Two weeks since my last post. So much learned. Where to begin.
My life currently occupies this weird space where busyness and relaxation collide. I have done a fair amount of traveling and trekking as of late: a surfing trip to Arugam Bay on the East coast; attending a Buddhist wedding of the brother of a friend of a friend (an all day affair at a beautiful waterfall bordered reception hall); another stint at the children's home; a spur of the moment jaunt halfway across the island to buy a washing machine; short little visits here and there involving lots of commuting which has allowed me the opportunity to view much of the landscape of this beautiful country. Some of my treks have also afforded me the glorious experience of navigating the Sri Lankan bus system - a hilarious mix of chaos and seemingly impossible efficiency. This has created a busy shuffle from place to place, never really getting set in one place before I am up and leaving for another. But when I am in these places, I mostly spend my time not doing too much, which, as I have alluded to in other posts, is rather normal.
By no means am I implying that Sri Lankans don't do anything - they just do things at a different pace. Things get done, but without the stress.
This new pace has forced me to totally revamp....myself...I guess. Everything that made me a "valuable" person in North America - hard-working, efficient, self-motivated, independant - are essentially useless characteristics here. A rather depressing thought when much of your self-worth has been placed in your own skills and accomplishment. So, while I have frantically sought ways to make myself "useful," buzzing here and there under the guise of helping others, I realized I was only making things harder for myself by struggling so hard against that pattern of life that has been set here for ages. So, against my better judgement and nature, I have chilled out...alot.
It has taken concerted effort to chill out. But I honestly don't have a choice. I would wear myself out if I kept swimming against the current. I think this is a good instance in which it is perfectly OK and right to just go with the flow. The flow has caused me to loosen my grip on certain things formerly held with vise fists. Like efficiency. Independance. Multi-tasking. Who knows if these things will regain the importance they once held. Some of you may be reading this thinking, "Oh no, Dave is seriously loosing it over there!" Maybe. I will probably receive a huge jolt and transitioning pain when I come back to North America. But for now I am enjoying being unwound. Unwound to the point where I think I might even be starting to wind back up in the complete opposite direction that I have been coiled all these years. It is intriguing to think that the way you live your life may have a polar opposite twin, and the only reason that your life is lived on one end as opposed to the other is largely dependant on where/when/how/and with whom you have grown up. Every event and life scenario in which we find ourself has the ability to change and tweak the way we view the world, tightening or loosening the coil that we have wound around the central worldview that shapes who we are. I feel frightenly close to that nucleus, wondering if somehow the whole thing will come undone if my preconceptions of the world are unravelled any further. But I am equally curious to see what the "other side" is like; that maybe I can get a taste of how my mind and life and worldview would be alternately formed if I would have grown up my whole life in a culture like this. Not that any culture is better than any other, but that each is distinct, and distinctly able to change and rearrange how one thinks. And so I continue to unwind.
