Early morning sunrise down at the beach… Ahhhh, peace.
This is what I left home for. To wake up each morning and have no idea what the day will bring and where I will be resting my head the next night. After all the stress of study and work and all the drama from my friends and family, I really needed this break. Freedom.
Now here I am, sitting in a postcard. Surf, sand, sun… no plans, no responsibility, no commitments. No boyfriend, no boss, no mortgage, and definitely no kids! This is as free as I’ll ever be.
But somehow I don’t really feel satisfied. I almost feel kind of… empty. Don’t get me wrong; I know my loved ones at home would kill to be sitting on this sand dune right now and I am grateful. I’m having once-in-a-lifetime experiences and meeting so many new people from all over the world.
Like out partying last night, the people I met were so full of colour, stories, and adventure. I wasn’t drinking due to my dwindling backpacker budget, and still the music was good and the conversation was interesting.
But as the night wore on I started to feel a bit like an alien. Normally I would have been caught up in my own hedonistic haze, but being sober gave me such a clearer perspective. I could see how everyone was becoming more and more competitive and desperate in their search for laughs, booze, and sex—the boys were fighting, the girls were crying, and I couldn’t get a word of sense out of anyone.
It just made me think: who’s really in control here, the people or the alcohol? Are these people free if they are just controlled by their impulses? For example, people find it so hard to quit smoking. Someone could say that they freely choose to smoke, but if they couldn’t freely choose not to, then how much choice do they really have?
I guess, until you try to take away the things that you crave, you never know how much you are trapped by them. We want to be free, and even if we manage to avoid responsibility externally for a while, we are still trapped internally by our habits, our desires, and our ways of thinking.
So where is the real freedom in this world? Everywhere I go I still have to deal with difficult people, work hard, and do my laundry. Not to mention my thoughts, moods, and emotions. Sometimes life just feels like an upward treadmill; even when you try to jump off, it just keeps going.
As always, I’m thinking too much. I just need to keep busy and keep moving on.
I’m off for a swim. Carpe diem!
