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 | A pivot from my man kyree's "where have you been" thread | |
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I posted this there, on my bro Kyree's thread, but it bears repeating since, like almost all other threads, that one also devolved into armchair anger-beasts trying to out-sling each other on political, partisan, no-results finger pointing. I've made some edits, but the message is the same.
Gain perspective as soon as you can.
Not long from now, we'll all grasp for more than memory as it all closes in around you, like the first time you feel the strength of waves, your first time at the ocean. Our end will be a quick tally of some all we remember and all we conclude as the curtain draws and we feel our lungs one last time.
My greatest life lesson has been to find the vapors mercuric of all things gorgeous and inhale them without stopping, and without fear. I've long tried to express the charge and awakening that I've gone through to this, my D2F family here, now going on two decades.
I used to chronicle my journeys to this group as I graced the surface of this humble planet. I think of those days fondly.
I kept you all close to my travels back then. In those days, I filled two passports, pages added (if you know what that means) and the entire way, maybe 8 years of more than 2 million miles of adventure, I kept this, the D2F Family, apprised of my sights, meals, crimes, joys and debauchery.
I'm grateful for having a ready audience, or was, as now I'm not the interesting guy I was back then, but those early 2000s and these forums were electric and it was a joy to be a conduit of a something-other to those who'd read my words.
Where have I been...
Of the planet's fluctuating 190-or-so countries (depending on the number of asshole nations who can't bear the thought of NOT invading or annexing land because egos run rampant in humanity) I've missed maybe 30-40 of the mainstays.
I've been to beautiful vistas in the Alsace-Loraine overlooking sweeping valleys of divine green and imagined the captivating battles that have, throughout history, creased it with horror.
I've consumed family-run vintages of deep red wines while watching the sun dive in elegant greens and algae blues on the Almafi Coast, high above the crashing tide.
I sat in dank, poorly-lit coffee shops and opium dens in Amsterdam staring down others for smash-mouth poker games where all I had left to wager was my bicycle.
I've dug my nails into the shoulders of my security detail's driver trying to escape political riots in Jakarta, prepared to be dragged out of the motor bus and beaten to death, trying to make it to the embassy.
I've been whisked away by another security detail in the hot, dense and oppressive heat of Sao Paolo in a botched kidnapping attempt.
I've had translators in Japan tell me not to ask what I'm eating.
I've been face-to-face with a client shouting at each other in Manhattan, cursing ancestors only to eventually grab a beer together at 5:00.
I've seen the golden coins that Alaska seems to be from 36,000 feet as my plane chases the Sun.
I've watched lightning break like wild dogs between the Twin Towers and my once-home, the Millennium Building, while killing a beer during storms that made these titans wave like straw in the wind.
I've bartered for my life at the end of a double-barreled shotgun while working archaeology in the impossible drapery of heat of the rain forests of Samoa.
I've just stood and watched as the wheat on my family's land concluded the thoughts of the wind.
In all this time, for all I've seen, this magnificent quilt and pageant of humanity's best and worst, let me tell you this:
Take in all that you can and do not let the cuff of your life's jacket dissolve in the detritus of human garbage like politics or sport. You are being fooled to care.
Sell what you have, if you can. Travel. Leave your chair while you still can.
Do not let your story be one where you waited for someone to tell you where to go or that you are waiting to be suddenly lucky. Be bold and take risks. You will only die if you are really stupid. Everything else is riding the rails humanity has today.
Go get it. | |
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Bruh... can we get more details on the Jakarta and shotgun story? Assuming this is all true and not some gonzo journalist rant. | |
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MD_SamuraiOne
Super Regular
Cold Giver
|  | | P: | 06/18/2022 16:15 EST | | E: | 06/18/2022 16:41 EST |
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For sure, man.
In 1996, my team was moving across Jakarta to try to reach the airport during a strong political rally for Megawati Sukarnoputri, the opposition figure head versus Suharto, who'd held power for decades. Funny to my team, until we were literally at risk of death, the Sukarnoputri movement embraced the iconography of the Chicago Bulls, as the colors and the 'throwing of horns' were synonymous with their brand. It was insane. Like a frog in a pan, we saw it boiling up around us all too late to react effectively. The first moment of my awake, reasonably-adult life that I'd thought I might actually die from violence came when our driver turned directly into the path of Sukarnoputri protestors literally miles deep. When they looked inside our vehicle and saw we were white, it was on. It was, and I don't say this term lightly as I'm a lightning strike survivor and have been shot before, absolutely mortifying. It started with simple things like what appeared to be smoothies or drinks thrown at the glass. I was notorious for wearing a crazy-baby hat on my journeys and at the sight of it, the crowd started shouting "COE BOY, COE BOEEEEEY" (cowboy). This political movement was, at the time, defined by a crystalline defiance of Western influence. I was just trying to get the fuck out of their way. My driver laid on the horn and gradually accelerated, slow until the crowd ahead got it, and we parted the seas and by the grace of God made it to a benign neighborhood side-street and regrouped with our wider security detail. It was the first time in my life I contemplated that other humans might kill me purely out of rage.
In Samoa, I was on contract as an archaeologist to help plot the route of a massive, US-funded sewer pipe to run the extent of something like 17 miles of interior. In most cases, our handlers had spoken to local chieftains to gain clearance to pass through both homesteads and banana plant groves thereby owned to scrape whatever cultural material observations were necessary to declare the pipeline route or specify a re-route if we ran into something critical like a star mound or burial mound. It was the most unbelievably grueling work you can imagine. Mosquitos and leeches fucking hounded us, regardless of repellent or cover. Wild dogs attacked us hourly, especially in the highlands. At one point, I was crossing what seemed a fairly calm and pedestrian backyard, again assuming the local chief had actually done his work and informed his vassals that we'd be passing through, only to round a corner to find a VERY agitated man aiming a super-old, over-under directly at my chest while I'm standing there holding a Jacob's staff trying to find the USGS pin marker somewhere apparently too close to his favor. By the grace of God I had an afakasi with me (half-Hawaiian/half-Samoan) who immediately plead with him and radioed our section chief who was somewhere down the mountain to race up and let me turn around and puke a bit and catch my breath. Then we just kept going.
It was a really hard time in my life.
(edit: misspelled some stuff) | |
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