INTRO Addendum

Major Despair Over Minor Dents

An addendum to my introduction

This is an old journal entry from my first immersion in Asia that rambles on a little so skip ahead to the next entry for pics and fun stuff! This little journal rant still rings true to me and I share because it’s an undercurrent guiding my travels to which I know other wanderers and warriors back home can probably relate:

 When I went to uni I did so with an intense teenage passion to do something about “changing the world”. It is indeed a thing with room for improvement. Locally seemed sensible, internationally however seemed detached and impossible.

 At home we should "reduce, reuse, recycle", in town we should build and maintain sustainable cities, as a nation we should value renewable energies and protect our people, conserve our wild environments, and internationally...

 Well internationally is where it all got a little out of reach. Climate change, world hunger, sex trades, child slavery, poverty, religious/political wars, and the endless reams of environmental degradation... Where to begin? What to aim for? What difference could you possibly expect to make?

 It feels like standing watching the double dutch skipping ropes spinning, swish-swish swish-swish, watching, waiting, hoping it will slow down so you can see a good time to jump in successfully, contribute usefully, and make a difference. Instead I stand back overwhelmed at everything and everyone who seems to need all of my time, things and money more than I do and I don't jump in. I can see it will be a complicated tangled mess. Back to square one, I don't know where to start so I don't. Wandering aimlessly watching the world’s problems roll by as I roll between villages and borders looking after myself, surfing, trekking and diving.

 I decided, or I should say realised, a long time ago that doing anything is better than nothing, so I try that. I acknowledge sensibly that I can't change the world, that illusion died somewhere in third year uni between a climate change unit ("the worlds gonna end anyway") and statistical data analysis ("this is too hard"). So I knew before I walked out the door that I couldn't change the whole wide world but once here and engulfed in "the world" it’s hard to know what to think. How on earth do you reconcile the desire to help with the immensity, the diversity, the ubiquity, the impossibility of the issues. Doing something is better than nothing... well it hardly feels like it sometimes. So very much hardship, so many people already helping, so much money going in every direction but only such tiny little dents being made.

I'm living off small good deeds and big smiles.

I suppose we can only hope to contribute throughout life by doing all the small "something's" so many times that the collective little dents we make will eventually permanently reshape other lives for the better.

This record isn't about that anyway, it’s just what I think keeps the fire burning inside me and keeps reigniting my interest in this never ending story of travel. Maybe I don't know exactly what I'm doing but I'm on some kind of undefined search to explore and contribute. As is profoundly written on thousands of clothing and promotional items by Ripcurl: LIVE THE SEARCH. And so I am.