The Wall Less Traveled

So lately life has begun to feel like the road less traveled. Which, in my opinion, is a good thing. I mean, isn't life about maximizing your potential, pushing the boundaries, escaping your comfort zone? Well, I have been, for, I guess, 9 months now since I've joined Rakuten. And the closest metaphor I could conjure up is "walking along the wall".

Haven't we all tried that? Found a broken down wall, forgotten by time, a discarded piece of history, where, if you're careful and nimble enough, you could climb yourself, like a staircase, up into somewhere no one's been before, somewhere incredible. Because, God knows, unless you're in China, walls aren't normally made for walking. So, it is special in the sense that it is simply not done. Not done, because the stakes are high--literally high. At every moment, with every step, you titter-totter on the brink, as you go higher, and higher.

The allure, in my opinion, is the risk. Something so risky must be rewarding, right? Even if the result is inconsequential, taking risks is a test of our capacity to achieve. And in that essence, is a test of character.

And I've been testing myself these last few months, taking this lone walk along the wall. And in my journey, I keep asking myself, "What was it? What was it?" What was it that made me take the road not taken? What was it that brought this fierce unrest? What was it that made me walk out one evening, to bring me here?

But I am here, and the view is wonderful. And someday, the wall will end. And on that day, I'll have to choose which side to land on. Hopefully, it won't be a humpty-dumpty kind of ending.

Photo Credit: Wall in Intramuros from The Asian Network of Youth Volunteers

into winter

You get used to the cold, the longer you stay in it. However awful it gets. They weren't mincing words when they coined the phrase "numb from the cold." Fighting it, complaining about it, isn't going to clear the skies and usher the warmth back.

So I've gotten used to this bleak life I've found myself in: clock-in at work, clock-out from work, eat, sleep, pay the rent, get laid, get away, go far, and come back to the same dusty apartment where the calendar is inexorably running out of pages.

It's been great, I guess, to be where one would want to be. But damn, those guys who said, "Be careful what you wish for." Did they have to be so spot on? Why is it, that now that I've managed to win the one thing I've always coveted, must everything turn so damn difficult.

Because always and forever, I've always dreamt of freedom.

Since I was a kid, I've been afflicted with illusions of grandeur. Lofty dreams visit me at night, and contrast so starkly with vivid reality, the very real aspect of my quite average life. Food on the table, roof above my head, a bed to sleep in, and a family within arms reach were here for me, and yet I am stricken with this mad wish to escape.

I yearned it, the deep end of the pool, I wanted to be put to the test, to test my mettle, to stand outside and feel the light of the sun draw a long shadow upon the laborious trail that has now led me here.

Instead, it seems I've been left in the cold.

Photo credit: Winter landscape with a lamp-post and a distant view of haarlem by Jacob Van Ruisdael