BRAD’S GOODBYE

This may be the last post on this blog.

In a few hours, I will be leaving the United States for the Far East.  I go now to adventure in ways far more exotic than anything seen on this blog so far, in a place where the landscape and the culture could not have more character and interest.  It is possible that these adventures abroad, like the ones before them, won’t get a treatment in writing.

I have done a poor job of cataloging the adventures of my life over the past few years — I have omitted many and important parts of these stories and left others out entirely.

I don’t believe one person can change another.  All I have seen has directed me to think that when a person decides to change on the inside, they may assign it to inspiration from a book, movie, personal friend or famous figure, or something else.  But the change is always from the inside out, and never really from the outside in, like an egg that is merely waiting for the right temperature to hatch, revealing what was inside all along.

So I’m not writing this post, indeed, I didn’t write the blog, because I really thought I could change people or inspire people.  It was more for my own satisfaction when looking back, and, if I’m honest, to attract girls

But the things I’ve come to believe have, throughout these adventures, been tested and proved a hundred times over, maybe more.  I leave them here as the conclusions of a young man who has just soared from his zero point (working as a parking ticket writer in Knoxville, TN) to his highest peak yet, though I’m sure the summit is so far off I can’t even see it yet.

1.  The purpose of life is to feel alive.  Whether this is in sipping hot Pu-erh tea in a steaming bathtub with a hot washcloth over your forehead or whether it is jumping 50 feet from a cliff is up to you — but for me, it’s both.  Simple pleasures like petting my cat and listening to electronic music blaring from my speaker system while I shower are as close to bliss for me as clipping the last bolt on a lead rock climb I’ve never tried before, only to look back and see a wide sky above all the trees.  Sometimes it has been a long conversation with a true friend, and sometimes it is lying in a claustrophobic cave passage or off-trailing it for 10+ hours, jumping out of a plane, skiing behind a boat, or doing a backflip at a nightclub.

This implies, if accepted, that every day is a day to do something deliberate to feel alive.  A day in which even a small time is not sacrificed to honor this truth is a day not worth living; it will be forgotten.  It is easy to do daily something you’ve never done before.  Far better advice to not go even a week without doing something that makes you feel excited, free, and sublime.

2.  Don’t ever stop exploring, stop learning, stop challenging yourself.  Take a moment to enjoy each triumph and move on.  Never, ever stop.  If there’s something you want to do, start planning.  It is a person lacking wisdom who waits and hopes for what they want to occur.

To settle down is to resist change, and to resist change is to stand braced in the surf as wave after wave of unhappiness breaks over you.  It’s a common disease of the mind to think that securing one’s life into fixed grooves is desirable.  Many a person has thought that once they owned a home, married a stable partner, bought health insurance and had secure employment, they would have “arrived.”  But there is no arrival in this life and no stability to be had where human beings are involved.  Hell, there’s no stability where the forces of nature are involved  A study of the anecdotes of everyone you know will reveal as much.  When they realize the hardships of the woods were better than a roof and fireside when you can only look out the window, an emotional death awaits.  Shiny diamond engagement rings, shiny SUVs with hefty payments, and the noble-sounding but disastrous desire to “live for others” are all purveyors to ruin and bait inside a cage.  People will argue that “you can still be adventurous and *insert all those things*” but I’m speaking about “I did that when I was younger” syndrome (precursor to full-blown “I don’t do fun things anymore” disease).  Fun is going off the tracks, and the deeper you cut the ruts of your life the harder it is to get out of them.  Period.

3.  A person’s happiness and maybe even their sanity can be easily measured.  The degree to which one sees reality and accepts it, for good or bad, is the degree of one’s happiness.  To see reality and to go on believing that it is otherwise is the path of unhappiness.  Logic, discernment; to wit, fact-finding and fact-facing are the most critical skills the brain is capable of and often the most neglected, for none of us receive formal training where matters of our personal lives are concerned.  Human beings would more readily accept that the universe is ruled by an invisible cosmic elephant with 6 arms than believe that there is nothing after death, would rather believe that bread transmutes into flesh than consider that maybe, MAYBE the billions of tons of carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere just MIGHT actually affect SOMETHING.  I have been stunned a thousand times over at my generation following the traditions and advice of the former generations which destroyed the housing market, job market, etc. etc.  There are a thousand miseries for one who can’t dodge the traps another has just fallen into (or more commonly, traps they’ve fallen into before, like controlling relationships or substance habits); believe me, I’ve walked right into the problems I’ve seen my friends face.  Logic would have led me to find some UT Journalism graduates and consult them about their job prospects BEFORE I chose that as a major, but I had not learned enough of basic logical synthesis yet.  To think before acting is an achievement I continue to work at, as easy as it sounds, there is often alot to consider about our actions.  To listen to your friends when they all tell you your girlfriend is a bad idea, rather than hold on until the bitter end when hearts get broken is a rare achievement indeed, because the mouse can’t see the maze layout, but the researcher can.  Either emotions overrule logic, or logic overrules emotions in any individual.  If you have any doubt as to which one is more desirable, consider that emotions have never built a suspension bridge, kept a steady hand at surgery, or even won a fight, verbal or physical, and they intrinsically interfere with your safety anytime it’s in question (i.e. cliff jumping and rock climbing).  Fear makes what you fear more likely to happen.  Emotions are, essentially, the weakness in us coming out when we aren’t strong enough to act deliberately based on what’s true and right.  I’m not being sexist here, I know plenty of women who don’t subscribe to the whole “women are born more emotional” thing.  There are as many of each sex in my experience who can keep a cool hand when to fail to would be disastrous.  The girlfriend I’m leaving behind is one of these.  And therein lies another another recommendation of fact-finding and fact-facing.  Despite what I thought when I was younger, I now see that whether I’m in a relationship or not, no matter how much I’m in love with a particular girl, I still desire to get close to new and intriguing women who come my way.  I don’t try to pretend reality is different.  That’s the truth of how I feel and feel right feeling (follow that ←-?).  So, even though it’s a rare thing, I got into an open relationship.  Most honest, loving, drama-free, functional relationship I’ve ever been in.  I would never cheat, because I’m responsible.  I don’t kid myself about what I want.  If you’re honest about it, nobody gets hurt.

It’s not always easy to accept what you really want and to seek it out, but it is really the only way to be happy.  You can’t pretend it isn’t what it is.  Some things that happen in life can’t be changed, but in these cases, you can always rise to meet them and “see with eyes unclouded.”

4.  Many people will be glad to follow the path that is set before them as children.  The son of a medical person might be happy to, with certain parental approval, pursue a course in some branch of medicine with his parent’s financial help.  I dated a girl once whose family had more than 20 horses.  Growing up in this she had become an expert on horse training and, naturally, wanted to start a horse training business.  And why not?  She’d be good at it and would enjoy it.  Who else would have the resources of land, barns, round-pens and the like anyhow?  I have seen, time and again, how the combination of family connections and young experience have provided a clear and acceptable path for friend after friend.  Steve Irwin’s family were zookeepers.  Bear Grylls’ dad took him climbing at a very young age.  George W. Bush’s dad was a president.  The anecdotes are endless.  Many a high school retail worker has gotten into management with that company when the degree didn’t pay off.  I see nothing wrong with any of this.  It’s no surprise that alot of the great adventurers and climbers out there started doing it when they were barely old enough to spell.  Who knows, I could be the best bobsledder in the world, but being as I’ve never been exposed to bobsledding or given the chance to try, we’ll never know.  (I’m serious, I really think I am)  I’m only making the point that it is who we know, how we were raised, where we were raised, etc. that determine our futures, especially in America, where the “who-you-know” system does a terrible job of actually placing individuals where they will do the most good for everyone.

But I think that we humans yearn for “character creation,” a process that has sold video games like World of Warcraft, the Elder Scrolls series, and numerous other RPGs, not to mention every pen-and-paper RPG in existence and a considerable number of other products.  Some people pay alot of money at salons, tattoo parlours, and clothing/shoe stores to “create” themselves.  Interior decorating, the products you buy, the car/bike you drive, these can all be sold, in part, because of what you think that purchase says about you.  Don’t get me started on the oh-so fashionable outdoor gear that’s as often as not useless in a technical sense.

Anyway, it is human to want some say in our fortunes, to determine our own destinies.  So much in the way of our image, we crave to change.  But the people are fewer who strive to change their inner character, their greatest and most entrenched weaknesses, their real destiny.

I go now to the next step on my journey, of challenging my fate, of defying the path that would have been easy, of making my own future for myself, of becoming what I wish to be.  Whether I succeed at all or make more money or have more vacation time than someone else is irrelevant.  Self-esteem and real emotional security cannot be had in competing with others or being compared to them — it comes in the certainty that I have written my own story, without the fear that would otherwise drive me to miss out on the opportunities of the one lifetime I have on earth to do as I wish and to be as I wish.

I didn’t ask to come into this world, but I’m here.  I understand the world owes me nothing, but you know what?  Since I’m not having kids, I don’t owe the world anything either.  I’ll tell you what I want:  I want it all.  I want to hike Huashan and surf in Australia and Taiwan.  I want to sit in a hot spring with monkeys.  I want plates of steaming pork and leek dumplings.  I want to sip hot tea and Hana Awaka, jump off seaside cliffs, and watch the sunset (maybe in the same day).  I want to jump out of planes and sleep on trains and stay in a Japanese ryokan.  I want to dance in clubs, crawl through caves, scuba dive, and speak another language.  I want to read Tang poetry in traditional characters, I want to meet the widest diversity of people I can imagine.  I want to date girls who are tall and short, artsy and science-y; white, black, Asian; I want to climb more cliffs and paddle more seas, even eat basashi again (raw horse).  I want to camp on snow-covered ridges and mountain bike, get massages, play video games, play mahjong and Wei Chi and lose money at it, and I want to do more yoga and tai chi.  Bruce Lee said if can’t find happiness where you sit, you’ll never find it.  My record of not letting life pass me by, of enjoying Knoxville to the fullest, speaks for itself.  And now, it’s time to raise the game.

I believe wisdom comes only through experience, so ultimate wisdom requires the ultimate array of experience.  I want to ride this wave until I get a face full of sand, because you only get one chance.  In short, I want the ultimate ride.

Is there more to life than just what people think of us? I SAY THERE IS!  We are part of nature, our real higher power, which sustains our lives and gives us all the pleasures we are capable of experiencing, from fresh air to the beauty of swimming among coral reefs.  To love nature, to experience it, to see its vast diversity and momentarily enjoy as many of its wide array of delights as possible is a task worth living for.  To know, to appreciate, to understand, to experience the real force that is greater and better than us is a path that’s completely free and always available.  I have seen, too, again and again, outdoor adventure specifically used as a tool merely to engage in social interaction, the whole goal of which is acceptance and love from other people.  This is using something higher to achieve something lower, like eating ice cream with an iPhone 4 instead of a spoon.    If we waste all our time trying to climb rungs in manmade society and neglect to find a place of comfort in the order of nature, are we striving for more, or settling for less?

5.  Lastly, I must share the personal truth that, much as we would like to think otherwise, there is far too little love in this world.  If my record is closed with alot of you, I hope I contributed some love to your life.  I must thank my friends and the few lovers to which the noun can be said to apply, for making these years special on the human-scale.  I have been lucky, and I know I’ve been lucky, to find so many individuals capable of accepting and loving me, or anyone else for that matter.  Surveying 10 random Americans I have run across and know, the average emotional health level does not inspire confidence.  There are so many seeking their own self-worth at all cost, whose acts done in the name of love are really an assault on it, an attempt to act a certain way and so steal security from someone else’s opinion of them, that I must indeed be grateful for those who have come in my path and been capable of real interest in another.  To love is to have someone else’s best interest at heart, and more especially when it runs counter to our own.  Indeed, some of the people who claim to “love” most purely and most fiercely, are really the most selfish and self-centered in the lot, who hold onto people like life preservers, because they themselves never learned to swim.

I have found, through years of meeting and sorting people out, a core group of friends here, before whom I need to hide nothing and whose interest in my well-being is beyond question.  These people know who they are, and I love every one of you.

As those of you who know me so well can imagine, striking off into this great new adventure, this long journey into the unknown — to a new culture, a new land, a new language, new jobs, a new group of friends I will build from scratch, a new opportunity for romance, new outdoor opportunities, new foods, a new set of challenges I will take pleasure in cutting through, even a new name and a new start — is about the most exciting thing that could happen to me.  I shall take a good deal of lessons with me, and learn those that must come next.

It’s off to mountain peaks higher than any in the Smokies, to beaches with crystal waters and 6 foot waves, to new rock walls, new caves, new rivers, and new jungles, it’s off to the world’s most beautiful women for me.

Even if the blog ends, be certain my Life of Adventure continues.

Whether near or far, my dear friends and long-suffering readers, believe me to be –

Very sincerely yours,
Brad Williams
The Party Pterodactyl
CAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW!!!!