Writing. An activity best undertaken alone. But I am not alone. And so I write only short stories, jotting down thoughts from the small events shaping my everyday experience. These are valuable little texts, nuggets of information telling the story of who I am right now.
In between all of those texts I guess there’s a larger picture to be found, but it annoys me a bit that I’m not writing about that too.
The medium of Instagram, which is my main channel for now, is helpful and limiting at the same time. It’s contemporary in its essence, speedy and fast, forever flowing with new input, new pictures, new stories. I like that flow, like to stay in touch with all these different minds sharing parts of themselves through photos and texts.
But.
It’s just that I also set out on this journey with the intention to write. A lot. Long pieces providing my view on stuff like permaculture, urban food production and regenerative agriculture. Where are those texts hiding? Do I have anything to say? I wish not to speak what I have to say but to write it, to provide for a timescale which allows a maturing process to take place. I thought I would have more space for theses weaving, organic, interconnecting thoughts than I currently do, and so it bothers me a bit. I feel like I’m not doing my part.
At the same time, I couldn’t care less. Each day spent in nature gives me so much. Each day melting occurs inside me, layer after layer of ethically induced intentions dripping away. I’m shedding thoughts, not knowing what will be found underneath. It’s a deconstructing process, becoming aware of which ideas that are truly mine and which have been given to me through a cultural indoctrination. Who am I but a simple human being? Who am I but a person living? Who am I to believe I have opinions worth voicing and pushing forth?
I grew tired of Klara the Orator. She had to be always witty, clever, informed and charming. She gave hope to those who were looking for alternatives but she gave too much.
Now she has become an everyday philosopher, pursuing her ideals through writing while hiding in the open, gorging herself with a high intake of Nature. It seems to be working quite well. It feels good.
Is that because there is no home ground to bounce of from again and again? No constant that pleases or disturbs me? Nothing I feel that it is my job to take care of?
The ever-changing nature of the nomadic pattern is very forgiving in the sense that the only constants are created by me and my traveling companions. What food we eat, what time we get up, how many days we climb vs rest. Being on the road I am confined to a small bubble. Sure, we relate to the outside world all the time but we are mere visitors in the places we come to. We have no means to interact on any deeper level.
And so, something is shifting and changing inside me. I’m not sure I recognize myself, but I am aware that it has been my intention for a few years now to slow down and be a bit less aggressive. The pace I used to have had served its purpose, and now I have yet to become familiar with the Klara of today.
In the periphery of my mind I can sense that I’m worried that I won’t be enough when slowing down. That I won’t accomplish good things. That my life will flow away and leave me behind, working on some mundane task better suited for a non-philosopher who has less ambition to be a change maker.
Maybe it’s the feeling of loosing your purpose. Not that I feel fully lost, I’m just stumbling while looking to find the right path. I’m in the area of knowledge where I want to be: Horticulture, geology, ecology, but how do I want to manifest the work I can do? Gardening? Project managing? Guiding? Farming? Studying?
Trying to make a mind map figuring out the options I get frustrated. It’s like I don’t want to want all these different things anymore. It’s fucking complicated being a curious mind. I just want to dig in and do good, but w h e r e? This is when it would be good to have a mentor or someone else to pick the dilemma apart with and then put it back together in a slightly different order. I like the thinking, the questioning, the twisting and turning, but it needs to leed somewhere.
Here I am, sitting on a balcony of a small alpine hut in the middle of the Rockies. Taking the day of from the others, spending time with myself. Giving space for the kind of thinking that I used to occupy myself with back home much more frequently, but now thinking ”What good is it?”
Why do I try to think about what to do in April next year when it’s only July? Because I’m me. This is who I am, who I’ve been. Maybe I’m changed, maybe not. Maybe when coming home I’ll drop right back into being the same person as when I left, but I don’t think so and I don’t hope so.
This journey, I want for it to change me. Why else make it happen?