Feelings and stuff.

When I was in Srinagar the Aussie girl, Hannah, picked up my diary one day and said something along the lines of: "What's this-your diary? Like feelings and stuff? " she flicked through the pages and followed up by saying "that's a lot of feelings." In all honesty my diary contains very few feelings. It is more observational writings and descriptions of things i have seen or done. And on the whole I think it's fairly superficial, I don't think of any solutions to problems I see or have any insights really, it's quite basic, in no way profound (unfortunately). But it got me thinking - maybe I should write more of my feelings. I don't have lots of feelings though, and they confuse me on the whole, so are difficult to write about. I mostly just feel happy at the moment. I thought I should prob make it clear that I am happy in case it doesn't come across in my blog. I asked Stewart Jellyfish if I come across as happy and he said something about definitely and he was REALLY jealous or something - but he is a tad prone to melodrama. For me though, I would like to remember how happy I am. Sometimes one does forget these things...

So basically I keep feeling a lot happier than ever. I don't seem to feel scared about much except when Betty sends me texts about how I need to be 'very very careful. Very very careful indeed.' And on the whole my travels have confirmed what wonderful people the majority of humanity are. I keep thinking that actually, if I died now, I wouldn't really mind. Life has been very good to me and I could have nothing to reproach God with. (Not that one would reproach God anyway....) I've been so happy in fact, for this whole trip, that I am a almost worried about my precious serotonin reserves. I've loved meeting all the interesting people, being almost adopted by families and helping out in mostly insignificant ways where I can; I've loved being exposed to such different environments and just hope that maybe I've learnt something along the way about places and people even if I'm not aware of it presently. I feel my old energy and enthusiasm for life returning. I think travelling gives one the sense of freedom that we forget we have, and even though we are never truly free in this world, I think this may be as close as it gets. So on the whole I feel very very happy. Very very happy indeed.

Of course whilst visiting less economically developed countries, and travelling across large chunks of land one does also see a lot of suffering. I strangely bumped into Boris (the Swiss guy I met on the Andaman islands) yesterday we talked about beggars and the poor people you see lined up sleeping on the streets at night or living in their 'houses' which are nothing more than plastic sheets forming a tent of sorts. They beg for food and money, but you know that wont solve their problems and can actually aggravate their situations if for example money is spent on alcohol and the abuse of that causes family problems etc. To certain degrees this sort of thing is a global problem as we're all aware. Being faced with it on a larger scale does make you think about it more though. I still feel awkward and helpless when faced with it. When I start earning again I would like to do more to help the homeless, it is difficult to break the cycle of poverty. Boris and I talked of how some people, who have grown up in those conditions all their life, they may on some level be content - they've not known anything else. As we all know, sometimes interfering, doing what we think is best, isn't always the best option for those involved. As I said, I don't have solutions to these problems. Seeing extremes of poverty does make one sad though. I think ignoring the problems would be sadder.

Anyway, that's mostly it. What other feelings are there? I've been reading about Buddhism and actually feelings, like everything else, aren't real, I've really enjoyed my book on Buddhism. Nothing really matters so to speak. I can't remember whether I said it in an earlier blog or not - but I always remember that scene from Pulp fiction where Samuel L. Jackson is saying he just wants to wander the world. And John Travolta says - "so you're gonna be a bum" I think I'd be very happy doing the same. Just to be a bum  wandering the earth being at peace with everyone and everything.