My journey to Australia will begin in slightly more than a week. I will keep my 2-month journey posted in wordpress. It is not the first time for me to go for such a journey but so far it will be the longest. Meanwhile I would like to share my views and purposes of such a long backpacking journey.
My idea of backpacking originated from more than just fun and joy. I take it as one of the personal quests of growth. No schooling of any kind can replace the values I learnt through an extensive interactions of people of different kinds from different cultures. These experiences help me understand the planet from a humanistic as well as a pragmatic perspective. They help me see the world through the lenses of other people that I would have never thought of myself if I chose to stay. That is both magnificent and intimidating. The world is more than about the annual percentage growth of GDP, the primte rate, and M&A deals done of each region.
I have to slowly discover myself and get rid of my hatred and fear. I have a chronic fear of many things. Fear of myself, failure, losing the race. I fear myself because I am afraid I may not ever be the kind of person that I want to be, and losing faith in myself drains the hope of my future. The fear is already controlling part of my life as I am sure the same fear would be controlling most of the people on earth. Procrastination, pessimism, are all products of my fear.
I am also tired of big cities. I believe in people are the products of their environment. And so the overpopulation, inadequate social safety net, detachment from the nature, a chronic lack of cultural establishments, racial diversity, and the concept of indiscriminate love due to the Confucius values are producing a weird herd of people. People are all too cynical and have built too big a wall between each other. Many people are literally living in a tiny sphere of theirs, justifying (or unaware of) their stupid and limited outlooks of life. It is all too easy to find a 20ish secretary for a director who treats others like trash, which means her entire foundation of social externality is built upon the petty power spilt from her senior in such a short career. OK I am not one of the corporate losers who rant about the secretary of their boss since I am still in college. I still think that’s really fucked up and I am sorry for their way of living their lives.
As such, I hope my journey can let me slowly understand what I am, and regain faith in humanity. Hell I think I am talking like Christopher in the “into the wild”. Well I am not ready to take such an escapist position on my life!
And finally I want to leave a mark in my life. I heard the story of “the Kindness of Strangers” yesterday. It was about a late 30s journalist who woke up one day thinking his life was completely flat and unremarkable. So he began a hitchhiking journey with no money all the way from San Francisco to CapeFear, North Carolina, which CapeFear is the metaphor for him to overcome his lifelong fear of leaving his comfort zone. I don’t want to be the same guy who regret his life in his middle age. Actually, I enjoy risk. I enjoy reaching out of my own comfort zone. I enjoy being on a journey full of unknowns, no matter if they are good or bad. I want to start doing it before it is too late.
http://www.amazon.ca/Kindness-Strangers-Mike-Mcintyre/dp/0425154556
So that’s it for my entry. Have a good day.
