This blog chronicles quite a ride! From broke car-living... to abundant international jet-setting.
Sorting through the adventures, the rants, the peaks, the anger & defiance, the sublime gratitude, and ultimately the bittersweet awareness of impermanence... I find one thread: an all-out exploration of passions and interesting experiments.
Tim Ferris recently posted a documentary about Richard Feynman, the great physicist. I found a kindred spirit speaking in that video... for Feynman had the same approach to life. He had no grand plan for his life other than enthusiastically exploring questions and experiments that excited him.
The curious thing is that when you do this consistently, "success" (societal, material) tends to follow eventually as a by-product. But when you pursue "success" directly, it often proves elusive.. and when reached becomes a soul-crushing trap.
This is my ineloquent way of saying what Joseph Campbell said better, "Follow Your Bliss".
In every culture of the world, powerful forces (media, "authority") coerce people to abandon their dreams and their great pleasures. Everywhere people are pushed to conform to the soul-crushing demands of work. Everywhere people are told to be "realistic", which is a code word for conformity.
They are controlled by fear.. told that they will suffer poverty and misery if they pursue their passions and live according to their own values. It's lies upon lies upon lies... and this is why "the mass of men (and women) live lives of quiet desperation".
Far better to spend your life pursuing the curiosities, passions, experiments, and crazy schemes that fire your imagination.
Live simply. Trust yourself.
Do not waste your life in miserable conformity.
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