Dust in the Wind: You're my boy Blue

In a recent post discussing the Backpacking culture I am currently living in, I mentioned the word “Transient.” Today I’d like to expand on the concept of transience in my life, if only for my sake. I’ll try to keep it to a readable length.

Living in this hostel, new people come and go on a daily basis. Everybody is on a different schedule, some stay longer than others, but everyone is coming from somewhere and going somewhere else. It’s part of what makes living here so awesome and interesting. I meet tons of people from tons of different places. But the impermanence of the relationships I make is getting to be a bit of a bummer. I have made very good friends with an English guy named Jack, who regular readers will recognize from previous posts. Jack got here a few days after me, and for the past 5 weeks or so we’ve done pretty much everything together, aside from my job-search exploits. He became part of Chiang Mai for me; we frequent the same spots together, hang out with the same people, we even had created daily routines, as difficult as that is when not employed or on any type of schedule. Jack left a couple of days ago, heading to Laos, as it was time for him to get back on the traveling circuit. It was a sad day for me; I’d underestimated how much I would miss him when he left, and I was clearly a bit more attached than I’d realized. Jack is one of the first in a long chain of friends here at the hostel that has extended from when first got here until now; I’ve always had a “crew” of sorts, a standard group of people that I have done things with. This crew has changed and evolved as people come and go, but I’ve always had some group that I hang out with regularly, my homies. My last homey is leaving today, and it is a bit of a sad thing. It is the last “goodbye” in a long line of goodbyes, and the transience is starting to wear on me.

The transience of the backpacking world though is merely a model of the transient nature of life itself; we’re here living for only a short time, some stay longer than others, but moving on to the next destination is natural and inevitable. Some see the sights, some try to make a positive impact on their temporary home, some just party the days away, but no one lives forever.

I recently had a heavy reminder of this fact. About 3 weeks ago, my grandmother passed away. Her death was not necessarily unexpected, as she has been in poor health for some time, but seeing it coming doesn’t make it any easier. There are a lot of different emotions involved in the death of a loved one, but the question I keep coming back to is: why is it so hard? The emotions surrounding death are universally understood to be painful. But we all know it is going to happen, regardless. Why, in a world of impermanence, do we insist on attachment? What masochistic part of human instinct requires us to become so connected to people, places, things, when our eventual separation is not a question of if, but rather when?

I don’t have answers to these questions. Not to say that the answers don’t exist, I just don’t have them. However, no matter why we are made to endure this, I do believe one thing: it’s worth it. Our attachment is the product of what makes life incredible. These tightly-woven relationships, these places we grow to love, these are the things we live for. Every chance to love something is a chance to live, and the knowledge that one day you will be separated from that which you love is no justification for not loving in the first place.

So the lesson I’ve learned and we’ve all heard: love as much as you can, and take nothing for granted, because tomorrow it could be gone. Life is a gift, Love is a gift, and I plan to experience both as often as possible.

Thanks for reading, see you again when I do/think something I consider interesting enough to bore you with!

And this seems as appropriate a time as any to use the tag line my father suggested last week:

Living Life between Eternities,

Ian