Farewell Budapest
Cowboy Bebop’s Spike
The Process:
It’s been 85 days since the ship has sailed. Most of the days have been spent in Budapest. The rest between Greece, Romania, and Slovakia.
The writing has progressed, though not at a rate I’m happy with. I wrote 80 out of the 85 days. Most were unpublishable. Some were halfway-decent, but remained halfway finished. The rest were few and just fine.
In comparison to the writing, the videos have gained more momentum. The editing is less tedious now and I’ve found a flow, but the process is far less rewarding than writing.
I’ve never edited videos for the sake of developing my thoughts. The unpublished essays have helped me just as much as the published ones. That’s why I love writing.
It’s like the gym. The rewards might not show immediately, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t growing. As long as you are doing the reps, you are improving. External validation (or lack thereof) doesn’t change anything.
Life in Hungary:
Any further east and I’d be stepping over cats. Any further south and I’d be dodging the jaws of stray dogs. Any further west and I’d be seduced by corner cafes spilling over with leisure and cigarette smoke. Any further north and my balls would be marbles.
Budapest offers all the promise of a Western European city, without the risk of going numb. Numbness depends on the state of the people. The vast majority of Hungarians don’t have the luxury of going numb. So while they won’t show it in their expressions, they are much more alive than the rest of Europe.
When you’re young and traveling, you shouldn’t focus your time in comfortable countries. They don’t demand as much growth, and you want to front-load as much growth as possible because lessons learned earlier will compound and have a greater impact on the totality of your life.
There’s a limit though. If you go somewhere too insecure, there is no room for art. Art is a luxury. So if that’s important to you, you have to find somewhere with a certain level of security.
History helps too. Longer histories generally make for better art (the U.S. is a rare outlier).
One can’t write about Budapest and not mention the butchers and the Danube.
That’s like writing about Bozeman without the steakhouses and the Rockies, or like Istanbul without the dürüm and the Bosphorus.
A walk along the Danube can fix most problems. And for the ones it can’t, a hot Hungarian sausage with a mound of dark mustard will.
But most of all, I love this city for its luck. I’m lucky here. That’s it. I am reluctant to even talk about it too much. I don’t want to spook it, whatever it is.
The Road and Writing.
Yet again, she proves lonely.
She takes companions quicker than she gives them.
But her mystery is unparalleled and her potential unmatched.
Yet again, she proves irresistible.
Ahh, open road! How much you have given and how much you have taken!
My small boat sails through the sea of strangers. I peer over the ledge to capture the scenes as they pass, but often the feeling of shame follows me as I draw lines around the very things that shouldn’t have lines drawn around them. Beauty doesn’t need to be explained. It certainly doesn’t deserve to be trapped.
Yet, I can’t resist.
It’s not enough that you’ve drizzled a heap-full of honey onto your toast, you have to lick the spoon too. It’s not enough that I’ve had the experiences, if I can write about them, I will. That’s how I taste the memories again.
But every experience I write about is adulterated.
How one writes about an experience is how it will exist in their memory. That’s how it goes. That’s why I haven’t written about my most profound experiences: childhood in Montana, living with monks, walking across the Balkans, certain women.
I’m afraid I’ll shatter them all, as if they were made of glass and on top of the glass was a target I was trying to hit with a gun that wasn’t sighted properly.
If I didn’t write, it would be easier. It would also kill me.
Not physically, but mentally and spiritually, which is certainly worse. And not because my purpose is to become a writer (my soul is not tied to writing), but because without writing my mind is like a kite in a hurricane held by a infant monkey.
Moral on the Ship:
The idea of freedom is arguably better than freedom.
No one wants to be told what to do, but when they aren’t told, they find that they love it, for three whole days. After that, boredom and chaos overwhelms them.
Life requires restraints, rules.
Sometimes those rules are defined by someone for you, and other times you define them yourself. Most of the time they are defined for you early on, then you reject them for the sake of rejecting them, then you return to them.
That’s much easier than defining your own rules and returning to a life under a conflicting set of rules defined by others.
In this way, I feel the more time I spend on this ship, the less able I am to return to most of the traditional paths. It’s not that I’m above any job; I can clean tables and shuck corn just as well as anyone. Actually, those options don’t sound too bad. It’s sending impersonal emails and fake laughing and cocktail parties where every question is just a way to map you into someone’s status hierarchy that scare me.
Again, I could do it. I’m human, and humans adapt. But the cost varies depending on your past experiences.
So I sail forward. Confidence hasn’t waned, even though I’m not sure what lies beyond the horizon. I’m trusting my compass (intuition) and as usual, it’s pointing towards the very things I’ve been avoiding. Recently, that is religion.
Last year, I searched the world for God and found him right behind my back.
Since then, I’ve neglected a deeper pursuit. Why? Because I know that I am still ignorant and ignorance makes it easier to have a good time. It’s stupid reasoning. Like ignoring your gas gauge will somehow delay the drainage of gas.
It’s time to leap into the unknown. I’ve put it off too long. It’s the only way I can get this seagull on the boat to shut up. If I don’t pursue this curiosity, then that damn seagull will keep squawking up until the church bells ring.
I can handle bad decisions. It's the indecisions that will torture me.
But this all makes sense. One of the first phases of the Hero’s Journey is the ‘Refusal of the Call’. The next phase is ‘Meeting a Mentor’ (which I’ve already done but haven’t written about).
If my path continues to follow the steps, I’m right on schedule for yet another, ‘Crossing the Threshold’, a dive into the abyss, a real life adventure.
***
