On being MIA

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am in Sao Paulo, Brazil, safe and sound.

It's great to be back and if the country and city aren't familiar enough, I am currently staying two blocks away from SP host mom's apartment. As I've explained to my (real) mom, the juxta-position is pretty interesting. I've gone from two weeks spent on my own in a country that I did not know, to around the corner from where I lived for five weeks, staying with a good friend who I look up to like an older brother. The difference of the two positions truly throws your mind for a loop.

Expanding on this idea, the past week has allowed me to realize that I have been (and I think most people are) socialized to surround myself with people. I touched on this "socialization" in a previous post and I think that this latest transition has reinforced this notion.

As human beings, we are social creatures that really do not take very well to loneliness. I think about myself and the times I felt most lonely, whether at home or at school. Usually these points of loneliness have lasted no more than a day before I "reconnected," which meant reuniting with friends or family. In this way, I've always viewed loneliness as detrimental. When we think of loneliness, the first thing that normally comes to mind is "depression" or "isolation," as opposed to "introspection" and "self-discovery."

I will leave the thread there before you start thinking "Oh shit, Chas has gone off the deep end." No, I'm not there yet.

The time that I have been away thus far has allowed me to see the good, or rather, the necessity, of time spent alone. Yes, there is a necessity for loneliness. It would be negligent of me not to thank my cousin, Taylor, who has also traveled alone, for helping me to understand loneliness (though I could not really understand its importance until I was experiencing it for myself). It was he who told me what this loneliness would be like and it is he who continues to help me to understand it.

The way I have grown up and spent the last 22 years of my life, I might as well have been on a conveyer belt. And I say that objectively, without wanting to do anything over again, because thus far, I think I have learned a great deal and have been allowed to experience tremendous opportunities. That said, the stretches of loneliness that I've experienced thus far help me to realize that I can, and must, step off this conveyer belt. Many who study human behavior will talk about my conveyer belt using terms like "herd mentality" and "group-think" and it's not until you are able to stand outside of the "group" or the "herd" that you see what's really going on. Loneliness doesn't fit well with the "group" or the "herd."

The writing that I have done has been extraordinary and if there is no one who reads this outside of my mom, dad and brother, that would be completely fine with me because the recording of my inner-dialogue is what is most meaningful for me. To have a forum, whether it is on the computer, in a notebook or on a napkin (I have a few of those) in which I can articulate the things that I am seeing and the things that I am feeling is so important and I wonder now how I went through life without doing it. Well no, i don't wonder, because I know exactly how. The past few days have allowed me to see just how easily one (I) can switch from an existence of complete introspection to one of complete socializing. I am not condemning either, but if there is anything my 23 days out of the country has shown me is that in order to be complete, one must find a way to balance the two.