Travel Blog Part 2 - Getting Going

All great endeavors start at the beginning, and this one is no different. The mundane details - what to pack, how to get to the airport (port, camel assembly area or what-have-you) and how to optimize time. I'm restricting myself to some guidelines on this trip mostly because I can, and trying to be a real minimalist. No checked luggage which I freely admit has more to do with a lack of faith in airline baggage delivery systems than a desire to carry my own stuff. Also use of publicly available transport options just because I want the freedom of imagining I could in fact get there under my own power.

What does one bring to Palau ? I've selected my bag carefully amongst a range of options. As a frequent business traveller I have an assortment of luggage options, but few of there lend any credibility to the 'wanderer' mystique I'm aiming for. I knew it had to be carry-on, so have settled upon a 30L day-pack, one of my favorites and one I've previously carried to the top of the southern hemisphere. I know it works. It's small, but then I don't want to carry much. Just the other day, I elected to leave the razor at home - it's one more thing to break/lose or carry. Go light - ultralight.

Now, I am going diving, so I have 5 pieces of dive kit with me, stuff I'd rather have of my own that I know works. This includes a wetsuit (you can't imagine how small the thing squishes up!), a mask, snorkel and inflatable safety device. I also just acquired a wrist-watch style dive computer to tell me important stuff like the square root of Pi at 80 feet under. It actually does more than that, but I won't get all "dive-guy and his equipment monotonous" on you.

Transport wise, I've elected to walk/bus to the airport where I live. Yes, it'll take a few hours rather than 45 minutes, but I'll also be $100 to the good. Minimalist. That's the mantra. A few years back I came up with the trusim that a young person has no money, and all the time in the world. Accordingly, they'd spend any amount of time to make money. As a mature person, money isn't (always) the issue, rather a lack of time is, and so they spend lots of money to have the perception of more time in their lives. My minimalist mantra is no doubt derivative of these thoughts, and I want to be lavish with my approach to time, spending it as I wish. In this sense, taking a bus is a luxury.

Or perhaps I'm just odd. While I do admit to a love of airplanes, I can't say the same about busses.

The destination is the airport, or more precisely, Lufthansa at the airport that will carry my body to Japan. And do it in style, through the use of the world's longest, and the world's largest aircraft. More on that later.

I did want to answer a question though, one that I had to come to terms with in the planning phase. Why Palau ? Isn't it a heck of a long way for a short duration ?

Of course, yes it is. But, think about how you plan to relax on this long weekend (sorry Americans!). Feet up, having a cold one, or perhaps golfing, walking, or gardening. Hopefully for you, it's something you like. Truth is I don't mind flying, never have. It is relaxing for me, someone else drives, I sit back have a glass of something bubbly and catch a movie or read a book I've been meaning to. Along the way, I get to browse some cultures that are fascinating and see places I either haven't before, or haven't been to in a long time. I'm going off the beaten path, and that in itself is worth pursuing, if only to know that the world is a different place with varying perspectives and ways to approach their days. Our world is becoming culturally beige, and we can exist in a Marriott/Starbucks bubble without acknowledging the real culture around us if we want. This trip, isn't that.

Travel Blog: Part 1 - Around the World, and Under the Sea

A change of pace - literally and figuratively this month.

We're going to approach the speed of sound, fly miles above the earth, circumnavigate the globe, and explore it's depths.  We'll be moving under our own power, and in the largest & longest commercial airplanes made.  The thoroughly modern to the most basic and back again. By the way, I say 'we' here as we'll be doing it together.

Our journey starts with an explanation.  It's a slow time at work, and I had an airplane ticket sitting on the shelf that was due to expire.  I could use it up to it's full value, and even travel quite comfortably doing so, to go almost anywhere.  All good.  So I had a lottery-winner kind of challenge - where to go to leverage this situation. I did some research on a new-found hobby:diving.  I found that there isn't a single list of the best dive locations in the world, a geographic bias always creeps into a "10 best" list, based on relative ease of access.  But one place repeatedly made everyone's various assemblies of dream dive sites - and that was a tiny pacific nation called Palau.

Now, like many of you who read this I had to consult a globe to find Palau, as while I thought I knew roughly where to look, it was give or take a few thousand miles. I found it, just as I'll encourage you to do, and at once it became clear how it's location must impact everything.  There are doubtless more remote places on earth, but this is certainly in the top few.  Palau has come to prominence a few times - recently I'm lead to believe one of the Survivor reality TV series was filmed there, and in WWII, it was the site of many excruciatingly hard fought battles between Allied and Axis forces.  Happily, I was going to Palau for neither of those reasons - my rationale lay under the waters where pacific currents meet and wildlife and wrecks make the water a diving paradise.

My trip to Palau will take me 12,132 miles / 19,530 kms in the air visiting Europe and Asia, and cover 40 hours in four aircraft on two airlines. And that's just to get there.  In the end, I'll have circumnavigated the globe (albeit all high in the northern hemisphere).  I'll admit some creative wish-fulfilment in my routing choice as in addition to being a budding dive enthusiast, I'm also an avid fan of commercial aircraft.  My time is my own on this trip, so this is one vacation that starts when I leave my house.

I'll aim to write and post while on the road, and again when back.  Fingers crossed that it will reflect a sense of curiosity and adventure that I can carry vicariously for you all. Let's get going.

When we choose not to learn

I did some work this week, and the clients had clearly chosen not to learn.  Only, they didn't say it in as many words, they chickened out to be blunt about it, and just didn't participate.  It wasted their time, and frankly mine.  I felt bad after the session, and I bet they regretted having to attend.

I'm a big fan of owning our decisions in life, not sidestepping responsibility.  If I elect not to do something, that can be an acceptable choice, but I shouldn't make that decision and then go through all the motions of doing it anyway.  The bitter taste left behind isn't that they didn't elect to buy into what was discussed, but that they pretended to, actually didn't, and haven't solved the core issue still.

Are we just Fish ?

A news story heard recently got me thinking.  It involved a washed up motorcycle on the shores of British Columbia, and the fact it had drifted on the North Pacific Current after being washed out to sea on last year's Tsunami that hit Japan.  A lovely little human interest story.  But it seeded my brain with thoughts of fish, reality, the universe and more.

Bear with me here, and see if you connect the same dots that I did.

Imagine for a moment you're a small fish, happily swimming near the surface ("not one of those cliché reef fish)  Your world involves the food that drifts past, the school you're part of,  and avoidance of occasional predators that come your way. All is good, and assuming you're an intelligent little fish, you notice that occasionally your surroundings change a little.  You're sentient to the idea that your world exists on a current, and over some great expanse of time, it will actually cycle through the same static piece of water.  You are part of that same North Pacific current that carries human stuff from one continent to another, and at some point in the year the area you're in tastes/smells like Japan, and in others it tastes/smells like North America's west coast.  If you are a very intelligent little fish, you'd recognize that it's actually you drifting into the predator's water, not the other way around, and you may be able to be proactive about it. Now, you are still a fish, so awareness doesn't extend beyond the water - that's your world, but you can see the greater cycle at play, and might try to espouse the meaning of your life from it.

Now let's pretend to be humans.  We're on a little blue planet, and we're smart enough to see revolution around the nearest star (but even that to be fair is a recently solid fact), and you are lead to understand that system revolves around the galaxy in a spiral arm, and that galaxy is moving in the bigger universe too.  Effectively, while there are more planes of depth in the human model, we are essentially seeing the same thing as the intelligent fish.  We've come to grips with the concepts of movement, the size of the universe and can accurately predict where we'll be in X time, but not much else.  Like the fish, we strive to understand the meaning of life from what we see.  Like the fish, we probably can't do this easily.

So let's focus back on our fish for a moment.  Do they see that they are in water, and that an entire different reality exists on land, and they are in fact on a planet ?  Nope.  Do they understand the concept of that planet's movement, nope.  To be fair, they probably don't have their fins fully wrapped around the time concept either.  We consider the fish not to be an intelligent form of life, really they're present to sustain the natural balance in that ecosystem, and as a food source.

If I think about us again, from this train of thought we might conclude that we also might be living a reality that doesn't take everything into account.  There may be a 'land' equivalent that we can't perceive. We may not see the multiple dimensions around us, or perhaps we live at a different frequency than others.  In fact, we may be viewed relatively by others with deeper senses of perception as merely 'fish'.    The science underlying this conjecture is sound by the way.  Astrophysicists today are trying to decode the whole picture and place where we sit as the older models of how the universe hangs together no longer hold water.

Makes you think a little, yes ?

YOLO

This little acronym has popped up a few times lately.  It has come into vogue in our house via one of my kids and it's echoing in my brain from different things I'm hearing.  I'm hoping that a cathartic release in writing will remove it - for me it's become one of those songs stuck between our ears that we can't seem to shake.

Yolo stands for "you only live once" and seems a gratuitous approach to justify an 'anything goes' approach to life.  I'm sure in a college sense that's exactly how it's intended.  As we age however, it carries a darker and slightly more sinister connotation...'do it now before you're dead'.  I'm not a fatalist, but I am aware of the finite and precarious nature of our existence, so I understand how you could hear Yolo said in a reaper's whisper.  Yolo's sprung to life in both ways recently.

While working in another city last week, I was told the story by a colleague of a recent trip he'd made to Costa Rica.  All was going well on the flight until final approach into San Jose and the aircraft he was on suddenly jerked skyward under maximum power.  He said the captain came on the intercom and said in a more-than-slightly fazed voice.."Ladies an Gentlemen, you'll notice we aren't on the ground, and I want to preface what I'm about to tell you with the fact that there's nothing at all wrong with us, this airplane or anything, and we are in no danger. However, just as we were about to land, the aircraft in front of us crashed on the runway and we had to pull up through the fireball it had created.  I'm going to have to radio back to headquarters and determine what to do, as very frankly we don't see that situation very much".  The story had them divert after another hour in the air to the country's other airport and all was fine. Except for the people on that first plane obviously.  But it does make you think  - Yolo.

Notwithstanding that happy travel story, I'm considering re-using an airplane ticket from a trip untaken last year, and doing something quite out-of -the ordinary with it..on the basis that the opportunity presents itself, and the conditions under which I can re-use it are a tad odd.  I'm hesitating as it seems a quite selfish thing to do, but my wife has quoted Yolo at me as justification.  I get that, and yet it doesn't quite sit right still.

If everything we did was justified by a Yolo approach to life, we'd certainly be more carefree, but at the same time I'm not certain it's a better way of living.  Sure you  only live once, and need to make the most out of today...but in the same way we wouldn't recognize pain without pleasure, joy without sadness and summer without winter, there's also something to be said in defense of balance.  It may not be as sexy, or freedom inspiring but the merits of working to make the normal into the special are not to be underrated.  After all, it's the journey that counts, not reaching the destination because we really do only live once.

Its been a while

Sometimes we get busy.

Sometimes we forget what's important to us.

Sometimes life gets in the way.

This is the story of how we stop doing the things we love, letting the people around us know we care, and keeping up with old and dear friends.  It's testament to how adaptable we are that we so easily drop these aspects of our life, a silver lining that speaks to our resilience.    It's not always positive though, when we look back and realize our friends have moved on, our clothes or group no longer fits and our audience is no longer watching.

The morale of this very short story is to make active choices.  Choose to move away from something or someone if you like, but don't think a passive choice isn't a choice.  You're only fooling yourself.

Grace

It's an ephemeral quality, grace.

It's selflessness, wrapped in courtesy and a willingness to adopt other's perspectives as valid.  All of that done with the conviction of knowing the right thing to do, but never needing to it be right - to have it acknowledged as such.  A silent, knowing movement towards a conscientious life. Days lived with gratefulness and appreciation for the world around us, understanding that challenges are simply opportunities to shine. Grace is worth striving for, and terribly hard to achieve.

It's been on my mind a little lately, this idea of acting with grace.  I'm not sure it can be taught - though it can be modelled.

Grace seems to be the opposite of how we act as individuals and together as a society, so very often.  We engage in oneupmanship, compete unnecessarily and generally strive to get ahead at the cost to the next person.  The law of the jungle and survival of the fittest ?  Perhaps.  But a life lived without appreciation, days spent bitter, competitive and self-centered is time squandered.  They reflect a wasted chance to do better for ourselves, our fellow man/woman and the world around us.

The world is full of differences. Opinions vary and some may not be your cup of tea but many are insightful regardless. Decisions and judgements you disagree with are chances to learn how other's view things and even acts based in cruelty or mean-spiritedness help you keep your compass pointing in the direction you want, through visibility to how not to do things.  

Try grace out today.  Give it 10 minutes and see if your day isn't better as a result.