The Zen of the Market

So the correction has arrived, an African government has asserted itself over mining policy, and you did not time any of it right, in the end.  You had the chance, right after New Bedford, but you blew it.   

And you know what?  I don't care.  I mean I care, or maybe better to say I did care?  Part of the lesson, part of the message, at this exact time, may be that this is all a numbers game being played out on a screen.  It is not reality, or at least not what should be considered the true basis of your reality.  So stop treating it as such.

You agonize over the future plans in terms of the finances to be able to do it and the safety net you may need in place, but maybe that is exactly the wrong way to look at it.  Maybe you actually need less security in place to make this plan work from the outset, or to convince yourself it is the correct one.  Jump in and see if you can swim from there instead, and if not?  There will always be opportunities to resurface, randomly, in the rat race or elsewhere.  Maybe that challenge is part of the point?

Dagger had the great line - "...that is usually a last big trip. Antartica [sic] is usually completing travelling?"  Look at it from the bottom up.  There is still Nepal, and there is Ethiopia, and there is Central America, and there is Southern India.  Those would be the key ones remaining.  Not cheap to get to, but maybe cheap to mess about once you are?  With minimal expenses at home?  But what if this really is a choice to be poor, to get back to the beginning of the travels of the early days?  To downscale everything.  To vagabond.  To hostel and eek things out when you do go.  To budget. 

And to write and hike and meditate and write.  To live above a bar again.  What would be wrong with that approach?  Out with the boat/condo, in with the public house/road?

It is damn exciting as a prospect, and I really hope it doesn't get ripped away by some other clown before I get the chance to act.  Need to trust in the fact that it will not.  Or find another path of reinvention.