A successful vagabond traveler sees the inherent emptiness in the conventional notion of success.
Photo by Kirsty Pargeter
In a recent post traveler, journalist (and BNT co-editor) Tim Patterson provided a how-to guide for traveling free (or very cheap) - a practice that could be called “vagabonding.”
Soon after publication, he was promptly assailed by a number of readers for advocating a kind of “shiftlessness” and “irresponsibility.”
He was nailed with all manner of epithets - called irresponsible, a hippie, a bum, an idealist, impractical, a “rich, privileged, arrogant hipster,” the list went on.
In reality, Tim was just offering some practical low-budget travel advice. As such, the vitriolic feedback from the readers is way out-of-proportion.
But why is that? What brought on this storm of denouncements?
As humans, whenever we have a strong emotional reaction to something, it’s an opportunity to learn something about ourselves, the way our psyche works, the way our minds are wired.
When we react strongly, that’s usually an indication that some fundamental metaphysical axiom, in other words, some deeply held belief, is being challenged.
Mainstream Beliefs
One of the fundamental axioms held in our dominant Western “civilized” culture has to do with the importance of “getting somewhere in life.” But aren’t I already something?
Tim’s practical, low-budget travel advice struck a nerve with some folks. And my sense is that these are not oddball folks - rather they are probably fairly typical, fairly mainstream in their beliefs and attitudes.
I suggest this because one of the fundamental axioms held in our dominant Western “civilized” culture has to do with the importance of “getting somewhere in life.” From a very young age, we’re urged to achieve this or that, “become responsible,” and to make something of ourselves.
But aren’t I already something?
Of course, that isn’t what’s intended by the phrase - we’re meant to make something important of ourselves. And in this case, “important” means to embody success, as understood in the conventional way.
Stealing an illustration from Alan Watts, we ask: What’s the outcome of success in business as we know it? More business!
More business means more investment, more production, more stuff, more expansion, more proliferation of mostly material ticky-tacky, and to go along with all this, more bulldozing over ecosystems to make it all possible.
Now, granted, all this business - this busy-ness - has produced some technological marvels and various benefits to our lives and to society. But if one is to take a reasonably objective view, one has to ask the question, “At what cost?”
The Price Of Busy-ness
For all our technology and busy-ness, we’ve got nuclear weapons, climate change, deforestation, a precipitous decline in biodiversity rivaled only by the extinction event that did away with the dinosaurs, GMOs, And an environment full of toxic chemicals.
As a vagabond traveler, there is only one requirement. To relinquish any attachment to getting somewhere in life other that what one already is.
We’ve got Reality TV, high-density Confined Animal Feeding Operations and the largest disparity in wealth between the rich and the poor in human history.
To top it off, we’ve got an insane economic system that itself survives by accelerating the rate of all of these forms of destruction, desecration and depravity.
Even so, a belief held very deeply by most folks is that we are now better off than ever before in human history. But considering the above, I’m not sure about this.
Responsibility in our society means getting somewhere in life. It means making something of yourself. Yet as a vagabond traveler, there is only one requirement. To relinquish any notion of, or attachment to, getting somewhere in life or of making something of oneself…other than what one already is.
Being a successful vagabond traveler requires one to understand that the fundamental metaphysical axiom of our “civilized” culture is an illusion and is absurd.
A vagabond traveler realizes that naught but frustration, anxiety and suffering can come from blindly applying oneself to the futile task of endless consumption.
Examining Success
To illustrate this emptiness, here’s a short animation charting the conventional course of success.
To ask this question another way:
At what point when you have amassed X amount of personal fortune, accumulated Y amount of material possessions, and achieved Z status as ‘an upstanding member of society’ do you shout “Enough!” and commence living a life of contentment?
Looking around our society, it seems that hardly anyone has reached this point.
This is the defining characteristic of the conventional mind in our society - never satisfied in the present, never content with what is, always grasping for something more.
And we’re certainly inundated with enough marketing and advertising and PR to encourage this mindset.
The Awakened Vagabond
Photo by Julien Bastide
In a sense, the vagabond traveler is a kind of avatar for our society.
She is one who has seen the inherent emptiness behind the conventional understanding of success, who has realized the futility of living a life in unending pursuit of an illusory future happiness.
The vagabond traveler embodies the realization that there is no place other than here, and there is no time other than now. So if one is going to enjoy one’s life, it has to be done in the here-and-now.
If one is incapable of enjoying life in the present then one is incapable of enjoyment, period, because the present is the only time there is and “future enjoyment” does not exist.
In the Tao Te Ching (as translated by Stephen Mitchell), the word “content” appears 11 times. Here are some examples showing what Lao-Tzu was trying to tell us:
Chapter 44:
“Fame or integrity: which is more important? / Money or happiness: which is more valuable? / Success or failure: which is more destructive?
If you look to others for fulfillment / you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money / you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have / rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking / the whole world belongs to you.”
A Higher Responsibility
The vagabond traveler represents a higher kind of responsibility - one who is more in touch with reality and the true nature of the Universe; although the typical mind will always label her as “out-of-touch,” “impractical,” and a “denier of reality.”
This mis-labeling and the anger that comes with it - the anger that was showing up in several of the reactions to Tim’s post on low-budget vagabond travel - arise because the deepest Self, beneath all those layers of conventional Mind, resonates with the truth exposed and illustrated by the liberated vagabond, the free-spirited wandering ascetic.
For one strongly identified with the egoic mind and thus caught up in conventional notions of success, that resonance is frightening.
This deepest Self, this universal thing that the Hindus call Atman, has hidden itself inside each of us, playing this colossal game of hide-and-seek.
This hallucination that we are “isolated centers of sensation locked up in a bag of skin” (what is indicated in Western psychological parlance by the term “ego”) - hides our true nature from ourselves.
The Universal Self
Tim’s essay on traveling for free struck such a nerve with folks because he wasn’t addressing individual egos in terms that are comfortable, but rather speaking directly to the Universal Self hidden within all of us in terms intended to draw it out and expose the ongoing illusion of our conventional lives.
This Universal Self knows full well the illusory nature of success in the conventional, egoic sense, and moves naturally to embrace the Tao of Vagabond Travel that Tim illustrates in his piece.
A strong negative emotional reaction to this Tao of Travel is simply indicative of folks’ identification with the ego. And when the ego is threatened, it gets defensive (we all know what that’s like). Who among us has never reacted angrily and all-out-of-proportion before?
Don’t be too hard on yourselves. Or each other. (Which is to say the same thing.)
As Lao-Tzu said:
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.
(chapter 67)
Share your own thoughts on the Tao of Vagabond Travel in the comments!
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34 Comments... join the discussion!
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I’ve really gotta stop reading BNT first thing in the morning! I’m always all set to get down to work (busy-ness, you might say?) and then I get sucked in to some argument or idea here…
Josh, as always, I love reading your pieces - they are uniformly well-written and clearly argued - even when I disagree. And for regular readers: yes, if I wasn’t already, I am officially about to become a broken record.
Let me start by saying I didn’t have much sympathy for the angry, defensive name-callers on Tim’s piece. (Aside from my own quibbles about the urban-rural divide, of course! Ha.) But, as I’ve said before, I don’t think the caricature presented here of the “conventional” member of society has any more reality (in the sense of being broadly applicable) than the stereotype of the “rich, privileged, arrogant hipster†seeking social change merely because it’s fashionable to do so.
The first assumption among the “unconventional” types is that virtually no one working within “the system” is happy. That’s simply flat wrong. Plenty of people do take time to smell the roses on their way up the ladder. The second assumption is that the “conventional” lifestyle is deeply harmful to the planet (for example, here, you’ve linked it to nuclear weapons, climate change, deforestation, and - worst of all? - reality TV) while, in contrast, the unconventional lifestyle is not. This, I think, is what prompts a lot of angry responses - the assumption of moral superiority.
You wrote: The vagabond traveler represents is a higher kind of responsibility – one who is more in touch with reality and the true nature of the Universe; although the typical mind will always label her as “out-of-touch,†“impractical,†and a “denier of reality.â€
Whoa. That’s heady stuff, Josh. Messianic, even. The enlightened few, ostracized and feared, attempting to spread “the truth” among the blind, unwilling masses? Do you have any idea how condescending that sounds?
Yes, people get angry - disproportionately so - and defensive, because “some fundamental metaphysical axiom, in other words, some deeply held belief, is being challenged.” But they also get angry because no one likes a patronizing hypocrite.
Rare is the vagabonding traveler who has truly liberated him or herself from the shackles of the “conventional” system. Me, for example: I earn my living by writing for print and online, which means my income is tied to advertising sales - and thus, to the consumerist machine. This goes for Tim or Ian or any other writer on this site, too. You, I don’t know as much about - I know you’re an advocate for self-sufficiency, local agriculture, etc, etc - so I’d guess that if you haven’t already, you could in theory liberate yourself from the grocery store, at the very least. But you can’t grow plane tickets, or laptops, or internet connections - so you must be participating in some way in the “conventional” economy, right?
People get frustrated when they see themselves being condemned for living within a system that most “vagabonding travelers” benefit from, too - the difference being that vagabonds take the benefits without (yes, I’m going there) the responsibility. I don’t mean the “responsibility” to get a “real” job, contribute to society, blah blah blah. I mean the moral responsibility - taking responsibility for the state of our planet. Just as vagabonding travelers haven’t truly liberated themselves from the “system”, they haven’t liberated themselves from its costs, either. In fact, many of them do more harm than those sad, cubicle-dwelling worms who just can’t see the truth.
Take my friends: they work dull 9-5 cubicle jobs. They also bring their own re-usable shopping bags to the grocery store, use public transit, adopt kittens from the SPCA, play ultimate frisbee (a low-impact sport if ever there was one), and - wait for it - haven’t set foot on a plane in years.
Can we “vagabonding travelers” really say, for sure, that their negative impact on the earth is higher than our own?
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Thanks for this article. What I really appreciate about it is the way in which you picked up on a hot topic in the Matador community– the responses to Tim’s piece–and took the conversation a step further. That’s what Matador’s all about.
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Eva! It’s great to have you kick off the discussion in the morning
Here’s my take: you seem to have an issue with the “broad brush” approach to painting a clear line between pure vagabonds and mindless consumerists “in the system.” But I take Josh’s argument as outlining opposite ends of the spectrum to appreciate what is the primary world view that serves to motivate each groups’ actions.
The worldview of a perfect vagabond (to which there are none) is that life is primarily about enjoying the here and the now.
The worldview of the perfect consumer (also to which there are none…okay maybe Paris Hilton) is that life is about not being content with reality, and instead finding distraction from what is “outside” themselves.
Every person alive is struggling with these two opposites. And so when someone like Tim writes a piece on free travel, it stirs emotion that many people have turned their backs on, in favour of the conventional path of success. For some, this manifests as anger, others jealousy.
Why? Because it strikes at the heart of their world view, no matter how deeply (or shallowly) they’ve invested themselves in it.
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I usually read these articles pretty early in the day…I never realized that Tim got attacked for his article. Weird.
Very interesting topic. I think traveling–particularly the deep, slow, spiritual kind–is an important component to developing highly effective members of society.
But I have to agree with Eva. People get pissed any time someone implies that they–and the way they live their life–is incredibly flawed.
I don’t quite understand this “living in the present” thing. I mean, I do, but we regularly enjoy the fruits (no pun intended) of people who look towards the future. I enjoy planting seed in my garden, but I only sow them on the presumption of “future happiness”…in the form of cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce later in the season.
Down the road from me, a farmer sows acres of corn and soy beans, thinks Iraq is full of them A-rabs who committed 9-11, and has never left the state (has barely left the farm)…but at the end of the day, I (and my family) need his corn and eggs (mmm…delicious eggs) more than he needs my intellectual insight.
Are you perhaps saying that the government needs to subsidize vagabonds, like other kinds of research and academia? You know, hand out 1,000 bucks to guys like Tim (or myself…hint hint, big brother) to wander around the world and ponder the nature of existence? Maybe they can simply subsidize copies of the Tao Te Ching and save the airfare?
I guess what can be frustrating is trying to understand to whom these “vagabonders” have higher responsibility–besides themselves.
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so thoughtful and deep article! Thank you for it!
Behind always trying to be responsible, achieve a status and a place so that others think of us that we succeeded, we often miss the beauty of life. If one lives enterily by notions of business, more business and even more business, he or she risks missing what life is about all together. On the other hand, as our society progresses at this moment fewer and fewer people are able to realize their potential beyond the imposed rules of success. That’s why all those who want more freedom and see life from another perspective often start travelling, likewise physically as spiritually.
Frankly, I am really surprised to learn that Tim was attacked for his article. Sometimes when our inner self shows that we want a different life we become angry with all those who actually dare to have this different life.↵ -
Everyone’s comments are so thoughtful! Thank you!
Probably I should take some time to think about and clarify some thing (meaning not in this comment). A couple ideas that Eva brings up I will have to look at for a while and may inspire a whole article - she is so right on!
But I will say three things now:
(1) To quote a Zen Master’s death poem: “I have uttered nonsense, from the bathtub to the bathtub.” Meaning, the bathtub the infant was washed in, and the bathtub for bathing the corpse before cremation. In other words, all his teachings in Zen, in fact everything in his life, was nonsense. This is also true for me (at least so far!).
(2) To the charge of hypocrite, I plead “no contest.”
(3) If anyone has felt hurt, attacked, stigmatized, patronized, or any other kind of bad juju coming from me, I apologize, and I take it back.
JK
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Y’all will like this…..
When some people realize “the inherent emptiness in the conventional notion of success,” they stew for a while and write an essay about it.
Some folks just flip the hell out:
http://www.break.com/index/office-worker-goes-absolutely-insane.html
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Nice video.
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I’m so sorry you guys had to see that video. Looks like I have to go bail Dad out again.
Shoot. ANOTHER company picnic we’re going to miss this year…
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Josh,
You make good points. When someone writes a thoughtful article it behooves us to take a few moments to figure out what they are attempting to say. Then, often, we find many areas to agree upon. Both your article and Tim’s are quite timely.
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Wow, I really wrote a novel before, didn’t I?
Josh, Thanks for checking back in so soon, and I look forward to seeing your response once your mulling is done!
I didn’t feel at all “hurt, attacked, stigmatized, patronized, or any other kind of bad juju” from your article - I hope you didn’t either from my response.
(I meant “patronizing hypocrite” in the nicest possible way…)
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I finished reading Tim’s article before starting into this, and I’d like to add something from the late Paul Sills, the original director of The Second City Theater, who passed away Monday. He was speaking on why people have such difficulty opening up and producing something spontaneous from their artistic center:
“People suffer from fantastic restrictions on their ability to affect. They’re graded, stacked in categories of excellence, measured against all kinds of nonsensical standards…. The confirmation of their own existence must come to people or they find it in negative ways such as delinquency or apathy or reactionary behavior, the shrinking of the person from the common good, cynicism, denial, and so on.â€
I responded to Tim’s original article with this thought in mind, but I think it’s very appropriate to what you refer to, Josh. How does one find the “confirmation of their own existence” unless they shed the “nonsensical standards?” Finding your own measure of success in life is significantly different than giving up any constructive approach. For people brainwashed into thinking there’s only one way, they both look the same. But these are the same people who’re reading self-help books that follow this kind of trend:
“How to Juggle Work and Family”
“Mastering the 28-Hour Day”
“Demanding Only the Best”
“Finding Your Key to De-Stress”
“Collapse: What to Do When None of It Makes Sense Anymore”
“Recovering from Post-Traumatic Work Syndrome”
“Back on the Horse - Slowly, this Time”
“What I Would Do Differently - Tales from Someone Who’s Been There”
“Getting Back into the Rat Race”
“Charging Back up the Hill of Success”
(Repeat as necessary)None of these books are real, but they may as well be.
Well done, Josh. Keep the faith.
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Hi Josh, I loved your article, and loved the Alan Watts video clip. Thanks.
I enjoyed what you said about the illusion of success and the illusion of progress. With regards to the latter, you said
“Even so, a belief held very deeply by most folks is that we are now better off than ever before in human history. But considering the above, I’m not sure about this.”
The notion of progress is so deeply ingrained in our culture, it was down right refreshing to hear you challenge it. (It was like Dorothy being told not to look at the man behind the curtain.) I wonder if the belief in progress lulls us into a sense of sleepy complacency by suggesting that things are better now than they were, and by promising an ever better future. I think the belief in progress is like a train with considerable momentum that pulls us out of the here and now.
Thanks for writing such a thoughtful piece.
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Daniel has articulated something I’ve tried to say better than I could: “finding our own measures of success.”
This, I think, is a supremely important thing for a person to do. If there’s any “goal” to my writing, it’s to shove and poke and meddle around with folks’ thinking such that they’ll question their assumptions about things like “responsibility,” and “progress,” and “purpose,” and other such abstractions.
I hope that my poking and meddling might dislodge some conventional ideas, that quite prove to be harmful, absurd, etc.
And the outcome of this would be, once old, dysfunctional, inhibiting notions are cleared out of the way, that a space opens up in which people are free to create for themselves what things like “success” and “progress” mean, and then apply themselves to expressing these virtues in their own personal way.
I sort of have a faith that if the majority of people in our society did this, or even a sizable minority, then many of our ecological and social ills would be cleared up very quickly.
It would be a giant step towards getting over our collective bullshit.
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Josh, Nice article. Thanks for your expanded insights into these vagabonding adventures.
One thing that struck me, and may be able to address Eva’s comments a bit are what josh is pointing at a bit. This is that the vagabond traveler is on the path; on a path of self discovery, as well as discovery of her world (which is ultimately not separate from the self). Now, the person working their way up the conventional latter is also on a path of self discovery, as this is what life is all about. For many of these people, they do take opportunities to look deeply into the questions of the soul, stop to smell the flowers, and take moments (even sitting at their business desk) to return to the present moment and notice the life flowing through their blood.
It is true that either path can, and does, lead to certain individuals making amazing personal strides that lead to deep self-discovery and fulfillment, but what Josh and Tim are pointing at is that being on the road, letting the direction of the wind and random happenings inform your choices, you are more likely to be given the opportunity to look at the ego arising, to see your vulnerabilities, and your expectations come to the for-front. This gives the vagabond traveler many opportunites everyday to surrender to what is (I am sleeping under a tree, rather than in the room; I am standing for this five-hour bus ride; I am stranded here in rural cambodia and no one seems to understand that I need to get to the border).
As a traveler (or as someone who lives in community) you never have a lack of material with which to grow. You constantly have that mirror held up in front of your face, and (if you are going to be a successful vagabond) you need to be able to relax, and let go. This is transformation. This is what life is about.
(Once again, a conscious full-time worker can also succeed down this very path, but it isn’t as forced upon you everyday, because there are predictable patterns and regular schedules).
Will this path take you to complete release of ego and relinquishment of suffering? Who knows, but I personally believe (sorry, I got that line from miss teen s. carolina) that somewhere along the path the vagabond learns enough about her world and herself to realize that she no longer needs to travel. She find a niche that creates an integrally satisfying existence for herself. She not only continues to nourish her spiritual, emotional, intellectual and social being, but starts to interact with the world in the same way. She starts to live in a way that nourishes and revers all life. Practices deep simplicity, compassion, and patience towards all around her. She finds a right livelihood that not only supports her, but helps to regenerate the natural world as well. She eats well, works hard, plays hard and prays hard. Her new world view supports the spiral of growth of all around her including, and finds everything it needs in the simplicity of its home.
(Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a pre-given end result. This is a path of strong will and determination, but the vagabonds travails allow the fodder and stage for this to play out.)
This is a path (one of many), and it is beautiful. I wish it on more people and hope that while you are traveling you lose your wallet, go on unexpected (internal and external) adventures, and when the whole thing wraps up you find that your wallet was with you all along. Don’t throw it away, but no need to put it on the alter.
Live well! Love the day.
Christian Shearer↵ -
Thank God for people like Christian, who so ably express with clarity and depth what I can only attempt!
I’d like to echo some of what Christian points up, with slight addendum…
At some point, we realize the even this idea of being on a path to enlightenment is itself an illusion.
In his wonderful book, What Makes You Not a Buddhist, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse indicates that even the principles of Buddhism simply comprise a method - in other words they are an abstraction, and are therefore just as illusory as the conventional notions of success that we have been criticizing.
Thus, for enlightenment to be realized, even the path to enlightenment itself must be abandoned. Khyentse writes that all phenomena, including enlightenment, “are like a dream and an illusion.” Therefore, he concludes, “Ultimately, one must abandon the path to enlightenment. If you still define yourself as a Buddhist, you are not a buddha yet.”
Thus the vagabond traveler finds herself in as much of a metaphysical knot as the pursuant of conventional success! And the only way out of this impossible bind is the realization that you are one with everything that is.
And since you are co-extensive with the entire Universe and God and Everything, you have no use at all for a path to anywhere, even a path to enlightenment, let alone any such dualistic concept as enlightenment/non-enlightenment.
And with that realization, it’s natural and spontaneous to give up any pursuit - whether your path is that of the vagabond traveler or the conventional rat-racer. It turns out these two seemingly different paths were the same path all along!
And then we arrive at Christian’s conclusion that even the need for vagabond travel is itself unnecessary.
A glance back at the Tao Te Ching reveals that:
If a country is governed wisely,
its inhabitants will be content.
They enjoy the labor of their hands
and don’t waste time inventing
labor-saving machines.
Since they dearly love their homes,
they aren’t interested in travel.
There may be a few wagons and boats,
but these don’t go anywhere.
There may be an arsenal of weapons,
but nobody ever uses them.
People enjoy their food,
take pleasure in being with their families,
spend weekends working in their gardens,
delight in the doings of the neighborhood.
And even though the next country is so close
that people can hear its roosters crowing and its dogs barking,
they are content to die of old age
without ever having gone to see it.(chapter 80)
Fascinating!
Who’s mind is blown by that?
Mine is!
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I love all this stuff! And if you look through it, there’s one word that keeps popping up: FAITH.
I’m not talking about faith in God per se, but faith at being able to get around the corner to that light on the other side. Many people believe in God, but as Edith Hamilton said, belief is passive: faith is active.
Eva hit on an interesting point, and I’ll add some poesy to it: What will the shape of your pilgrimage be?
Some of the things that have come up in Josh’s and Tim’s dialogues have given me goosebumps. Josh, Christian, Katya, Eva and everyone else - thank you all for these beautiful insights. Man, I love this site…
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josh, here are a few reflections on your article, and tim’s…
tim rattles off a nice enough list of what we “need”– such as clean air & water, companionship, exercise, self-esteem– and observes that these things are free. perhaps more precise to say you can’t obtain these things through individually-mediated market transactions. that they are economically free does not mean they effortlessly available. that people lack self-esteem is not, i suspect, a tragedy that intellect or abstinence from [over-]consumption can quickly and/or universally resolve. for me and at least a few others :), getting to know, honor, and Love oneself through systematic spiritual practice bolstered by steady efforts in cultivating healthy relationships with the mundane, the material, the interpersonal (and the interspecies) may be indicated. and it may take months, years, … lifetimes?
many people need deep healing. most people need [a] culture [quite different from the toxic mimic that dominates mass media, a culture which weaves the individual into a nourishing group consciousness through so much more than economic transactions]. that we rarely articulate these needs or what they– and the paths to them– might feel like plays into the fact that, in our unspoken pre/un/sub[?] -conscious grief, we so easily play into relating to ourselves, each other, and travel through paradigms of consumption. so sad.
you and tim, though, both know damn well, from experience backed up by your SuperPower intellects (and/or vice versa), that there are Other ways of being and that they ARE readily accessible (previous paragraphs notwithstanding) whenever we in our heart of hearts desire them. and therein lies the rub!, that we’ve grown so cozy with pain, fear, and the neurotic means by which we numb ourselves, that we have our hands full of that which deprives us the ecstasy of empty-handed open-hearted fully-inhabited experience.
my thought, or one of them, is that it’s not easy for folks to make the transition[s]– cognitive, experiential– that shift them from grasping-there-is-not-enough-i-am-separate thinking to i-am-complete-we-are-one-contentment. so while your article is beautifully done, shed light intellectual, humorous, and operational! on me, i can also see that some people will have that strong emotional reaction that, as you point out, is a Good Opportunity for examining how the mind works.
and some people aren’t gonna do that. how do we connect to them?
[... perhaps (current experiments
through tango and bound lotus kriya. how compelling it is to let go of Thinking which binds to embrace a partner. to let go of posture that is the embodiment of fear for posture that clears the body's record of past experience and opens it to the new. other means must be countless. music? hiking? singing? visual arts? ...]==
i love your language. busy-ness, enough, tao te jing
this is way too long already– my first post EVER– and i didn’t even touch on responsibility, use of the word “new”, and the inclination to travel at all as being, for some folks, a warning flag. you observe that if you can’t be happy now, you can’t be happy. likewise, if you can’t be happy here, quite possibly you can’t be happy…
love & peace & happy travels, wherever they may be,
susan↵ -
Josh has struck a chord that is incoherent with the “standard view” of industrial development and consumerist progress, what I call developmentality.
This developmentality remains seemingly invincible because the society’s belief that material prosperity equals happiness remains unaltered. The biggest hurdle toward sustainability is the standard social mindset – developmentality – that accepts quantitative growth as the inevitable means to happiness. However, the very idea of a viable alternative to the current trend of development is apt to be rejected as a utopian dream: incredible, even bordering on insanity. As Peter Hay (2002: 282) puts it,
“The belief in the inevitability and desirability of [economic] growth is so deeply entrenched that insistence on the centrality of the goal of a steady-state within the green critique will consign environmental thought, in the eyes of John and Janet Citizen, to the land of the lunatic-fringe.”
To oppose the standard view, as Josh has articulated, is therefore far from easy, and likely to invite scorn and ridicule from development professionals, politicians and also the common man. Therefore I am not surprised to read those scornful attacks on Tim. The standard view is reinforced by mass media, literature, art, corporate science and the entire elitespeak. The whole cultural superstructure moulds the minds of citizens into accepting development as the only rational and desirable object of life, so that alternative modes of operation or social organiisation are simply not perceived or made permissible within existing ideology and practice.
Despite all contrary evidence, discrepancies and infirmities of the standard view, the rules of the game of development remain unaltered and govern the way the game is played, even when the players are conscious of them. Non-observance of the rules is not an option for anyone who participates in the game – the players, referees, or the spectators.
Nevertheless, individuals and small civil society organisations are expressing their dissatisfaction with the standard view, and some of them are trying to build an alternative lifestyle. We don’t know yet how long their model will take to be copied by how many others in how many places. But I, for one, am confident that the model is refining itself, based on mutual trust and accountability, on an understanding of inter-generational right to all natural and social goods, on communitarian ethos that prevents destruction of the commons. And this ethos must be based on the localism of indigenous people’s worldview. The task of the “vagabond traveller” is to spread this evangelist message, through his arduous, and largely lonely journey.
Of course “a hundred flowers [of viewpoints] will blossom” (as Mao Ze Dong said), and there will be frictions of worldviews, too, but let’s be careful to let such frictions generate more light than heat.↵ -
“A true traveler is always a vagabond, with the joys, temptations and sense of
adventure of the vagabond. Either travel is ‘vagabonding’ or it is no travel at
all. The essence of travel is to have no duties, no fixed hours, no mail, no
inquisitive neighbors, no receiving delegations, and no destination. A good
traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler
does not know where he came from.” - Lin Yutang 1895 -1976I wish I had written this. This and Basho’s travel writings have been my guides in all my travels. I suppose it also serves as a guide to living as there’s not much distinction between travel and life.
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Amen!
Unlike a lot of people vagabonding now, I started on the wrong side of the fence and spent 10 years working for big companies in a cubicle….bleh. I knew from the start that what I was doing wasn’t “natural” but didn’t quite know how to get away.
As mentioned, all my success at big projects as an engineer was only “rewarded” with MORE projects and responsibilities until I was working basically every weekend. The money I made was wasted and burned along the way on toys trying to not go insane. What a ridiculous concept!
Rolf Pott’s book Vagabonding turned on a gigantic light bulb above my head and it has been all downhill from there! I was even inspired enough to spit out StartBackpacking.com, in a small effort to make more people wake up and be happy before its too late.
Great article, and great stuff from the Tao te Ching…..bravo.
Cheers!
Greg↵ -
Very nice site, Greg! Thank you!
- JK
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Speaking of the Tao, check out this series of podcasts on the Tao from Alan Watts:
alanwattspodcast.com
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More wisdom on topic from HD Thoreau…
“I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops and offices and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways…By a seeming fate, commonly called ‘necessity,’ they are employed, as it says in an old book, ‘laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal’ It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before…”
And from Ed Abbey…
“As many have noted, the mass of men and women lead lives today of unquiet desperation. A frantic busyness (”business”) pervades our society wherever we look - in city and country, among young and old and middle-aged, married and unmarried, all races, classes, sexes, in work and play, in religion, the arts, the sciences, and perhaps most conspicuously in the self-conscious cult of meditation, retreat, withdrawal. The symptoms of universal unease and dis-ease are apparent on every side. We hear the demand by the conventional economists for increased ‘productivity,’ for example. Productivity of what? For whose benefit? To what end? By what means and at what cost? Those questions are not considered. We are belabored by the insistence on the part of our politicians, businessmen, and military leaders, and the claque of scriveners who serve them, that ‘growth’ and ‘power’ are intrinsic goods, of which we can never have enough, or even too much. As if gigantism were an end in itself…”
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Please permit me to respectfully disagree.
Travelling in this way, or desiring to, means simply recognizing the value of seeing other ways of life, and seeing life through lenses (as much as possible) used by other cultures, experiencing (as much as possible) their worldview.
Business as an end unto itself is pointless. Money for the sake only of money leads to all sorts of problems. But this doesn't make business evil or pointless, nor earning money. Nor does traveling on the cheap and in non-commercial ways require one to despise commerce or 'settled' living. Your (fairly extreme) views might be the reason people had such an irrationally negative reaction to Tim's article about traveling. They mistook the desire to travel for an implicit espousal of the views you've outlined here. I don't know whether Tim holds those views or not, but I don't, and I would agree with a great deal of what he said. I can't agree with much of what you said though.
Nonetheless, thanks for the dialog.
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opinions opinions. everyone has a right to there own.
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It's all told in toto farcical that I should airing across your scoop again Tim's today. I'm currently force the midst of plan the preference of, seal I build grad ground besides dry run on to motivate a works
in that myself, or obtain I buildup some connection put away to travel, asset myself, postulate an adventure, etc. That video was an accurate masterpiece. Cheers to you!↵ -
That was a rad article, I almost can't believe it, as just this morning, I made a post on my own blog talking about so much that you mention here! So much so, that I'm going to add a post above it now, linking everyone to this article, to help clarify just what i was trying to say!
Nice one, thanks!
Hazardous Pioneers dot blogspot dot com↵ -
And yepp, there it goes. You missed the point.
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This was an amazing article! It really spoke to me. Thank you for bringing up everything that I have been thinking about for a while. Thanks so much!
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Thank you Thank you Thank you for this article. This is the struggle I find myself in now…the “what will people think” if I drop most or all of the external trappings of so-called happiness for the chance at internal happiness. To travel, to explore, to see what’s out there….these are the things I crave. This does not mean my past years as an office worker dragged down by politics and personalities have been wasted. It taught me what I don’t want and to follow my inner aspirations vs societal norms.
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Thanks for a great article.
Questioning conventional “success” is always a wonderful thing to do. It lets us take the road less travelled. In my my 48 years of life following that question has taken me to a life in five countries so I think I qualify.
The great news is that we live in a time where science provides us with real answers about what success means. Just expand your time and space context to included the whole universe and it’s clear we live in an evolving universe that seems driven to become ever more complex and ever more (may I say) beautiful.
So the answer to the question of “success” is simply whether we are giving all that we have to develop. Because if we truly push our own boundaries then we also push the boundaries of what’s possible for the universe, as expressed in human form.WDYT?
Best…….
Mo in Berlin↵
