The State of Things

Have you ever experienced an interest in everything? Childlike wonder for absolutely every aspect of life? Maybe as a kid, you went through a few different stages - "I want to be an astronaut, a pirate, a doctor, a police officer" etc. Imagine, if you can, living a life where that never stops. I question it sometimes. Is it a disorder? Am I autistic or some other such condition that I can't quite quantify? For as long as I can remember, I've always felt this way. I'm interested in everything. I want to do and experience everything. From the banal, the monotonous and mundane, to the extraordinary, spectacular and fantastical. I want to understand what life is like for those in crippling poverty, or at the bottom of the social ladder and I want to be a great athlete, a politician or a superhero. I'm perfectly aware that this isn't possible, of course. That's a deep and often insufferable source of frustration to me. If you always feel like an ou...

Undoubtedly, everybody feels the need to just get away from it all. Maybe for an hour, maybe for a year. But we all feel the need to escape sometimes.  How we choose to escape the stresses of reality happens in numerous ways. Sometimes it's a glass of wine or a cold beer after your day at work, other times it's sinking a few hours into a videogame. Even going to the gym or exercising otherwise can be an escape from the struggles of our lives. It tends to be that the greater the stress we are feeling, the bigger the need is to remove oneself from it.  In my case, I'm currently planning what some would consider to be pretty dramatic escapism, by literally taking myself to the other side of the planet. Several friends of mine who are equally upset with our current employer are also seeking this solution. There's more to it than simply "getting away," of course, but ultimately, physically distancing oneself from the struggles of our lives is extremely positive ...