than you would normally let it - who knows what will flood out.

26122011

Our lives beautifully entwined together.

Coincidences, the cherished moments leaving you surprised, make life such a rich journey to travel. Sometimes when the afternoon sun is bright and my day is full of nothing I start thinking about the lucky accidents in my life. The places I've been taken to, the people that have stepped onto my route, the words I've had the chance of reading - unexpected everyone of  them. Those are the times you remember.

When you coincidentally meet someone special you have to take the matters in your own hands. Coincidence, luck, won't help you any further. Yesterday I realized that I have been lying to myself about the reason why I'm travelling. I've been telling myself that there is none. That's a blatant lie - and I've been stupid enough to believe. There is a reason for my travelling and it's closely connected to what coincidence can and cannot do.

We are setting on foot tomorrow after - what I call - a trial period for travellers. Two months spent stuck inside four walls, in a small village by the sea shore. Work, everyday life, unpleasant incidents. The hardships we've faced in the last few months of staying put have easily been greater than during travelling. But now it all seems to have lifted up, off our backs, and we've grown the wings of a free eagle again. I don't think I have felt this good about travelling since the days right before our journey.

This positive feeling for travelling was relinquished by the simple realization that there is a reason why I'm here. My life is beautiful and even though setting out on my travels has felt like a mistake, it was no coincidence.

20122011

Share the experience.

The best thing about travelling is sharing your stories and experiences with a person who has been travelling the same places as you but in a different way, through a different route. Finding your common paths, discussing the differences. It makes you smile, the way you discover the common ground between your travels.

I have found it hard to update my blog during this stalemate part of my travels. When you're just working and have nothing to share, writing about travelling feels pretentious. Our travelling will continue on the 27th of December. I have a feeling that this will be the best part of our travels so far. So many sights to see and things to experience. Trekking, caving, rafting, floating. And I think that for the first time we can honestly and wholeheartedly enjoy the travelling.

Live your ordinary days as ordinary, and your travelling becomes extraordinary - worthy of sharing.

15122011

...And the sea turned into a desert.

The 5th day of rain:

The pain in my shoulders was uncomfortable, to say the least. Having slept rolling from one side to another, trying to avoid the pain on each shoulder, I wasn't really able to say that the night had consisted of a good night's sleep. But as the rain was beating the panels of our dormirtory windows with its watery drumsticks I forgot all about the pain. When was the last time you awoke into the sound of the rain accompanied by the steady bass of waves? It's been a while, hasn't it?

Days off from work are salients of grass into the gray wastelands. Sleeping in, eating breakfast with time available for casual conversations about tropical fruits, resting your mind. I'm already counting the days of work I have left. (seven) But they seem to grow slower the harder the number of them is carved into my mind. Time of the waiting man crawls the slowest - my time seems to have taken a day off as well as it's not moving at all.

I suppose the constant rain should have an effect on my mood but I don't think it does. Everything's damp, clothes won't dry outside, your hair goes flat every time you step outside. But it doesn't really bother me at all. In fact, it feels quite good.

I am looking at the horizon now. It has the colors of sand, a blended mixture of light brown and yellow. The sea that shone in emerald shades of light just a week ago looks like a portion of Sahara. The waves are its dunes, the surface lifeless. I have never seen a brown sea.

09122011

Turn // Fold

When you sit down at the poker table of life you always start out with a 2 and a 7 in your hand. Life never deals good cards whether you like it or not. You can be born with a platinum MasterCard in your mouth but your cards are most likely as good as the cards of the kid from Cameroun sitting next to you with worms inside his round belly. Half of the time the people with too much silver on their plates end up eating it all, wasting their chance of winning by grumbling with a stomach ache. The five cards, unfolded, at the center of the carpet-green table can be anything you hope for but not anything you want. After all, only life has the ability to grant surprises.

Some people think that life, the dealer itself, is bluffing with a wide grin on its face. These people live inside a movie, conspiring and turning every event in the world into a conspiracy. They have no truth in their lives, no honesty. To them every passer-by, every man sitting at the table, is a cheater - and a lousy one at that. They are, after all, always more intelligent than the others.

Others are bluffing endlessly because for them, what is life anyways but a game? They have no use for a truth in their lives because living amidst lies is a web from which there is no escape. A spider spinning itself into a white, webby cocoon.

For some, life grins at - not greedily, not symphatetically either. Life knows that those people will end up taking bluffs from the constant liers and getting into arguments with the conspiracy-theorists. What life also knows is that through these hardships these people will end up taking the red chips to the counter at the end of the night.

Who are the most experienced players of the three groups? The ones with the intellect to outsmart, the ones with the cunning to outplay, or the ones with the wisdom outlast?

Life is not a game, he's the dealer. And everyone knows that the casino always takes it all.

06122011

Brothers, my dear brothers.

During the two months I've been travelling I've gotten to know people who lie about their country of origin. This is something my ears cannot process all the way down to my brains and the thought gets lost somewhere in between. The people telling these lies cannot stand the thought of someone knowing where they come from, the stereotypes attached, the images created. Germans being afraid of being labeled for the actions of their forefathers, Canadians afraid of being just secondary woodsmen. They don't want to stand up for their home. I despise that. Detest, even.

I was never raised to worship my home country. I am not a patriot. Throughout my childhood, my youth, I have learned to respect my ancestry, my origin, through stories told by my father, my dear aunt who is on the verge of becoming old and the people of old who always have stories to tell, and books. There is so much pain in those stories. There is struggle, clenched fists, grinding teeth, words sworn for the ungodliest beings. But there is good, too. As there is in every story worthy of telling.

Today I shed a tear for my home. It was not homesickness, though. It was a tear out of sheer respect, proudness for the country I have had the right to live in. I don't know how many people in the world can shed a tear for the same reason but I doubt they form a majority.

Men with grave faces, eyes dropped down gazing the ground as if it were the horizon. Black coats and the frozen wind blowing strands of t heir grey hair into the winter air. Two of them smoke and the third one looks solemn. Not solemn for being alone, but solemn for being Finnish.

When I feel like being alone, I am. That's something I've noticed that no other nationality is able to do. I can last silence longer than all of them combined. I feel somehow rougher than them. The feeling that you've seen more winters than they have. It makes me feel proud. 

No matter how far from home you take me, you're not able to take Finland out of me.

Aika velikultia.

03122011

Clearing the air.

Imagine yourself sitting with your legs crossed in the center of a square-shaped room where the four walls are of different colors. 

The wall behind your back is a soft, somber red. The kind of red that shades the apron of your mother, colors the Christmas decorations in your childhood home, depicts the blanket over your own bed. The wall standing at your left hand side is light blue, clear as the afternoon sky. The kind of light blue that makes your adventures look bright no matter where they end, the kind that makes you want to explore the most remote locations on the Earth and beyond. The wall on your right is of a chestnut brown. The brown that makes up your casual days, or everyday life - the kitchen table, the rims of the mirror after your morning shower, the bread on which you feed on - that you always want to get rid of but never really get around to it. The wall in front of your eyes is pencil gray. It's holding the other walls together, they all lean on it. It's the color of casual days gone wrong. Arguments, sleepless nights, red eyes, dry mouths.


The wall in front of you collapses on you. The others follow.

People don't usually realize that travelling, being abroad, is not always as fun as the pictures you post let them imagine it to be. I know plenty of people who have spent years abroad and every single one of them has told me what a great experience it was. All of them forgot to mention the tedious everyday life part of it.

I had a really rough week, to be honest. It started with an allergic cold, hay fever. It created an aura of tiredness within two days and built it up with sleepless nights. Moments of staring blankly into the top bunk from my bottom one, of closing your eyes and trying to dream, of dreaming images where your friend screws your eye lids out and leaves you on your knees with blood running down from your face. The sleepless nights resorted into exhaustion. I fell asleep around midday just because I couldn't lift my body up. And the sleep wasn't refreshing. It was suffocating me using a white pillow with drool marks all over it.

The culmination point of the exhaustion, anger and tiredness was a confrontation with my supervisor at work. She overreacted, was displeased - maybe tired herself as well - at our work efforts and gave us (me) a speech I would not forget for a while. It wasn't the first time I have had to confront a supervisor. It's never pleasant but I stood up for my words, kept my emotions aside and was reasonable. To which she reacted by lighting up a cigarette with a hand that held more tattoos than there are books on my shelf and telling me that these kind of situations do not bother her. That she doesn't care. I came closer than an inch to quitting the job on the same day.

The very same supervisor pulled me aside on that day and apologized. I was surprised to say the least. We had an actual conversation where the opinions of both sides mattered, had a laugh, shook hands and were 'bros' again. I left work with a grin on my face that even Maria, who has seen all of my grins, found to be not my everyday grin.

We walked back home with me telling the story about the confrontation. Sat down, had a coffee and organized our lives.

All I needed was a clearing into the dark clouds. Sometimes you have to let out the steam inside your head with a whistle that comes from a boiling tea pot. Keeping the steam inside will eventually end up in lifting the lid of the pot off its place, metal clattering against the stone floor and water running down on all sides. Where there's smoke, there's fire. Where there's steam, there's water. Release the steam and you won't have a fire.

I lifted the gray wall up. The others followed. I stand with the chestnut brown wall in front of my eyes, taking short glimpses at the light blue.

29112011

Crushed under the weight of an enourmous pile of dung.

What does it take to break me?

Three badly slept nights, an everlasting hay fever that makes my eyes feel like they might ignite any given time, endless e-mail conversations (wars) with various travel agencies and airline companies to set things right with our return home, having to organize my return home seeing as how I thought it was all set and getting a frustrated comment from my supervisor about backing off from some work I had done (yes, I have found a culture where effectiveness is frowned upon and laziness is appreciated).

That didn't break me, though. That just made me extremely tired, fed up and angry.

I just took a nap for the first time in ages. That was not a healthy sign in my opinion because I am not a person who likes to or is used to taking naps. Taking that single nap made me feel like I gave up.

I had a dream about walking in a department store-like surf shop with brand clothing ranging from Billabong to Volcom. All these young people with their sleeveless beach shirts and colorful shorts were strolling about, all very muscular and tanned. They either nodded at me or smiled at me - a fake smile everytime - like they cared. Some were carrying their surf boards with them but the boards were too small for surfing. I tried to find my way out or I tried to find myself some proper clothing. I found neither and I felt desperate, and lost. I circled around a corner to find the way up and found that it only led to the women's section of the store. People were coming in from the end of long hallway, shining in the dark blue colors of deep sea, but it looked too threatening for me to walk down. I felt like drops of sweat trickling down my face as my search for the way out endured as a question without an answer.

I woke up with my red eyes staring blankly into the white wall of the dormitory. I felt tired, even though I had just slept for an hour. Tired from trying find all these solutions to my problems.

I want out from the surf shop.

26112011

The cliff, part II.

People. A half a thousand of them, sitting with their suits and dresses on, myself among them. My knuckles were nearly colorless. White from clenching my fists together for the last hour or two. I couldn't remember I had ever been that anxious about anything. I do remember my friend asking me if I were anxious at all. I looked at him like he had asked me I had my pants zipped. No, I'm not anxious at all, I answered with a voice that almost drowned in cold sweat.

Suddenly people were clapping their hands together. My insticts told me to stand up and walk. My feet told me to sit down, collapse to the ground. I started walking from my seat and with every step the anxiety started diminishing. By the time I reached the stage I, in fact, did not feel nervous at all. I was as confident as an army commander is in front of his troops. Speech. A long, well-deserved round of applause. Out.

Two and a half years ago I was beginning to become what I always wanted to be like. Graduating top of my high school, being awarded for excellent grades, enrolling into a respectable university, achieving the rank of a officer, being awarded for my exceptional service, starting university with success in terms of grades and popularity among people, rumors of student organization presidency, being awarded for my constant activity.

Stop.

Cause and effect, action and reaction, problem and solution, the story and the outcome. Things always have the side we do not know until we find it out ourselves. A bit over half year ago I was standing on the cliff. I was facing decisions I did not yet know of, challenges that had not yet shown their faces. No matter the outcome, I decided to take a leap of faith and exit my comfort zone with radical means. And as turned out, the drop from the cliff was a long one but worthwhile, for there was a treasure at the bottom.

Witnessing two oceans colliding from a cliff at Cape Reinga was a mythical moment. I was standing on a cliff looking down on a magnificent view and yet, I was standing at the bottom of the cliff looking up on the point I had jumped from. And I felt happy. Out of my comfort zone, but happy.

A man told me yesterday that he was in a pursuit for happiness. I don't think happiness is something you can pursue, something you would have to pursue. Happiness is just like air. It's all around you and all you have to do to be happy is inhale. And what else can you do anyways?

18112011

Bikes that were never new, rides that never got old.

Your usual Tuesday afternoon. Today is Friday, I'm aware, but the day I'm telling you about was a Tuesday.

Our school was a large, white building with walls that felt pleasant to touch. The stone on the walls had smalls bumps on it, like the muddy spikes in a mangrove forest. The school yard was as vast as the horizon, looking from the shore of a blue lake. The yard grew smaller every passing year, though – and in fact, I'm quite certain that if I were to explore the yard now, it would not feel vast at all.

We were two boys heading home from school. Riding our bikes that were never new but bikes that felt new every time we rode them. You could imagine yourself in a motorbike race, shift the gear from the handles and boost up your speed by pedalling as hard as you could, passing your rivals with ease. It's not as if you could tell one another what you were imagining the bike ride to be but I think we both knew our positions in the race.

The other boy was a bit older than me, and he was actually the only one heading home. I was heading to where he lived because that's what boys do in the afternoon, when the never-ending story of the school's clock had ended in a siren of joy, a bell of freedom. The way to where the other boy lived wasn't that long but we would see things along the way – funny-looking people, dead animals run over by speeding cars too ignorant to realize the lives they've taken, paths that led into the near-by forest, sometimes even other boys – and the trip would become a journey. Journey back home.

We eventually reached our destination, hopped off our bikes and practically ran up the concrete stairs in front of the other boy's house. We both knew what was waiting for us inside the house. Video games.

I like to think I spent the majority of my childhood outside because we never had video games at home. I had to socialize to make my way to video games, and yes, the games were a lot more fun with the other boys as well. We grabbed the shiny controllers with their X -buttons beaten down hard so many times that the green color of the cross had turned into a faded grey, and launched the game.

Sometimes other boys would join us. They were the friends of my friend, the original other boy. I didn't know them by their names so my friend introduced me to them. I always felt like shaking hands with them because that's what you did when you met new people. They would join our games and most of the time they were better than me at the games as well. I blame my lack of exercise in the given games.

When the sun started setting early in the evening I would head home for dinner.

Sometimes we make life to be so hard. We must work, we have to meet new people, we got to keep fit. Life is really much more simple than we let it be. What is life anyways but an enjoyment of your imagination. A bike ride among other boys where you can always win if you want to.

16112011

Taking fear by the throat.

In times of uncertainty we tend to triumph after struggles, efforts made to renew the feeling of assurance. In times of certainty we tend to descend on a cloud of white, soft pillows and forget about the reality. Our irises turn marble white, our mouths form a straight line instead of the curvy shape of a smile and we hear nothing but a constant speaker in our heads repeating the monotonous mantra of a Chinese woman: ”Please wait in the line.” We become slaves to our routines, numb to the events that break them.

This is when fear creeps into the moments of nearly falling asleep but not quite, into those steps you take towards something unsual but never end up taking, into to those thoughts that made you feel invincible before.

Certainty. The faint shroud of mist that you always try to hold close to your fragile body, the elusive, pencil-grey haze you can never touch.

Fear is something that people don't discuss nowadays. I think it's partly because our social environment does not want people sharing their weaknesses, speaking aloud the things that might lessen their strong, ambitious image. A man in a black suit, tailored for him, with his new eyewear blinking in the morning sun, rushing into the hectic maze of people and traffic lights. The same rush, which he has felt every morning for the past six days after eating the same breakfast – two eggs with the sunnyside up, a cup of tar-black coffee and a toast with three thumbnails of blackberry jam – for the past six years. He's not afraid of anything, except for his wife if a business partner were to ask him the question. And they would both laugh.

I am afraid of failure. I've been trying to find excuses for it - stress about success, ambitions, meaning of life, even. These are the ambivalent words that appear on the screen before my eyes in the times of uncertainty. But in all honesty, it's the callous fear that pushes me through times of certainty. Fear of failure that compresses me into a formless zombie that goes by his everyday routines without a single thought of his own.

Break your routines. Take fear by the throat, strangle him. Make him reason with the sky above and the ground below while his irises turn into marble, pale as the snow during the harshest of winters. Reason without hope.