My future is so wonderfully undecided that it would drive a normal man crazy. Fortunately, I’m already mad as a hatter and insanity is second nature to me, so no real worries.
It looks like Dubai is falling through for me. The plan that I had of heading down there and making back some money so that I could continue my travels seems to have been a bad one. That leaves me in the position of having to re-evaluate what the hell I’m going to do now.
The problem is, I don’t really have a clue. While I was making the short film I didn’t get any money paying work done (completely my own fault, I might add, I should have looked harder) and now the finances are stretched a bit thin. The next stage of my trip needs to be either making me a great deal of cash or needs to take me home.
Home is in Europe. At least, that’s the feeling I’ve now got. Home is in Amsterdam, preparing for my university. Home is a place where I can study and learn. Home is a place that will make me enough money to let me leave again in a few years time without any need to ever come back, unless I want to. Home might well be a place that I now have to go to so that I’ll have the choice never to come back again after that.
Do I want to go back to Europe? I used to violently against the idea, but slowly it is starting to grow on me a bit. It might be nice to see the place and get a feeling for the European mentality now that I’ve been as asianised as I’ve been. See what does work and what doesn’t, get to understand what has become distorted and warped by distance and what I still remember correctly. Come to grips with the place that a great deal of my ideology was originally shaped in.
Fortress Europe.
That strange place that so many people are so desperate to become a part of, while I’ve been so desperate to stay away from it. That place that first colonised and conquered the rest of the world and now believes that the it is being colonised and conquered in return.
Am I ready to go to Europe?
I think the real question is, do I have a choice?
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I would have to say it is time for you to go home, finish school, make money ... you know, finish growing up. You have been on holiday for quite some time. One day soon I think you will have to face facts, you can't live on hotels, drugs, alcohol and loose women for the rest of your life. Some normality will do you good. and at this point normal should be as foreign to you as the Orient is to me :)
ReplyDeleteBesides, if you are in the EU, I can visit! You can meet the wife, stabilise Alon, and enjoy kroketten.
I know you have the best intentions with your comment, but truth be told it is actually offensive and is so far one of the best arguments against me coming back. The orient is not 'less grown up' then the west. I do not live of drugs, loose women and hotels and I most certainly am quite grown up.
ReplyDeleteUnless your version of grown up just means being conservative and near the mean, in that case I most certainly will never grow up. I don't tell you how to live your life, please be so kind to do the same for me.
And yes, it would be nice to see you and your wife. That was the only nice part of your comment.
I didn't mean to offend. I didn't say the Orient is less grown-up. And I do have your best intentions at heart. And I do not intend to tell you how to live, I was just pointing out that you deciding to go back to NL, enroll in school, etc, was a good decision.
ReplyDeleteYou have more potential than most people I know. I read read your blog every day. Sometimes I smile, becuase I see you applying yourself (like with the movie, or back when you wrote and tried to get published). But sometimes I see you just partied till dawn ... drinking, drugging, and screwing. No offense but that is adolescent by any standard. It is what teenages (and movie stars) do.
When I say it is time to grow up, I don't mean become a conservative. I mean finish school, get a job, settle down. When I say you can't wander forever it is not an opinion or a judgement it is fact, you can't fund it, life costs money. Living pay check to pay check is dangerous and irresponsible ... what if something unexpected happens, like you develop a debilitating disease!, need medical care, etc.
I really am not trying to preach. I am trying to apply tough love in the hopes I will strike a nerve, which will motivate you. One thing I know to be true is that no one can force Symbol to do anything, you have to be self motivate. I hate upsetting you but if, for a time, I have to, so be it. I have known you for 7 years, I think our friendship can handle the strain.
About the wife and I visiting: I very much want to see you (and she wants to meet you). It has been 5 or more years. It is not that I won't travel to Asia, its that you are never in one place long enough for me to plan to.
And you must have missed the comment about Alon. He needs help. He too is not living to potential. Your mere presence would do wonders for motivating him to finshing school, etc. He can't live his life playing WoW and I am too far away now to make a difference. Help him Obi Wan Kanbi, you're his only hope.
Remember I say all this with respect and friendship.