One with Nature vs. The Drive

I am back in Beijing for three months. Enough time to save money for a plane ticket to Buenos Aires, to finance for a 4th issue of homônumos, and have a week’s worth of savings to live off of in Argentina.

I am terrified of the move. My boxes, my dog. Homeless, jobless. New people, new language. New culture. New life.

But I want to do it. I have plans for new challenges, and Buenos Aires is the place to be.

For me.

So what is it which drives some people to outdo themselves for the sheer thrill, and drives others to live with a 9-5 job? One might say that having children dampens your quest for adrenaline. Sleepless nights become a curse; changing diapers at 4 am versus dancing tango at 4 am. One wishes to be in bed while the other doesn’t want the night to end. Still, there are those who travel the world on a 12-meter sailboat, homeschooling their children...

A friend recently diagnosed himself as depressive, after he was ditched by his future wife days before the wedding. He says he's suffered from repressed emotions and chronic depression, all ills which he was unaware of for the last 20 years. Now he has to focus on himself and his poor mental health, the realization he was making the wrong choices with the wrong motives. He's awakening his dormant self, the memories of childhood sexual abuse, and the compulsive libido as release mechanism, acupuncture nailing down pent up stress. All of this worries me to a T.

Am I mentally unstable to wish to go where few others have been before (well, many have been, though not the majority)? Couldn't I choose to live on Ibiza Island with a strong gorgeous black Peruvian man whose libido puts mine to shame? Why do I have the urge to throw myself into a world tour, (next challenge, avant-garde theatre), with no money and no previous experience, just for the certitude that this is my new calling? Am I deranged?

What if I am? Shall I put all my plans of surpassing myself by a light-year, behind, and focus on being one with the nature?

"Well," I say, "I’ve been riding my bicycle back from work in the past two days under monsoon rain. Today, at Beichaoyang there was a flash flood in which a few of us got caught, raincoat on wheels and all, peddling through water up to our armpits. And they say Beijing is a dry climate... if nature can so ridiculously overdo things, why not me?!"

Towards new grounds my exploration goes on.
Beijing, 31 July 2007.