Studies in Wanderlust

Health and Wealth

2010-07-30T21:45:00.002-06:00

I'm not entirely sure what combination of things makes me feel this way, but at the moment I feel healthier than I have in a long time. It's counter-intuitive in a lot ways. Korea has some real problems with regard to environment and lifestyle. The smoking and drinking is worse than anything I've seen on the collective level, and that's a substantial statement given all the old Czech and Polish pubs I've visited and the various places and industries in which I've worked. As I've mentioned ad nauseam, the air pollution here is excessive, with automobiles being the primary culprit in my area. Now, the smoking and drinking is a choice, of course, and I forgo the former whilst moderately dabbling in the latter, so it is not so difficult to avoid that. But the pollution is inescapable. Luckily Gunpo is a fairly clean place, and returning here from Seoul will forever be a breath of fresh air.

Food is an important part of the picture. As it stands, without my own garden, fresh herbs, and most trusted co-ops and markets, I am only able to really achieve half of what I would like to in terms of dietary health. It is without a doubt, however, that healthy food is a higher priority here than in my own country. Whether at a restaurant or at school, the ingredients, methods of preparation, and well-roundedness of the average Korean meal are infinitely more healthy than the western counterpart. It has been a tremendous boost to my overall health, and the fact that I can actually afford to be picky now only helps my goals in maintaining proper nutrition.

I think, though, that if I could pinpoint any single thing as being the ultimate factor in my improved feeling of health, it would be the direction, momentum, and goals that I possessed upon arrival. I came here with health in mind, and Koreans possess nothing if not some unique mechanisms for rejuvenation. I've become a patron and fan of the jimjibang, the public baths that one finds around Korea that have various facilities for ridding oneself of the grime and stress that plague the modern life. I can't imagine why, in my own country, it seems so obscure and outlandish to go to a place, pay $6, and sit in a sauna for a bit and relax. It's all vanity in the spa world in America. Pay through the nose, hover around the treadmill...until I arrived here I hadn't experienced a public bath since Budapest in 2005. I'd prefer not to wait 5 years between sauna trips in the future.

Another important thing I've discovered here is a renewed sense of what it means to have a healthy relationship with the people in one's life. Here, the judgments are fewer and far between, and the issues of true importance, like health, the future of the planet, dreams for a life with a family and a safe existence, with a home and unique pursuits, seem not only easier to discuss, but also--and perhaps this reflects the demographic of the English teacher in Korea--easier to agree upon.

My most sincere hope is that when the time comes to leave this place, I will have learned enough about what I need and how to get it that it won't seem as difficult somewhere else. Korea is a long way from home and I won't stay here forever, there's too much concrete and cars and people. So while I can already claim some successes, there is still much to learn and to be decided. Stay tuned.

When Life Passes

2010-07-24T12:02:00.005-06:00

Loss and gain cannot be measured when they are brought about during those moments of purity that, either by chance or by fate, grace us with the delight of new bonds, or torment us with the finality of our own mortality and that of those we love. When the last breath of life is drawn into a man whose every bit of being was good and kind--whose legacy is of such magnitude that in mine own hands it feels far too lofty to be sustained--how can we measure the deprivation his absence will impart upon the world? Likewise, how can we measure the inexplicable wonder of discovering the spark of life in new friendship, and the happiness that even the mere prospect of its growth and longevity can bring at a time when such a thing seemed nigh on impossible?

These moments of purity have been in rare abundance of late. And so I seek not to measure them against the past, nor understand what they will mean for the future, but rather grieve when necessary, and exult at the beauty of those moments when "life is passing me love."

It's Rilke again, ringing in my ears: "love the questions themselves." Tonight I feel as though I've acquired a deeper appreciation for what he meant. It is, of course, an incredibly poetic way of saying live in the moment. But also, he assumes the presence of questions in the first place, which requires a degree of inquisitiveness, an inclination to beg after answers. For a person like me, whatever that is, the questions may be all that exist. And when they cease to be, it may turn out that I do as well. So I'm doing much more than loving the questions. I'm adoring them, cultivating them, and hopefully using them to lead a very colorful, if at times more chaotic, existence.

Another thing I'm abundantly aware of on this fine night: it's you that I fall back on. You who in your every step provide enough questions to keep me occupied for a lifetime or more. On what corner did you stand today? Are you sleeping well? Are you thinking about me? How far have you come? Will you go? I hope you make it far. I hope I'm there to learn the answers, so that I can ask more questions.

An Exceptional Hiatus

2010-07-07T06:25:00.002-06:00

One that I hope won't be revisited anytime soon.

The theoretical has been abandoned. The empirical and quantitative is now all that I have. Just as travel simplifies life, so too does it deplete the time and energy available to theorize and blog about the uselessness that I conjure in my brain. The following equation applies to working in Korea:

Korea = k Existence = e Time = t Fatigue = f

(k + e) = f * -t

Notice that the sum of living in Korea is equal to the product of a lack of time and an incessant fatigue induced by Korean weather, nightlife, and work ethic. The result is a ridiculous hiatus from blogging. Alas, I've now figured out where to put my trash, the best deals on toilet paper, and I'm a fully registered and legal alien resident with a bank account, an internet connection, and a broken air conditioner. In short, I have arrived. So perhaps I can soon return to the theoretical meanderings that used to occupy my time.

(For the record, I'm a little disturbed that I just created a math equation, albeit a simple one that probably makes no mathematical sense...but it's evident that Korea is rubbing off already!)

It's impossible for me to know where to begin with this. Perhaps I can explain it by relating my first experience in Seoul:

I step out of the subway station at Gangnam, and there's about a million people around me. It's a nice day. I have trouble getting past the first layer but I'm looking up and up and a city block multiplies itself with each new floor of the buildings that sprout around like little concrete weeds. I realize quickly that this city is to the human race what the rainforest is to the Animal Kingdom and all the other etymological classifications that exist. Life is tiered, figuratively, literally, socially, physically...there's a ground level and a canopy, and a lot in-between. There's so much happening in that one city block. Most of it I'll never even see much less explore, and so much I'll never understand...

There's a lot of good and bad stuff to uncover. I started on one block, and just looked. The next block, I went in. The next block, I sit down. And on and on. Now multiply that by the thousands of blocks that exist in the world's second largest city (by metro), and well...you get the idea. Why do I keep making math problems???

Maybe it's the only way to convey the enormity of it all. Maybe my student's mathematical abilities are so humiliatingly advanced compared to my own that I need to feel part of the crowd.

I really like it here. Some things, I really wonder about. Predictably, the level of air pollution is quite appalling. So maybe I will go to China to prove to myself that it can be worse. The culprit is the traffic, which is absolute madness. The mass transit is so incredibly efficient and cheap it boggles the mind that people would prefer to sit in their personal little conveyance of death and destruction. Sometimes I like to pretend to myself that the obviously failed paradigm that is the automobile (see: The Gulf of Mexico), will soon lose its appeal. But I know better from my experience in my own culture. Gotta have that whip and those rims, biotch, else I have to walk my fatass down the street for my groceries. Enter: soapbox.

Okay I'm done.

I've met amazing people already. I've met D bags too. I hope someone isn't blogging right now and putting me in that category. Well, there's one British gentleman that would undoubtedly put me in that category after our meeting. Over a nice bottle of Makkgeoli, we proceeded to argue about the use of "soccer" and "football" in English. Listen Brits, if you want to keep calling trash rubbish and cellphones mobiles, then let us call the beautiful game what we will. Your insistence is just a pathetic attempt at latching onto some point of pride that you feel will protect you against fading into obscurity. Stick to rock bands and the occasional decent actor. For all your bickering you lost in the same round as U.S., so meh.

Guess I wasn't done.

Back to the amazing people. Good folks, Koreans and Waegooks (foreigners) alike. I've had an incredibly smooth transition to such a foreign place, and I learned right away how fortunate I am to be working at Sanbon Middle School. There's not a malicious person I've come across, and the school has been incredible to work with in terms of the nuts and bolts that can make or break an experience here. My coordinator with GEPIK is amazing and my co-teachers are all very accommodating.

Not much more that I can ask for at this stage. Maybe to catch up on my sleep, but I'm the only one that can grant that wish, and the hardest thing of all is to exhibit a modicum of discipline in this place where the trains run late, and if that's not late enough the cabs are cheap. I think that is probably my biggest challenge moving forward.

Much more to say. Peace, love and granola for now.

Disbanding Armies, Making Truce

2010-04-30T11:17:00.011-06:00

For me, happiness is an impending departure, even when the itinerary lands me squarely within range of the Dear Leader’s artillery pieces. It’s time to lose myself, not a la tourista but in the fashion of Walter Benjamin: “a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away.” As Rebecca Solnit [she just rocks] tells us, the word lost comes from the old Norse los meaning the disbanding of an army, “a truce with the wider world.” It is difficult to make truce, with oneself or the wider world. Too hard, too complicated, too much at stake, too little time, far too many injustices, never enough willpower, and of course, never enough money.

Curious then that traveling might be the conduit for fostering a truce, given what it entails. It is costly, unpredictable, physically difficult, mentally fatiguing, and sometimes dangerous. Indeed, the word travel stems from the same root as “travail.” In times past, traveling was a sure way to suffer, and was only undertaken by soldiers, pilgrims, nomads and fools. It is certainly not so difficult today, but whether walking down Central Avenue or driving on any freeway in America, the element of travail is ever-present. Still, when engaged in true foreign travel, as opposed to say, the commute to work, I can’t help but misplace the festering anxieties that have a tendency to visit me in familiar surroundings.

My experience has demonstrated that that which is most familiar can also be the most debilitating. I’ve never loved my hometown so much as when I was either leaving it or returning to it. In-between those moments I quarrel with this loathsome, evil vortex of an acquaintance that breeds the most wretched state of monotony and laziness. It is like the most loving of relatives—there is nothing so great for relations as a little time apart.

But it is not contempt that sees me off now. Rather, the allure of the unknown, the deep necessity of self-reliance, and the feeling of accomplishment that invariably arrives when undertaking this sort of transition. For justification I talk to Keats. Keats appreciated “what quality went to form a Man of Achievement,” one who is “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” Or perhaps, for those of you that are unwilling to acknowledge the beauty of that statement, I should add the following: Poe’s remark that “All experience, in matter of philosophical discovery, teaches us that, in such discovery, it is the unforeseen upon which we must calculate most largely.” But calculation is a counting of facts, whilst the unforeseen is inherently incalculable. What then, does this juxtaposition say about the art of travel? Solnit says that the “art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance” is crucial in calculating the unforeseen, which is perhaps “exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us.” I know no activity that works the muscles of “calculating the unforeseen” more than the act of traveling.

So now it is another disbanding, a rather more intense one than usual, as I approach as geographically distant a place as one could find and seek to embed myself in its culture, whilst projecting my own into the lives of young people at the same time. It is a daunting transition. “Who travels widely needs his wits about him.” I understand this now more than ever. But I am not dissuaded. “Live always at the edge of mystery—the boundary of the unknown” said Oppenheimer. He was a man that possessed, shall we say, an "above average" understanding of the forces that govern our existence.

Travel has always reawakened my senses. Once immersed in the unknown it is not the future nor the past that occupies the mind, but rather the mysteries of the present, allowing moments of striking clarity in an otherwise confusing world. I'm almost certain, however, that this journey will only leave me with more questions than answers, and that is a good thing. Rilke tells us "to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." I honestly believe that if there has ever been a time in which I might be truly living the questions, it is now. With that I leave you, begging for wishes of safe and felicitous travel.

The Art of Travel

2010-04-11T16:52:00.010-06:00

Writing from Walden Pond in 1854, Transcendentalist literary figure Henry David Thoreau quipped “It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.” Unlike contemporaries such as Alexander von Humboldt, whose far-ranging field work served as the basis of his academic endeavors, Thoreau possessed a proclivity for localism. As one scholar has pointed out, “intimate local knowledge was a powerful source of authority” for Thoreau, providing him with what he believed to be a “peerless ability to navigate his world even in total darkness.” Ironically, Thoreau’s “penetrating yet fussy empiricism” was a tool well-suited for unknown places, and indeed it was during his moments as an explorer that this element is most evident in his writing (Maine Woods, A Yankee in Canada). But Thoreau's aversion to travel was well-known, having shed his adolescent desires for it, and he chose to spend the majority of his life in and around the Concord area.

It was a philosophically justified decision, in his mind. Thoreau was quick to dismiss the implications of geographic variance that resound so clearly in the post-modern age. Landscape is a central component of Thoreau’s theoretical arguments, but the most imperative distinctions are between rural and urban, cabin and townhome, not between American and European, Latin or Asian. A forest is a forest, and a man within it finds his soul the same, whether it be in Massachusetts or in Bavaria. Still, the consummate “writer of ostensible travelogues” recognized the requisite travel needed to facilitate trading the familiar for the unknown, so that the former becomes the latter and vice versa. Only once this stage has been reached, according to Thoreau, can we accurately find ourselves. In Walden, he writes that “Not till we are lost…not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.” How then, in today’s world with cell phones, Google maps, and GPS, would Thoreau go about losing that world? Would he travel vast distances, knowing that it is not so easy to detach from civilization by walking a short distance to a secluded location in the woods? Perhaps the fleeting jaunt to “count the cats in Zanzibar” might prove more alluring when he discovered the parking lot at Walden Pond.

But it is not my aim to hypothesize about how Thoreau would react to today’s connectedness, or how he might combat it. Nor is it my aim to justify the need for travel in the globalized world of the twenty-first century—that is a necessity that should be abundantly clear to anyone paying attention. Moreover, in conversation with Thoreau, I needn’t venture to do so, because he never completely debunked travel as a worthwhile goal; he was more interested in explaining his own ventures. My intention then, is to draw upon many of the ideas of people like Thoreau, and, whilst paying mind to the scholarly and literary work being done today, provide some sort of definition of the personal meaning that I draw from engaging in the art of travel. In the converse of Thoreau’s legacy, I will not altogether discredit the merits of staying in one place, however I will argue that now more than ever, the act of traveling is analogous to a trip to Walden Pond, and it is in that spirit that I myself continue to engage in specific forms of travel on an international scale.

My goal is not to return to Concord having discovered the wild and embark on a career as a lecturer whereby I will confidently tell all my countrymen that it is in fact I who possesses the answers to life. More than anything, these writings will serve as a modern day notebook for whatever empirical and philosophical fussiness that I feel compelled to share with others as I continue to partake in travel as a mechanism for soul-searching. If one thinks about it, Walden really is nothing more than the 19th century blog. Naturally then, what I share will include much of what occurs in the mundane trappings (ha!) of daily life. But I hope that if there is one thing my university education has given me, it is the ability to delve below the surface, and reveal the cultural, political, and socio-economic significance of what is cast before me during the day to day. If I can accomplish that, perhaps my efforts at traveling will prove a fine means of discovering that which escapes me now.