Its The Tourists Season

The Travel Bug

I've been viewing the service … I had undertaken for the Malaysian government … in the past so many years. Of these … the period I spent as … Vice-Consul at the Malaysian Consulate in Los Angeles … stands out … as being significant. It had an effect … on my individual nature as man … and brought to my bearing … an orientation about the world … that's been a little more than simply surfing the web. In some ways its been a return of the gift … by the government … for the gift of service I provided the country.

 

To put it in a phrase … it was like … a new perspective on me and my country … from the point of perspective … of the world. And its been absolutely incredible.  It appears to me … an individual is served well in his life … to leave his country … for a spell … in order to take in a fresh perspective … about himself and the way he views his countrymen. The difference … in our experiences of the personal and the objective … becomes delightfully clear.

 

On the same token … my stay in the US … brought to me another perspective and understanding … about the world. And that is the way in which Americans … represent themselves … in the world community. In much the same way … my one week holiday in London … one week in Vancouver … and one month's job related stay in Tokyo … brings much in the way of relating to the world community … at a personal level. But I can't say much about the 14-day tour I did of Europe … on a coach that simply bused through the countries … in the night. I might as well have just surfed the places on the web.

 

Its amazing what it means to have taken a meal in a foreign country … tasted what the folks there tout as their delicacy … and to catch a first hand view of some of their locations … they consider scenic. I don't believe … the web will ever substitute for travel … when we realize what it means to visit some place in the personal nature of our physical bodies. It sometimes feels like something we are coming to touch … that which we merely saw in pictures … or in our imagination.

 

In encountering an experience … of viewing the physical … in relation to dreams … it sets of something in the psyche … that has a far reaching postal address … regarding the origin of man … that might well cover a galactic experience. The earth's position in the solar system … is a part of the milky way galaxy. We know for certain now … that life in the universe … is kicking and existing in the milky way galaxy. That's us for sure.

 

And in a strange way … that's almost like viewing earth … from Hubble's pictures of the universe … and to ponder about creation. It appears to me … the milky way … is the incubator and workshop of creation … birthing new life … perfecting it … and leading it to where we want to go. There's a planetarium here in Malacca … near the sea … that I visited a few years back … that seemed to put in perspective … a lifetime of practicing … self awareness.

 

My experiences regarding these … have been pretty much the same issue … all these years. Something in the dreams … manifested itself in the physical … and boy … don't you think that's something! And what's this ' diddly-do ' … about a loss of faith and trust in people? … don't you see its about how we bring our perspective to bear on issues? Its the epistemology of knowledge. Its the question of what is knowledge?

 

I couldn't have been more gratified … in the way my life has turned out. Its brought the answers … to questions … in places … I didn't know I had questions. Its put in perspective what my therapist referred to as ' acute anxiety and manic depression.' And these days … everytime I hear about … Alzheimer's … autism … schizophrenia … bi-polar disorder … and the other more malignant conditions like … cancer … avian flu … mad cow … Ebola … and even whales beaching … I dismiss any and all suggestions about the world being destroyed … but instead … focus on the nature of the work … creation undertakes … to help man understand … despite our biases.

 

Its embarrassing when I think of it … but some of these new experiences touch me at a spot … where I used to tell the ex-wife … what she's doing is wrong … and is hurting me … in that noiseless … unspoken manner of expression. Its like the way a bleary-eyed father at 4.00 am… would refer to his baby … as nothing more than a shitting machine … but before … the baby grows into a wonderful specimen of a human being.  A difference in perspective … is certainly the defining hallmark of life.

 

I guess we travel in more ways than one … especially in these times … of the global web … of relations. I find it hard to call someone an arsehole. I know a little about him … and we are no longer hiding behind … ' I didn't know.'  And on those occasions … when someone meets … the moose standing in a puddle … in his dreams … and blood is shed on the pavement … I wish I was there to place a flower … in the common name of mankind.

 

And for the friends of the deceased … who ask … how did anyone allow something like this to happen?  I simply respond with … the noiseless gaze of a tourist … who has to travel some more.  As Hemingway said … and I paraphrase … ' we are all involved in mankind.' It is a big world … and it certainly is going to take us a while … to take it all in. But we appear to have made a start … and that must certainly make a difference to our travel plans.