“You know I tell people I came to this country to gain international experience and avoid the thrills of the current job market, but I also am looking for that cliché object of 'self'. I gave up earthly comforts; a woman who loved me and supported any ill-advised decision because of that love, a handful of friends who’d drop anything if I was in need, and relations that have grown closer with every new tangle, all to come to place civilization wouldn’t use as a rest stop. I’m in no way trying to elevate myself or debase others, but I’ve come to think great awakenings are easier for the feeble minded. The epiphany moment comes when you find yourself lost and then found. It comes simplest to those who lack intrigue, analysis, or some level of self-awareness. For the few of us that know exactly the past and the now, our odds are more fucked. We can either force ourselves into the wilderness with blinders hoping when we stumble upon some pure truth we can fool ourselves into surprise and jubilation. Or we can continue on as we are praying we’ve over-estimated ourselves and life conjures that part of purpose which meets ability despite the longest of bets. These are the thoughts people wish naught talk about when they have their deeply shallow conversations on 'self-discovery' around a coffee table, campfire, or some swank setting. Actual realization is reserved to a select few, not for those who have a moment of squigglies in their stomachs thanks to being blurred by their deranged protruding ego for a long enough timeline. Instead it’s for the travelers that know themselves entirely, yet admitably know nothing. Now this letter was not anything I was expecting. Things brew in the mind and if I’m lucky enough to have paper and pen and will, they spew outward. Whether you like it or not you’ve been privied into a part of my thought process and psyche. Though I am a sarcastic, bitter, ass, maybe now you can understand some of the rationale. Actual Realization through self-discovery can only be fathomed by a minority, yet alone encountered by a sliver. One of many reasons I always question, I always rile for blatant honesty and truth.”
After spewing those thoughts to bleached sheets to a pen pal PCV I went outside to sit on my bench, to think, and to smoke (Yes loved ones I smoke a few cigarettes a day to help pass the time and clear my head. I think God will forgive me for these transgressions.) As I sat on the sanded wood, with a torch between two finger tips, sipping sometimes of smoke and others on water hinted by fruit from a western import proving progress in the region, I analyzed my feelings. My heart or head finds no anger, or depression, or even aggravation in my state of life. What I find, what I feel is much more blessed. I unearthed contentment, at least for the moment of time. Over a year and a half ago I broke from the only true comfort I knew and spent the 18months, shared in home soil and here in the bush, rambling, changing, rummaging to find the cover for void of purpose, so I can have that idea of “whole.” A quest for new love turned up predictably halfhearted. A change of scenery gave me new feats with similar outcomes. The more you know little of life, society, philosophy, and all the intricacies which build one’s interaction with another, the more difficult acceptance and a level of comfort is in our present being. Africa was my forced progression into this process, which for a choice few of should never end. The adventures and challenges which arise with new exotic airs have been merely dull and unimpressively complex. New people only often brings trivial puzzles in a few litmus lines of dialogue. We all want security, physical comfort, and maximum pleasure (the most basic of needs, somewhat contradicting Maslow). I’m far too vindictive to say some people are better than others, but there are two people with the same moral platform and one grew up in the West and one in war, bloodshed, loss of family, and everyday struggle. In this environment I pressed into for hopes of a bludgeoning indescribably, revolutionary moment. Instead I’ve learned a different staircase. The epiphany is broken into bits as grained as a day. A writing, a scrap of paper, a project, a time filler, a discussion, a drunken chat, all may nick away rift obstructing the view. Then again, perhaps this is the revelation. I’ve never been one to be caught fully off guard, which can give life a little monotony if you let it. This entry has no satisfaction of an end for I have not reached a last step or even sight of one. No matter, I feel content.
