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.
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| Mom driving on the left side of the road... |
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| The car we rented |
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| 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)
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| Husking a coconut sort of. |
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| 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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