The Tale of the Pad Thaiquilans - a Photo Essay

While we travel for many reasons, I think what originally motivates us is the desire to see the world, yet it seems that *meeting* the world is perhaps our most profound takeaway.

Mufasa pulled me in close. I smile, but can’t take my eyes from the indescribable sight of the limitless, twinkling, etherial blanket draping over us and the bay. I could hear his thick Spanish accent over the longboat’s motor and the crash of the hull breaking through the black waves.

“David! Every moment is better than the last! Every moment. But how can this be? I keep thinking, it’s going to stop at some point. There can’t be anything better than this…and then it is!

But, it’s going to stop at some point, right? It has to…”

But does it?

In the eyes of those I wandered with, I saw truth.

Admittedly, I didn’t even know what I was witnessing at first.

But then I let the wind take me.

It was the fire of rebirth. I saw the hunger for challenge and adventure, which drove each of these travelers out of their comfort zone, to lands unknown and to new depths of self discovery.

The feats one conquers far from the familiar remind those who take the leap, of all there is to find when we feel lost. We foster foundations with a new family, and we become story tellers. We lay with our backs to the earth, staring at the heavens, and those we encounter ask us questions that we have never before pondered. And, beneath this sea of stars, to our own great astonishment, we have answers. And they are answers that strangers and new friends care to hear! We are reminded of our significance.

Our impact.

Our seemingly small choices which significantly shake and transmute our trajectory become clear amid the swirling stars.

Our reality - a fractal of synchronicity floating atop an ocean of possibility. The next step on this journey lights our way, every possible choice and outcome explode like fireworks across the ether, lighting new paths and carving our way through the darkness that we no longer fear.

We travelers - pilgrims - see authenticity and a glowing life inside one another. And as our days and nights extend vertically through time, its confining tick, tick, tick grows faint, and we ere no longer slaves to efficiency. We do everything, and touch everywhere - singing, laughing, kissing, dancing. We shout, we drink, we fight and we fall in love. We cross sapphire seas beneath endless cloudscapes. We feel at home in places we have never before been, and we feel grounded while standing among the clouds.

The truth that I saw in these faces, and behind these eyes, held the knowledge that the fulfillment of one’s life doesn’t happen by climbing up the ladder of success. Even those who are great climbers never get out of the rut that is an identity defined by commodity and ever greater expectation.

Happiness is simple.

Happiness is freedom.

Freedom from that expectation that others have of us, and, coincidentally, that we have of ourselves to live up to their expectations. This cycle is endless and conquering it is impossible.

Cast off the lines that anchor you to a life of mundanity.

There is a world waiting to shock you and shake you loose, to breath life into you and remind you of your voice! I have witnessed this - the glorious, artistic rebirth of those who decide to dive headfirst into the unknown. While the notion may seem daunting, there is nothing better that you could do for yourself than to turn off your head, abandon all of the reasons that it doesn't make sense to jump, and follow that quiet voice we have all learned to quell, for it is your heart.

It is your truth and your beauty and your art. And, it holds your true power and potential.

So, take that leap of faith. I implore you to, and know that you won't be jumping alone.

For, even if you fall, you will be falling with those who have taken the same flight.

And, among those like-minded adventures is a profoundly beautiful place to land.