jayurbzz

Well there are a couple "don't stick your dick in crazy" bits (1 in particular that strikes a chord), but my favorite story off the top of my head is hitchhiking through France one summer afternoon a few years ago:

After waiting 5 hours in the hot sun in a very crappy place to look for a ride, a very sketchy dude picked me up. Wasn't long before he showed me his bag of hash for sale and offered me some, and when I denied he suddenly told me we were going to take a shortcut. After leaving the road and driving through some countryside for a bit, we get to a little village in the middle of I-have-no-idea-where. We stop for "a coffee" where my driver orders a beer and downs it. While I drink my coffee, he wanders off to make a phone call and when I get near to him he lowers his voice and speeds up in French (I speak French but nowhere near to a native level).

He gets off the phone, tells me we're going to "meet his friend." That I would "like his friend, his friend was special ... (special in French can mean special or crazy). We hop back in his car and drive down the block to a house that looks like a crackhead lives inside--two beaten up, broken down cars with a bunch of auto parts lying around, overgrown grass, a twisted mangy cat walking around--and suddenly a guy walks out that fits the crackhead stereotype--bulgy veins, muscular but thin, faded tattoos, grungy face... That's about when I'm like "oh shit." He says the cops are on the way, so my driver makes a face and we book it out of there.

That was reassuring, until he's suddenly driving super fast on roads through a bunch of corn fields making random turns here and there, stopping only to ask a prostitute "how much?" before driving through a small village where he gets another phone call. He speeds up his French and lowers his voice again and as we start to drive through a one-lane, shady forest road he gets off the phone and asks me what the best strains of marijuana were in California. I tell him some as we get deeper and deeper into the forest, wondering if this was straight out of a murderous hitchhiking film...

But sure enough, my mind got the best of me and suddenly we emerge out of the forest and right at the pay station at the highway I had been on before. We had taken a shortcut. He gives me a hug goodbye and says "may we meet again, the Earth is small." And that was that.

I think we're sitting too close to the screen.

1: Study abroad! If you have the chance, DO IT! I did it twice during uni--a year in France, a semester in Mexico. Breaks the ice and even made the water, in a sense. I never decided to commit to traveling, it committed to me--the only thing I ever committed to was never letting myself get stagnant. I got a tattoo on my forearm to remind myself that no matter what happens, your tree of life continues to grow.

2: Only way to overcome fears is to jump in. I'm in India for the first time and even though I've traveled through developing/busy countries before, the media hype about rapes and literature about bad shit going on still got to my head before arriving. I prepared (ironically) by reading more--it only made things worse which made it that much more fulfilling when I realized how silly the fear was. As far as fear of money goes, part of removing this is remembering that coming from my socioeconomic class (I'm white, middle class suburban), is that my parents would never EVER let me starve. That was kind of a curse to me for a while because I WANTED to have nothing to do with that part of society, the blatant consumerism and wealth and so on and so forth. My parents pay me for some of their web site maintenance now, but before that was happening I would literally play my accordion on the street for money to eat (i.e. drink beer). Once I learned how to hitchhike and street perform and get over my ego, I realized I would never truly starve or be lacking shelter--the world is a loving place for someone that isn't trying to cause any problems.

3: Spiritually reward is a much different ballgame than emotional rewarding. Feeling a surge of joy rush through me is emotionally rewarding, as is wanting to cry at experiencing something that brings on sadness. Feeling the RAW emotion is rewarding because then I know it's not being repressed. I often feel an emotional reaction when I see/hear of people helping each other in some sort of communal way. Not sure why, but in movies about revolts and revolutions I always tear up when they all cheer in unison with a common goal--I feel community is inherent in human beings and I think we miss a lot of this in today's world always being taught to look out for number one and our own interests.

Spiritually rewarding, however, has been finding myself, day after day, excited. There's nothing more rewarding than walking down the street after a PERFECT afternoon full of synchronicities that succeeded a magical morning full of serendipity, which of course followed an evening full of inspiration, and you know another evening is going to pass full of more wonder... What I mean is once your life is in sync with yourself, once you're in "the vortex" or the singularity of your being, everything is beautiful and only gets better. Sure, meditation and yoga and stuff help with the awareness and appreciation of these things, but it's always there, always around you. Terence McKenna's Time Wave Zero theory said that we're approaching the age of novelty, where nothing is ever habitual anymore and everything around us is always novel.

I don't know if that theory is right or not because I think we can find it in every moment, anyway, if that makes sense. This might be a little more philosophical than you were asking for, but that's my answer.

4: I have no real choice at the moment. Everything I've developed as an adult has been with vagabond-ism in mind (even subconsciously). I've tried signing leases on apartments but I disappear after 2 months (thanks Craigslist for finding me someone to take over). I've tried working jobs but they drive me nuts, working on someone else's time and for a cause that I don't believe in. My goals for the future are to find some sort of income that also works as funding for my projects, so in a non-profit sort of way (see OP EDIT 1). I'd like to help out people in the world that not only need the help but DESERVE the help. Right now I can make videos to help them, so that's what I'm doing. We'll see where that goes and what it turns into.

5: It was hard at first, it's never hard anymore. Friends and family will always be there (for the most part, at least). It was hard to leave girlfriends behind back when I tried the monogamy thing, but lately it's actually exciting to leave new friends and lovers behind because I know that the ties will only be stronger when I return. Coming home to see my mom is one of my favorite past-times now, because we always have so much more to talk about.

EDIT: #3

Damn good questions. A year and a month ago, New Years came and I asked myself what the fuck I was doing with myself. Here I was, smart and creative, talented and diverse, yet doing NOTHING for the world nor even for myself. I was just floating through, finding just enough money to get by to work on some writing project here or there and keep playing music. I bought myself a GoPro to start documenting my travels in first person. I apparently was doing something right, because within 10 months I raised enough money for a trip to Asia, a DSLR camera + extra equipment, and started a new YouTube channel with this idea of bettering the world in mind.

I have only recently started thinking about the future because it was never until recently that I ever gave a fuck about it--I was thrilled with life on the move, owning little, relying on experience and myself to get by. But lately, I'm feeling more and more ready to have a cave to call my own so I can write, work on projects, etc. As an example, I'm interested in starting donation/contribution-based businesses that can not only fund my projects (which always have intention to give back to the world), but to also help out the communities I connect with on the road. This fundraiser, for instance, helps out an orphanage and two artists up in Nepal. It's pretty small-scale, but it works for all 3 parties involved (producer, me, consumer) and there's no real shadiness involved in the business/profit aspect.

I have no savings, and live my life with prevention in mind, so if I get sick I'll figure it out when it happens (luckily, most places in the world have much cheaper health care than the country I call home...)

As far as relationships go, they have never been healthier for me. There is plenty of time for love (I always stay in a place at least a month so I can get grounded), and I never omit any facts: I have special people everywhere, I will be leaving soon, etc. When you decide you want to live in love, love finds you. Understanding finds you and those you surround yourself with when truth becomes the main factor.

I remember a few years ago in Bulgaria. I went originally to see a lovely lady I had met at a Rainbow Gathering. Sure enough, I fall in love with my couchsurfing host as I'm staying there (a week turned into a month). I didn't know what to do--in the past, I would have hidden it from both of them and kept secrets. Instead I came upfront to them both, explained what was going on inside me, and BOOM--they were both super cool about it. They became friends (shout-out to /r/polyamory)...

Stuff like this happens a lot to me, now. Thankfully with Facebook and Skype it's not so easy to drift away into nothingness (though it is indeed possible), but you can keep up with one another's lives indirectly through photos and links and what-not. I would say the strongest relationships I have are with people I only see once every few years (or have even only met once). It's a beautiful thing.

When I was younger I would gobble up whatever you gave me. Probably because I wasn't so happy. Nowadays all I can really handle is the green stuff.