Via tomorrow.sg, I found this video of a guy Matt who has been traveling around the world and videotaping himself dancing at notable locations in those countries.
I love videos like this that remind us of all the common threads that bind us as humans and how dance and music is so linked with what it means to be human.
Matt’s website is here. His wikipedia entry is here.
Matt is a 31-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. Matt achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he’d saved to wander around Asia until it ran out.
One of my greatest regret about my university life is that I didn’t travel overseas enough. In fact, I only traveled once. It was a combination of mismanagement of finances to thinking I didn’t have enough to travel to where I wanted to go and not doing something about that.
Wanting something is really different from desiring something. I wanted to travel. Not desire. I think that is slowing changing.
Anyway, last week learned of this book “Honeymoon with my Brother” through a tweet by Guy Kawasaki.
What do you do when your fiancée dumps you so close to the wedding that the flowers, food, and guests are already en-route?
“You should go ahead and have it,” counseled my brother Kurt. “Your friends will be there. The wine will be there. Why let everything go to waste?”
So I did. I had a full wedding weekend with a golf tournament on Friday, a rehearsal dinner on Saturday, and even a mock wedding ceremony on Sunday. Of the 150 invited guests, 75 turned up — my entire side of the aisle. They only thing missing was the bride.
I then decided to take Kurt on my pre-paid Costa Rican honeymoon. We canceled the champagne and roses, and promised not to carry each other over any thresholds. My head was a cyclone, as you can imagine. I was depressed, angry, confused, suspicious, and even a little bit relieved.
But during the trip, a strange thing happened. I realized having my life turn upside-down might not be such a bad thing after all. Kurt and I did something we hadn’t done in decades — talk, at length, about lives, frustrations, and fears. It felt meaningful and rewarding to re-bond with a brother I barely knew.
So, Kurt and I decided to continue the honeymoon. We quit our jobs, sold our homes, gave away our clothes, threw our cell phones into the trash, and continued to honeymoon for two years and 53 countries!
I don’t think humans were ever meant to be static creatures. Modern work has domesticated us. We were meant to be out there, moving, traveling, wandering. I think something dies inside when we just go through the daily cycle of traveling to work and then traveling home.
That’s one reason why I loathe settling down - getting that HDB, that car, that dog….
We were not meant to live like that. Working just to pay off that flat, those wheels, those bills.
Like my sister would say, we are in cages, it is just that ours look nicer.
Claudia | 23-Jun-08 at 10:36 am | Permalink
Thanks for sharing this.
I would love to travel around the world and live my life with no regrets too. Have also been talking about this with my bf for many years. But when reality hits us, we just couldn’t see ourselves doing that.
But this hope of ours will still be there, we will continue to dream. And hope that this day will come, where we’ll dump all our worries and commitments behind, and travel and enjoy our life like there’s no tomorrow.
Tania | 24-Jun-08 at 4:29 pm | Permalink
Aw…maybe “settling down” is the wrong phrase. Committing to marriage and a home (and maybe kids, car, dog etc) doesn’t necessarily mean that your fun life comes to an end. I like to think of each one as a turning point and the start of a new adventure…but this time with someone else along with you for the ride. While certain aspects of your life may change a bit, it doesn’t mean things have to get staid and boring. That only happens if you let it
iantimothy | 24-Jun-08 at 5:48 pm | Permalink
Hey Tania! You’re probably right. ‘Settling down’ might be the wrong phrase to describe getting married. It is just that I think a lot of people do settle down when they get married.
I definitely think you can get married without ’settling down’ but buying a house (e.g. HDB) is definitely going to be a big commitment that anchors you to Singapore. Or marriage suddenly changes the set of responsibilities you have which constrains you.
I guess that’s what I meant…I do want to get married and continue to have fun in life with my partner. I just don’t want to fall into the trap (which seems to get easier when you are married) of just stagnating and being trapped.
iantimothy | 24-Jun-08 at 5:49 pm | Permalink
But like you said. We all have a choice!!!