its ok to lose yourself*

there are times when i want to shake the person next to me. 'do you not realize what you are?' seems to me that we are born at the most amazing time in our history. we are writing stories and creating definitions for humankind that previous generations could never even dream of. we have the ability to flip the map of human-earth upside down and wander this planet aimlessly; albeit we do so under the sole condition that we learn something along the way.


this man is a personal hero of mine. youve never heard of him but you should. his name is Erdem Yücel and he originally hails from Ankara, Turkey. he tells the story of a man with a thirst to see things beyond the hills. his method of transportation was a motorcycle and his destination was a path around the world.

i remember him by a few bits of simple wisdom hes left behind following his travels. 'we are not seeing all the wonders of the world, we are only drawing a line around it.' i remember him also by a bit of insight he shares as to why we travel. humans as we know them have been around for something like two hundered thousand years and its only in the recent ten thousand years have we become more stationary. i assume this is because of our transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculture that we have begun to confine ourselves. weve crossed the same paths through central asia although at different times and few people really see things the way i do such as he does. anyway you should find this man, we could all take a leaf from his book.

you cant expect to answer personal questions when you travel.. we find ourselves asking the same questions many months down the road. if youre still asking questions you havent been listening.



Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

oof.. need i say anything. 'for creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.' finding Carl Sagan is much like finding really good underground hip-hop. nobody gives it to you, it is only found through a searching. people who find carl sagan are looking for something. we are disillusioned by religion and we are affraid that our lack of belief in higher power (or lack of understanding) has left us what some would think to be cold and empty. but in reality there is so much to be joyous for. dont you just want to shake the person next to you and say 'do you even realize we are made of stars!' 'do you not even realize the beautifully complicated structure that makes the human brain much less its endlessness of potential!'

it was actually through Carl Sagan that i first created my own definition of what 'love' or 'life' means to me. in fact we are so small and so seemingly insignificant that it could be tempting to believe we do not matter at all in the universe. however this is desperately incorrect. i love you for every piece of nothing that we both are. in something so small as we humans i see the god in you and i see an endless canvas of potential. you may mean nothing to the world but you mean the world to me.



'travel with an insatiable desire to turn planet human-earth's crown upside down' -CMA

and ive seen it. ive seen smiles bigger than the moon and ive seen acts of humanity upon both ends of the same spectrum. ive seen evil that people couldnt write about without worrying their families and ive seen good in the hearts of people so powerful that nations would lose their borders.

ive traveled and i will always travel until the day comes that the director calls cut. ive come too far to go back to a normal life.. if there is such a thing.

in fact ive often lost myself but its ok to lose yourself

*sometimes its the only way to be found