The Current

I am not considering myself a traveler or backpacker since I do not travel a lot. Anyway, I enjoy almost every time I travel—alone or with companion. Some of the time, I felt ecstatic when I saw the sun rise and set whether I was at a beach, mountain, or city I traveled. I was captivated by that moment. I literally paused and enjoyed the beauty of it. I know it sounds cliché, but that is the moments when I felt a strange kind of completeness and peace. Not only did I feel it when I saw the sun, but also when I woke up there, despite of having ‘panda’ eyes from a very instant sleep.

It makes me wonder, how come I felt completely different in my ‘normal’ day. I am the same person; the sun is the same sun; I breathe the same air and feel the same wind caressing my face. 

I want to have more of those moments. The moment when I looked at the sun at the horizon as I mumbled, ‘Good morning’, without lying about the ‘good’; the moment when I speak, ‘Good afternoon’, sincerely even though I felt so tired; and closed my eyes with the ‘Good night’ as I looked forward to catching up with tomorrow.

I lost the beauty of the present because my eyes kept looking at the future. 

It is as if I was in a meadow, walking and walking straight toward an unknown point. All the time, I worried too much about the path that I walked on, whether it was bumpy or slippery. I failed to realize that there are so many beautiful flowers and nice places at the sides. I did not know that there is nothing but a cliff at the end of the path. 

I realize that I had lived my entire life unconsciously. I failed to notice the beauty of anything around me. I cursed the sun that burnt my skin, the rain that dampened me, the weather that was too hot, the fact that I had to wake up so early, the lack of sleep, failed relationships, almost all the things. 

I distanced myself from anything that is 'not me'. 

I was too busy judging things, and people, as ‘nice’ and ‘not nice’ based on my personal preferences—which mostly turn out wrong. Falling from a bicycle that I labeled ‘not nice’ was actually a turning point when I could finally ride a bicycle. Being broke and dependent on public transportation for years—which I thought ‘not nice’, is actually one of the best moments for I could finish my assignments and read many textbooks and novels.

I demanded that life should be this and that. I did not know that I am the part of life. I am a drop of water in a great current of The River. I tried so hard to swim against the current and then failed and depressed. It is all just a thought that differentiates happiness with depression; a thought that can pause me to look at the beauty of life in my brief existence.

I am trapped in the current. I have no control whatsoever to move against the current since I am part of the current, in fact, I am the current. I, however, have some controls over where and how to look, and of course, how to respond.

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