on a side note do you have a general comments area? i looked but couldnt find one, and i’m enjoying our chat but worrying about filling up your american war article with my toot.

i realised on reading your last missive that we look on things differently in a fundamental way. this in no way implies that either of us is wrong… the world would be very sad if we all thought the same.

i dislike change. i am in no way afraid of it, and fully understand that it is inevitable. by i will not change with it. the world and its changes can consider me the infinite lever, and my family and freinds are the solid place to stand.

my responce to change has always been to play my strentghs, to dig in and fortify, to hold the line, no matter how many zulu’s there may be..

( forgive me that, i could not resist the pun)

it seems to me, and this is in no way a criticism, that this travel of yours is sort of like a big mirror, in which you look at both the world and your selves, and by doing so can see if maybe you need a new suit, or just a new tie and hair cut, or if in fact you need to metaphorically get down the down the gym and spa and have a full makeover.

i liked your bee hive analogy…. i suppose i didnt dodge it… i caught it and held it and i’m hoping to god it really is bees not wasps because i really could do with there being honey at the end.

i don’t own my house, but i understand the ties that bind me anyway. i am working a job i dont like, to buy sh*t i don’t need. i’m not going to be a film star or rich, and i am angry about that. but there is no club to go to.

when it comes right down to it i took the decsision to hold on, even when there is nothing left except the will that says to me hold on.

i hope in honesty, that both our courses of actions turn out to be right.

good luck in your continueing adventures… don’t feel you have to post back instantly… i check your website often, so i’l be around when you post next.

( on a personal note, kudos on being able to get comments on uncertainty theory in the same paragraph as a Neitzche quote. if i was a cat in a box, i’d even more inpressed than i am.)

CESCA

i won’t dance, don’t ask me…..

(do you see what i did there?)

on a side note do you have a general comments area? i looked but couldnt find one, and i’m enjoying our chat but worrying about filling up your american war article with my toot.

i realised on reading your last missive that we look on things differently in a fundamental way. this in no way implies that either of us is wrong… the world would be very sad if we all thought the same.

i dislike change. i am in no way afraid of it, and fully understand that it is inevitable. by i will not change with it. the world and its changes can consider me the infinite lever, and my family and freinds are the solid place to stand.

my responce to change has always been to play my strentghs, to dig in and fortify, to hold the line, no matter how many zulu’s there may be..

( forgive me that, i could not resist the pun)

it seems to me, and this is in no way a criticism, that this travel of yours is sort of like a big mirror, in which you look at both the world and your selves, and by doing so can see if maybe you need a new suit, or just a new tie and hair cut, or if in fact you need to metaphorically get down the down the gym and spa and have a full makeover.

i liked your bee hive analogy…. i suppose i didnt dodge it… i caught it and held it and i’m hoping to god it really is bees not wasps because i really could do with there being honey at the end.

i don’t own my house, but i understand the ties that bind me anyway. i am working a job i dont like, to buy sh*t i don’t need. i’m not going to be a film star or rich, and i am angry about that. but there is no club to go to.

when it comes right down to it i took the decsision to hold on, even when there is nothing left except the will that says to me hold on.

i hope in honesty, that both our courses of actions turn out to be right.

good luck in your continueing adventures… don’t feel you have to post back instantly… i check your website often, so i’l be around when you post next.

( on a personal note, kudos on being able to get comments on uncertainty theory in the same paragraph as a Neitzche quote. if i was a cat in a box, i’d even more inpressed than i am.)

CESCA

i won’t dance, don’t ask me…..

(do you see what i did there?)

Sorry for not replying earlier, but web access is sporadic to say the least.

Perhaps the Company Jolly’s I have been on have been different from yours (I have been on many), but there is a few important fundamental differences between them and this journey of ours. Namely, they are really work (don’t fool yourself that they are not) and also that someone else is paying for them.

This may seem small but it reaches to the true heart of the matter and leads me to a note about our careers. Namely, I have been telling everyone for ages that this financial crisis was going to happen. Few listened. We were on the crux of buying a house just out of our reach and lashing ourselves to the grindstone for the next 30 years. But something stopped us. It was a number of things really, but we suddenly realised the bubble was going to pop and so we left partially to avoid it.

By avoiding the trap we have saved ourselves from a massive drop on our house value (perhaps even over the cost of this ‘jolly’) and Cesca would have been looking down the gun barrel of a possible redundency (being that she was a professional creative). There are other reasons, like being a tired of London, my having not had a year out before/after Uni (mine was the last year to get the grant) and more personal reasons. But the one we tell everyone is this: We were at the right point in our lives to do it. I have no house and no children. I left my staff and department in the best possible shape for my sucessor. I have not got the ties that bind yet.

I too am focussed on my family, which at the moment is Cesca and I, and we wanted to see the world and get some perspective before adding more members to it (by having children of our own). Our trip will be an education for our children, perhaps an open minded inspiration, and the blog is the diary that proves this. You see, the reason we are disagreeing here is entirely embodied by your labeling of what we are doing as”sight seeing”

For me, what we are doing is not sight seeing. We are getting a sense of perspective away form the burdens of home. The reason why we didn’t drop the travel and come home is easy; why would I, having avoided the falling bees nest, put my hand back in it? By the time I come home, things may actually be better. This is why I called your view narrow minded, by your own perspective you are suffering in this climate and need to naturally worry about the things in your life. Some of which you need, like a family and some of which you have told yourself you need, like owing a house. Never the less, this is only a matter of the perspective you have on your life. I wanted to gain some larger sense of perspective. This I have achieved by seeing the world out there beyond the headlines.

For example, a week ago I was in Calcutta and saw a women sleeping rough on the streets. Perhaps nothing new there in London or eslewhere. However, this women was naked save for a ripped sack and sleeping in a main throughfare with everyone stepping over her. She was filthy, destitute to the point of death and possibly mad. When you see someone like this you start to gain some insight into the value of the problems you used to feel burdened with, worried about and focussed on.

We are on essentially a spiritual journey of descovery. The world is a big place and I have started to think that the over-focussed worry about the economics of home that used to be my daily mantra were not of such importance after all. I am not worried about coming home and finding a job. Such questions would be with me no matter if I left or not. Perhaps things will be better when we return? Perhaps not. One thing that will have changed is me.

You see, you can’t travel like we are traveling without changing yourself. It is a fundamental of science that you cannot observe a thing without changing it, but Quantum Theory has now learned what I already knew: that you change too. As Neitzche said: ‘Stare too long into the abyss and the abyss stares back into you’. I am not trying to come back to the same life. That would be stepping backwards. I can only step forwards and the future is essentially as irrelivent as the past. I am trying to live in the now. Tomorrow… who knows what will happen? There are far worse things than unimployment.

My reporting of Laos might not directly affect your life, but perhaps you should take a moment to consider those much less fortunate than you. If you go to work, you wont dig up a bomb and die. Compassion for others outside your own life is the key to finding a sense of peace with the world. I sense that the news of home is getting to you. Google “fnords” and read the Wiki entry. Conquring your fear about what is going to happen is another step to finding peace.

As for courage, I will define it like this:

“Courage is the choice to do what is difficult or fearful.”

It is different from bravery,

“Bravery is the doing of the difficult or fearful with no choice (other than oblivion).”

Couragous actions have to have choice. Going to work, is that a choice or not? If you think not, if you see it as a burden to be carried, something you have no choice about; then you are only being brave. If, however, you are able to see your choices and then act upon them, despite the fears attached to action, then your being couragous. Leaving home and living out of our bags, giving up a sucessful career and letting go of all but a few of my possesstions did take courage. And like you say, I knew that it needed to be done. I worried about it, but when the time came I realised that I was putting down my burden and freeing myself. Now I can see the real choices that are all around me. By freeing myself from my old life, I can chose a new one.

“democracy doesnt work, its just that neither does anything else.” This is a paraphrase of something said by Churchill. Something, I should add, he said after being abroard for a long time (In his case in a war prision camp from which he escaped).

Looking after your loved ones is worthy, I am sorry if I implied that it wasn’t. I am sure that the problems of home will sort themselves out, but one thing is certain: the country cannot go back to how it was. The banking bubble will be remembered long after the Dot Com bust is forgotten. From these ashes will come a new age less selfish than the last.

Perhaps.

“You are a stimulating sparing partner.” As are you, I hope you stick around.

CESCA SAYS:

“The meaning of life is a musical thing and the whole idea is to sing or dance along” Alan Watts.

Sorry for not replying earlier, but web access is sporadic to say the least.

Perhaps the Company Jolly’s I have been on have been different from yours (I have been on many), but there is a few important fundamental differences between them and this journey of ours. Namely, they are really work (don’t fool yourself that they are not) and also that someone else is paying for them.

This may seem small but it reaches to the true heart of the matter and leads me to a note about our careers. Namely, I have been telling everyone for ages that this financial crisis was going to happen. Few listened. We were on the crux of buying a house just out of our reach and lashing ourselves to the grindstone for the next 30 years. But something stopped us. It was a number of things really, but we suddenly realised the bubble was going to pop and so we left partially to avoid it.

By avoiding the trap we have saved ourselves from a massive drop on our house value (perhaps even over the cost of this ‘jolly’) and Cesca would have been looking down the gun barrel of a possible redundency (being that she was a professional creative). There are other reasons, like being a tired of London, my having not had a year out before/after Uni (mine was the last year to get the grant) and more personal reasons. But the one we tell everyone is this: We were at the right point in our lives to do it. I have no house and no children. I left my staff and department in the best possible shape for my sucessor. I have not got the ties that bind yet.

I too am focussed on my family, which at the moment is Cesca and I, and we wanted to see the world and get some perspective before adding more members to it (by having children of our own). Our trip will be an education for our children, perhaps an open minded inspiration, and the blog is the diary that proves this. You see, the reason we are disagreeing here is entirely embodied by your labeling of what we are doing as”sight seeing”

For me, what we are doing is not sight seeing. We are getting a sense of perspective away form the burdens of home. The reason why we didn’t drop the travel and come home is easy; why would I, having avoided the falling bees nest, put my hand back in it? By the time I come home, things may actually be better. This is why I called your view narrow minded, by your own perspective you are suffering in this climate and need to naturally worry about the things in your life. Some of which you need, like a family and some of which you have told yourself you need, like owing a house. Never the less, this is only a matter of the perspective you have on your life. I wanted to gain some larger sense of perspective. This I have achieved by seeing the world out there beyond the headlines.

For example, a week ago I was in Calcutta and saw a women sleeping rough on the streets. Perhaps nothing new there in London or eslewhere. However, this women was naked save for a ripped sack and sleeping in a main throughfare with everyone stepping over her. She was filthy, destitute to the point of death and possibly mad. When you see someone like this you start to gain some insight into the value of the problems you used to feel burdened with, worried about and focussed on.

We are on essentially a spiritual journey of descovery. The world is a big place and I have started to think that the over-focussed worry about the economics of home that used to be my daily mantra were not of such importance after all. I am not worried about coming home and finding a job. Such questions would be with me no matter if I left or not. Perhaps things will be better when we return? Perhaps not. One thing that will have changed is me.

You see, you can’t travel like we are traveling without changing yourself. It is a fundamental of science that you cannot observe a thing without changing it, but Quantum Theory has now learned what I already knew: that you change too. As Neitzche said: ‘Stare too long into the abyss and the abyss stares back into you’. I am not trying to come back to the same life. That would be stepping backwards. I can only step forwards and the future is essentially as irrelivent as the past. I am trying to live in the now. Tomorrow… who knows what will happen? There are far worse things than unimployment.

My reporting of Laos might not directly affect your life, but perhaps you should take a moment to consider those much less fortunate than you. If you go to work, you wont dig up a bomb and die. Compassion for others outside your own life is the key to finding a sense of peace with the world. I sense that the news of home is getting to you. Google “fnords” and read the Wiki entry. Conquring your fear about what is going to happen is another step to finding peace.

As for courage, I will define it like this:

“Courage is the choice to do what is difficult or fearful.”

It is different from bravery,

“Bravery is the doing of the difficult or fearful with no choice (other than oblivion).”

Couragous actions have to have choice. Going to work, is that a choice or not? If you think not, if you see it as a burden to be carried, something you have no choice about; then you are only being brave. If, however, you are able to see your choices and then act upon them, despite the fears attached to action, then your being couragous. Leaving home and living out of our bags, giving up a sucessful career and letting go of all but a few of my possesstions did take courage. And like you say, I knew that it needed to be done. I worried about it, but when the time came I realised that I was putting down my burden and freeing myself. Now I can see the real choices that are all around me. By freeing myself from my old life, I can chose a new one.

“democracy doesnt work, its just that neither does anything else.” This is a paraphrase of something said by Churchill. Something, I should add, he said after being abroard for a long time (In his case in a war prision camp from which he escaped).

Looking after your loved ones is worthy, I am sorry if I implied that it wasn’t. I am sure that the problems of home will sort themselves out, but one thing is certain: the country cannot go back to how it was. The banking bubble will be remembered long after the Dot Com bust is forgotten. From these ashes will come a new age less selfish than the last.

Perhaps.

“You are a stimulating sparing partner.” As are you, I hope you stick around.

CESCA SAYS:

“The meaning of life is a musical thing and the whole idea is to sing or dance along” Alan Watts.

ok… by jolly, i ment something you do which has a reason, a good one, but also is rather enjoyable and means your not actually working. from time to time i get work related jollys, like full day training course and the like, and it seemed an appropriate comparison to travelling for a year out of your careers.

and by ” taking a year out of your life ” i ment your working life.. the thing that the huge gaping vast majority of us have to do for between 4 and 6 days a week so we can have shelter, food, warmth, beer, tv and the internet.

for narrow minded, im not going to argue with you, but im going to read it as focused instead, and you’re right, i am focused on my priorites. my family, my freinds, staying employed in this time of fairly critical financial worry, these things are my priorities. sight seeing can wait. i suppose one of the first things that led me to write comments on your sight is my inability to fathom why, when you realised the state of your home country, did you not abandon your tour, and come home, before maybe we reach a state when coming home will leave you both with no jobs to find, no house to live in, and eventually no money to live with. work and money are not trivial things, but essential, they are the blood and oxygen of our world, and without them, we perish.

did i know the history and plight of laos? lil bit. could i have pointed to it on a map? probably, i finished high school… did i care before or after reading your article… nope. because it doesnt, in the scheme of things, affect me or my life.

presuming on my courage is intersting too.. you have to define courage. i do know that its not doing the things you want to do, the things you have been looking forward to.

courage is doing the things you dont want to do, but have to do, because they are the things that need to be done.

its also interesting that staying home and working and taking care of the people who need me is in your view blinkered, narrow, and selfish, but touring the world for a year is in some way magnanimus and to be applauded… i guess thats priorities again.

i never asked you to be ashamed, nor told you that you should be. nor did i ever imply that you could hate your own people. i am fairly sure you are not that kind of person.

and i do need to apologise, you are not banging on, you are correct, it is your website, and your democratic right to write what so ever you want on it, just as it is mine to reply. do bear in mind though that democracy doesnt work, its just that neither does anything else.

as for the worthy things you dont see me doing, i dont publish them. its enough that i did them.

i look forward to your future articles and comments sincerely. at the very least you are a stimulating sparing partner.

FOR CESCA.

i admire your honesty and bluntness. I am not behind my computer, but you are miles away, so one must use the weapons one has to hand.

please take my comments in a spirit of pointed discussion, and not aggression, and be aware that i bear no ill will to either of you.

ok… by jolly, i ment something you do which has a reason, a good one, but also is rather enjoyable and means your not actually working. from time to time i get work related jollys, like full day training course and the like, and it seemed an appropriate comparison to travelling for a year out of your careers.

and by ” taking a year out of your life ” i ment your working life.. the thing that the huge gaping vast majority of us have to do for between 4 and 6 days a week so we can have shelter, food, warmth, beer, tv and the internet.

for narrow minded, im not going to argue with you, but im going to read it as focused instead, and you’re right, i am focused on my priorites. my family, my freinds, staying employed in this time of fairly critical financial worry, these things are my priorities. sight seeing can wait. i suppose one of the first things that led me to write comments on your sight is my inability to fathom why, when you realised the state of your home country, did you not abandon your tour, and come home, before maybe we reach a state when coming home will leave you both with no jobs to find, no house to live in, and eventually no money to live with. work and money are not trivial things, but essential, they are the blood and oxygen of our world, and without them, we perish.

did i know the history and plight of laos? lil bit. could i have pointed to it on a map? probably, i finished high school… did i care before or after reading your article… nope. because it doesnt, in the scheme of things, affect me or my life.

presuming on my courage is intersting too.. you have to define courage. i do know that its not doing the things you want to do, the things you have been looking forward to.

courage is doing the things you dont want to do, but have to do, because they are the things that need to be done.

its also interesting that staying home and working and taking care of the people who need me is in your view blinkered, narrow, and selfish, but touring the world for a year is in some way magnanimus and to be applauded… i guess thats priorities again.

i never asked you to be ashamed, nor told you that you should be. nor did i ever imply that you could hate your own people. i am fairly sure you are not that kind of person.

and i do need to apologise, you are not banging on, you are correct, it is your website, and your democratic right to write what so ever you want on it, just as it is mine to reply. do bear in mind though that democracy doesnt work, its just that neither does anything else.

as for the worthy things you dont see me doing, i dont publish them. its enough that i did them.

i look forward to your future articles and comments sincerely. at the very least you are a stimulating sparing partner.

FOR CESCA.

i admire your honesty and bluntness. I am not behind my computer, but you are miles away, so one must use the weapons one has to hand.

please take my comments in a spirit of pointed discussion, and not aggression, and be aware that i bear no ill will to either of you.

To answer: No.

This “terrible plight” is not because of natural disasters or bad government, this plight is because western nations bombed the shit out them!

As for the “jolly” you mention, traveling for a year is not expensive if you time it right. The only thing stopping you doing it is your own narrow minded set of priorities. Any westerner in a similar situation to us (as in no children or mortgage) can do what we are doing. We have met those doing it on a far smaller budget than us. Visiting SEA in particular is very cheap if you restrict yourself to just that area. The big step is actually leaving home and living out of a bag, which I presume would take more courage than you yourself posses?

As for “taking a year out of their lives”, I am very sorry for you that you see it like this. I am not taking time out from anything, I am living my life. It is the rather blinkered narrow and selfish view that you have that is preventing you from seeing that maybe your life is being wasted.

More than this, did you know about the plight of Laos before I wrote about it? Could you have pointed to it on a map? Or told of the history?

I think not.

Learning about people and their world is worthwhile activity and reporting on it to those back in your home is not “banging on!” A crime was perpetrated against these people, a complicated crime of power and pressure and the strong forcing the weak to live in fear and death. Pointing that out in as benign a way as writing something on my own website is not “banging on” it is the fundamental processes of democratic action and compassion.

I am not ashamed. Nor do I hate my own people. I am simply telling it as I saw it. First hand.

That is far more worthy than anything I see you doing.

Hold on to your hats, there are over 7 posts coming on SEA, and many of them include similar themes. I look forwards to your comments on these!

CESCA SAYS:

Get out from behind your computer!

- guess which one of us is the philosopher!

To answer: No.

This “terrible plight” is not because of natural disasters or bad government, this plight is because western nations bombed the shit out them!

As for the “jolly” you mention, traveling for a year is not expensive if you time it right. The only thing stopping you doing it is your own narrow minded set of priorities. Any westerner in a similar situation to us (as in no children or mortgage) can do what we are doing. We have met those doing it on a far smaller budget than us. Visiting SEA in particular is very cheap if you restrict yourself to just that area. The big step is actually leaving home and living out of a bag, which I presume would take more courage than you yourself posses?

As for “taking a year out of their lives”, I am very sorry for you that you see it like this. I am not taking time out from anything, I am living my life. It is the rather blinkered narrow and selfish view that you have that is preventing you from seeing that maybe your life is being wasted.

More than this, did you know about the plight of Laos before I wrote about it? Could you have pointed to it on a map? Or told of the history?

I think not.

Learning about people and their world is worthwhile activity and reporting on it to those back in your home is not “banging on!” A crime was perpetrated against these people, a complicated crime of power and pressure and the strong forcing the weak to live in fear and death. Pointing that out in as benign a way as writing something on my own website is not “banging on” it is the fundamental processes of democratic action and compassion.

I am not ashamed. Nor do I hate my own people. I am simply telling it as I saw it. First hand.

That is far more worthy than anything I see you doing.

Hold on to your hats, there are over 7 posts coming on SEA, and many of them include similar themes. I look forwards to your comments on these!

CESCA SAYS:

Get out from behind your computer!

- guess which one of us is the philosopher!

the disturbing point is this…..

do you not see something very wrong with two people banging on about the terrible plight of indigenous poor people when they themselves have buggered off round the world on a jolly cos they can afford to take a year out of their lives?