“You are a culmination of everything you once learned”, I read as I shift between thoughts, feelings, passive contemplations, and the noise. What does it mean to be a culmination of your thoughts, and a formation of all the experiences you encountered? How has every moment brought you to where you are today — driving across countries waiting for deliverance from the universe?
Imagine this now, you are alone in the car and the sun has tucked itself away behind the land. The orange hues on the horizon are etching away as they close shop for the day and you watch as the world does its dance. I know you have felt this at least once — a mere passerby in a grand existence with directions that are neither right nor wrong, a spec that translates to movement and eventually becomes a heartbeat.
That is you and you are here. We know you feel something different when you’re miles away from home and alone on asphalt that could go on for days. There are a few things I learned on the road from watching how the world works through the windshield.
24 hours feels different.
In essence, we are programmed to operate with the rise and fall of a burning star. It is our systematic approach to life in the last century that has robbed us of the authentic connection to a movement we cannot harness. A 12 o’clock sun on a serene day on a strip of land surrounded by water on an island off the coast of the Sultanate feels like love, don’t you think?
Sometimes I imagine having the ability to see every place my heart desires and to feel every feeling I can possibly come across. If as humans we have put a parameter of time tied by the movement of planets, can we alter that parameter to fit all our experiences?
There is a greater power.
Humanity has tried to harness the power of the world but the world has never relinquished the power to the people. On one night of our travels, we had set up camp by the sea — it was survival of the fittest except I was up against nature and bound to lose. As the sky turned dark, the night came and the moon did its thing, we did not consider the rising tides. A testament to the human's narrow vision, I was now sitting at the edge of my car watching the water come closer and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I thought this is what it must feel like to surrender - to let go and let it be because there is nothing else I could possibly do. I’ve done my part, now it is the worlds turn.
The fluidity of life.
In the silence of your journey, reality happens and the quiet voice of truth lingers in your head. There is no effort required from your end but to listen. This is how the world fluctuates between a constructed reality and the garden built in your mind. There is something numbing about the long road that gives space for your thoughts to fixate on the garden — the hues are still orange but you are, my friend, meeting the depths of yourself.
I remember vividly the road between Masirah and Nizwa when we decided to drive the five-hour stretch through the night. My friends were in separate cars and when darkness fell I could only see taillights. I remember thinking to myself how much this situation felt like believing in tomorrow. I trusted that this road would take me to the next city, I trusted it with every nerve in my body. I saw nothing of my surroundings, it was me, the taillights, and my faith. I watched as I made my way through an unknown route and I understood for a fleeting second why travelers of the past spoke so highly of the dotted night sky that accompanies them through the dark. Life is a series of fluid interactions that are in constant motion as is our planets and us. What a sight to barely see.
If you were to ponder your travel, what have you learned?
