Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Anticipating Boredom
One of the main reasons I love to travel is that we give ourselves permission to do nothing. Often we seek out modes of travel that force us to sit for hours or days in the same seat or train berth, knowing full-well that we can't and won't fill every second of that time with activity. iPods, books, journals and chit-chat only go so far before we settle into the passivity of staring out the window, or simply letting ourselves be present in the atmosphere of the country.
Part of my trip to Peru in December will include a four-day boat ride up the Amazon from Pucallpa to Iquitos. I've purposefully added this to my trail to force myself to lay back in my hammock and soak up the energy of the Amazon. In Russia, I spent three days alone on the Trans-Siberian from Irkutsk to Moscow, having just said good-bye to three years of living in Japan and two close friends who continued down into Mongolia. That journey included a lot of "doing nothing" - despite the fact that I felt engaged in "doing nothing" the whole time.
The inspiration for this post came from the podcast I was listening to just prior. Gil Fronsdal did a dharma talk on the subject of boredom, which dissects this common feeling in a way that forces us to understand what's really taking place during those moments when we claim "I'm bored". Personally, I'm looking forward to this long boat-trip up the Amazon. I plan to pack a few books and my journal, but mostly, I'm going to try and use these four days to actively engage in those still moments where I'm not "doing" anything.
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