Tuesday, May 5, 2015

It's okay to just chill.

Ironically, my last 3 weeks of hustlin’ bustlin’ excessively ambitious traveling led to one profound intellectual realization. 

It’s okay to just chill.

A quick recap of my Spring/Fall Break (it’s fall weather here but I’m accustomed to associating April with Spring so feel my struggle)... 

Week 1
Spent with my loving parents in and around Queenstown, Doubtful Sound, and Hanmer Springs. 

Mom driving on the left side of the road...




The car we rented

Doubtful Sound




Week 2
Two Felicias one tent…  To avoid widespread confusion, it’s time for me to create a universal definition for my use of the word Felicia via an Internet source.  So here…

Felicia (fuh-leesh-uh)
Noun, adjective, you name it
Derived from the vine “Bye Felicia”, this term may be used to reveal feelings of annoyance, to describe people, or to express…anything your creative mind desires.  Just say it, it’ll sound right.    
Ex/ “This cat just farted on me omg what a Felicia.”

Two Felicias one tent consisted of my flat mate and myself (two Felicias) venturing through the radiant rainforest and coastlines of Abel Tasman National Park (habiting one tent). 








Despite the fact Jena (flat mate) was sick and warded off most/all living creatures with her coughs and snots, we made some friends that led me to that profound intellectual realization I mentioned earlier. Also because Jena warded off most living creatures with her coughs and snots, I had a lot of alone time due to the elimination of the potential of most friend-making.  We’ll get to that. 

Week 3
RARATONGA (Cook Islands) with my study abroad program.  Lots of food, dogs, rain, etc.  









Overall, an amazing time with amazing people.  


Some other observations being…
1. Living the Island Life is harder than it looks... (photocreds to Eunice for these beauty shots)

Husking a coconut sort of. 
Helping plant things sort of.
2.  Floating in the middle of a lagoon is chill.  Also I finally learned how to float.
3. There’s a way to overcome being uncomfortably full by eating more. 
4. If you’ve never gone putt putting after a few beverages that’s a life mistake you need to fix.
5. A visit to the local elementary school confirmed kids don’t like me. But they liked the other kids at least.

6.  Swimming in waterfalls is better than swimming in most things.
7. Not having Internet for a week was more enjoyable than having Internet.
8. Snorkeling is highly underrated for its awesomeness. Check out the video I took below on my GoPro! (sorry for the obnoxious background music of water slapping my camera) 


9. When you’re overly over-tired you stumble upon some peculiar thoughts.
Ex/ I mentally rebuilt my elementary school playground during a lecture on the Island’s political history.
After a thorough analysis of my ever-so-philosophical thoughts I came across during those 3 weeks, somehow “It’s okay to just chill” became the one that dominated. 

The two nights I spent in the middle of a remote rainforest in Abel Tasman National Park led to interesting conversation with my flat mate.  She told me some cool things she knew about astronomy during our stargazing sessions.  One is the most confusing thing I will ever try to wrap my brain around ever (formally referred to as the String Theory)…

Our Universe is made up of several dimensions, theoretically ten of them, and we’re hardly even aware of four.  Don’t think about it too hard if you want to sleep tonight. 

Second is that there are theoretically TWO Universes, NOT JUST ONE.  The theory is that post Big Bang, one Universe (the one we take up negligent space in) is constantly expanding and time is moving forward, while there is another parallel Universe (the one we barely know the existence of) that is constantly decreasing in size and time is moving…. backwards.  Yea. 

Links to prove I’m not talking out of my butt:

My offering of this information is not as random as it seems.  It just so happened to be the initial inspiration for my “It’s okay to just chill” notion.  Given the ten dimensions and the two different Universes, the amount of space we take up as individuals is literally negligent.  We define our own success and happiness, OR I MEAN AT LEAST WE SHOULD, so what is the point of being concerned with what the other negligent amount of space is defining as success, happiness, you know, that sort of thing? I mean this in the best way possible when I say that at the end of the day, we’re all just negligent amounts of space.  At first, this sounds rather depressing, but if you think about the minimal impact of your space on the grandeur of space taken by all these dimensions and universes, its really quite liberating.  So do with yours what you will, and let everyone else do with theirs what they will. 

More inspiration hit for my… intellectual “chillin’” notion when I met a lovely French lady at the hostel we stayed at in Nelson.  We discovered we’d both been in New Zealand for about two months, and as I was talking to her about her travels, she mentioned something along the lines of, “So yea, still just the beginning.”  Maybe she noted the bewilderment in my eyes as she explained how she’d been given THE ENTIRE YEAR OFF OF WORK to just… travel.  I proceeded to ask her if this is a commonality where she’s from.  Turns out it’s a commonality in all of Europe and they think us Americans are the weird ones.  I also proceeded to meet a few other Europeans staying in the hostel doing the same exact thing as she.  The trend was that very few of them had a plan of action as to where they were going next, very few of them seemed to care that they had no plan of action, and absolutely none of them were concerned about the responsibilities they were leaving behind during their year-long holiday.  So yea, they basically screamed it’s okay to just chill.

The last contribution to my new philosophy came from my experience in Raratonga, and learning of Island time.  Island time is unlike normal people time in that its daytime when the sun is out and that its nighttime when the sun goes down and people are just doin’ their thing.  Simple as that.  Ironically, I experienced little of Island time as I was with my study abroad program that planned an over abundance of activities.  I was more or less a “distant admirer” of Island time and became rather envious of the Maori Islanders’ culture clock.

I apologize for my random, confusing approach to philosophy, but do me a favor and test the theory.  Consider all of the ideas that just chillin’ could evoke… you could find a way to make lettuce taste like pizza, discover a keen interest in the perplexities of astronomy, turn a name into an obnoxious use of a word (sorry Felicia), whatever satisfies your mind’s creative juices.  You’d never guess how much you miss out on inside your head when you’re so involved with what’s going on outside your head.


I hate (love) to repeat my use of Ferris Bueller’s intellect, but “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t slow down and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Peace.

Keep Happy,
Em

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