“It is in changing that we find purpose.” -Heraclitus
The assumptions are that you live in a house, apartment, studio, or some such space that is self-contained, stable over time, requiring some kind of payment (rent or upkeep or both), and that you fill it with possessions.
You have clothes from at least 20 years ago that you will never wear again because they do not fit or because you only kept them because they reminded you of that one time or that one person or some such. At least one pair of shoes lies invisible under historic layers of dust.
You may have a kitchen full of odd bits that do not match, or a full and growing set of perfectly synchronized dishes. A toaster that has not been used in more than a year, a broken mixer, and a supply of useful things.
I have two whisks for example. One is a backup whisk.
In a day full of my own conventional assumptions about myself, I come through the door and unconsciously take in all my things in a sweeping glance. The books on the shelves, the layout of the room, the items on the desk (it is only a “table” at mealtimes even if it looks like a table). In an instant, my eye is drawn to the thing that is out of place.
A clutch of Boris Akunin books that the housecleaner placed upside down and in the middle of TC Boyle. It offends, even if it is not dusty. I will fix it immediately.
But what if you decide that none of these assumptions, habits, or routines do anything for you. You sense that a change has to come. And if you are like me, the change is both alluring and scares the bejesus out of you.
The change I am proposing is to disentangle myself from as many grapnels, physical, administrative, or psychological, as I can and head east. Southeast Asia. I will be a kind of digital nomad.
In a sense, I have already been a digital nomad for many years. I have had no office to go to. If I had classes to teach, I could do it online or go to China, to France, or anywhere else for a short time and then leave again. I was a nomad in cyberspace, even if I still had a home base in Belgrade.
The question I ask myself is whether this home base provides me with anything essential to my life. The comfort of one’s own possessions. Items that one collects and that no one may take unless given leave. The comfort of a place to which to return without searching. There are benefits, of course. But none of it is irreplaceable.
I have been nomadic before. After leaving the US: two years in Saudi Arabia, five years in Italy, five years in France, 2 and half in England, five in Germany, five more in Italy, and now the same as all those combined in Serbia. And yet I still hear the siren call of Change. And unlike Odysseus, I will now untie myself from the mast of my ship and heed it.
Again everything will be the same and again everything will be different.
It is still a monumental decision after so many years of being stationary in Belgrade, maybe my adaptability has atrophied a little. And I would not be very surprised if, after all this, I still managed to backslide. I will not prejudge myself about it.
The earliest act of change aims to deeply minimize my material possessions to the precipitation point. Meaning the point after which one sock will tip the balance into unwieldy and cumbersome excess baggage. What I am shooting for now is one medium-sized bag and a backpack. This could change. I freely admit that I am playing it by ear here.
Some things are clear. NO books. No statues of Shiva, Ganesha, or Sarasvati. Maybe only two pairs of shoes. Enough clothes for a few days of cold and a few more days of heat. Work-related electronics. Toothbrush.
This first stage, once I have confirmed by choice, will begin with shedding all these possessions. Once that begins to happen, the wheels of the rest of the change will be turning inexorably. I admit that I do not know the outcome. The next blog post you read could be called one of two things.
The Backslide or The Big Goodbye.
See you next time when we will both find out.
