Brain Wave #18: Don't be afraid to fall

Brain Wave #18: Don't be afraid to fall

Well so I came back from holiday, and God I really hate lay overs, especially when they get to 5 hours in length and I woke up at 2am...But yeah I've been to Sweden (and Norway, more on that later) and had just over a week with proper sleep.

I gotta tell you, the UK is a "developed country in disguise" like now I don't wanna get political also bc I cannot throw out numbers right now, but I swear to everything, why on earth is the country I live in so underdeveloped in comparison to countries like Sweden: the people where I live are shit, the taxes that I pay don't do jackshit unlike over there, and,,, Okay never mind I'm kind of getting political, let's not make the subject of matter my complaints, shall we? ("I" but you already know by now that I'm schizo)
But yeah, all and all I've only been able to visit Stockholm because of my bad leg, and some parts outside as I took an archipelago tour. Let me tell you, the place is just beautiful: other than being your typical European city where you have to walk in all three dimensions one by one to get somewhere, it is such well "presented"(?) like I just felt really good being there, breathing actual clean air, being in a touritsy city where I kinda feel more comfortable walking anywhere and not be anxious to be in a "big" city (Stockholm isn't THAT urban or metropolis like). But yeah, I feel like going there was my first time of me being that comfortable walking around the city, without feeling like "Oh I'm in a big ass city, I feel overwhelmed by all this". You don't get what I'm saying, do you?
Also, very easy city to explore if you ask me. It's not cheap at the same time, but it being a European city, everything is in walking distance. Just putting it down for the American fellows, your minds would be completely blown. I explored some museums and stuff and ate like a motherfucker, as you do on holiday. Can you tell that I cannot write about any of this whatsoever? 

I'm about to set  completely different tone from here onwards. Get ready.

Now that all the fluff bullshit is out of the way, let me tell you what actually amazed me during this vacation. Maturing over the years makes me realise how much responsibilites as a human being I'm getting, and how self conscious I am becoming of my life and the consequences of my actions. Stockholm has a vast variety of tourists all around the world, which if you ask my uneducated ass I wouldn't guess so. Overtime I realised how, this is gonna sound so stupid, that there is other people around me who are living other lives. Like, yeah I've always known that the world is huge and I was arguing in previous entries that there are people out there who are living completely different lives, but what I'm saying is that this time in the place that I was in, other people were there experiencing what I'm also experiencing, obviously they take it in in a different way, but y'know we're all doing the same thing! (need more full stops sometimes) What really changed my mind were little things like: spilling my coffee in a park in front of a bunch of kids playing mini golf, or even taking a picture for a happy family right where I took it, and in my head I understood how this memory is also gonna be stored in their minds as this great trip they had, and that I also had, we all contribute to each other's path in life and these become all building bricks that make us who we are bassed on our experiences. Isn't that just crazy?! Am I crazy?! Like I always fall in this paradox where I feel so shit for not understanding "maturity" things throughout life, to then realise that it's just normal for me to feel this way as it is part of growing up. I always say that I would go back in time and tell myself that I was a piece of shit, but it's not like I could've grown up without being a piece of shit and understood shit like "how to be financially responsible as a university student" when I was 10 years old. You get what I'm saying, right? If you said no, I'm pretty sure you always say no as I basically ask this in every entry...

My mom decided to take half of the clothes that we already used and get them washed just so we don't have too much laundry when we come back. We head out to the the hotel's laundry room and there is this old guy who's (guess what) also doing his laundry. We start having casual laundry small talk (as you do,,, don't you?) and we get to find out that this guy is basically circumnavigating the planet. THAT IS FUCKING INSANE. He's spending a few days in the countries that he already planned to go to. Apparently he just came from Norway and there in Sweden he was trying to get to the North Pole. Also insanity, this guy is basically seeing the actual fucking wonders of the world, let me go on a tangent one second: this person (in my opinion) is having the trip of a lifetime, if you read other entries of this blog you know that I would like to just wander around the planet. Apparently he wasn't able to get the the actual geographical North Pole, but he was basically there, and on the way back he managed to see humpback whales. Out in the wild. Are you kidding me??? These are actual unique life experiences and this person is just casually doing this stuff. I mean I guess that he's also amazed by what he's seeing, but I myself am already in awe listening someone talk about them actual doing this kind of stuff. Basically what I'm saying is that this person is just out there experiencing the world in a way that I dream of everyday. At the moment of me writing this, he's probably in eastern Europe or central Asia, still fucking awesome. Something else that I wanna talk about, which is the reason why I'm mentioning this person, is the way he managed to have another impact on my way of thinking. To this day he's still the old guy who lives in a small town in North Carolina to me, and there he's an english teacher in his local highschool: so I started telling him that I'm a theoretical physics student and that my whole life I was always into the academic life, not only in the subject that I'm studying, but I chase for knowledge anywhere I seek interest. He told me about how if I ever got into teaching, I would most likely have lots of opportunities in the USA, and if you know me, you know that I have no intentions to ever go there because,,, let's not get political maybe. He told me lots about teaching and how kids respond to teaching, how to continue with my own studies, and stuff. Y'know I'm not here to spill the beans, especially bc I buy them them dry then soak them and whatnot...I just wanna say that I am so grateful to have randomly received this piece of wisdom, which is something that I wouldn't have excpected, but it just goes to show how much I learn to value moments like these, that in my opinion are what makes life feel so weirdly fascinating, because you never know when "knowledge is coming to you" in a sense? Anyway, I just thought that it was a really interesting anecdote for a short event in my holiday.

During this holiday I also got to find out that my mom's aunt lives in Norway, connecting the dots she's technically my grandmother then (in english there is probably a word like "grand aunt" or something, I don't really know how to use these words english is a stupid ass language anyway let's get the fuck out of these parentheses) and she's got a son herself, who would technically be my uncle, I know it's harder to connect one more dot so I'm going to explain it for your tiny peanut brain. They picked us up at the airport, as you can guess we actually flew there to visit them. Already in the ride from the airport to their place I already managed to strike some conversation with my uncle, and from there onwards I was once again appalled. See I was telling him about my studies and apparently, him being 13 years older than me, has graduated with a master's degree in astrophysics: I was struck because never in my own family or anyone that closely related to me, other than my school buddies, I could relate to in that way. See other than the people who I study with never in my life I managed to find someone who could understand this side of me, y'know with everyone else I don't talk about this shit. Overtime, during conversation, we find out that we basically got the same interests, which could be videogames, anime, anything that fed our boredom. In the two days (barely) that I stayed there he paid my tickets for a museum that we went to, and a drink, honestly in my opinion other than that I would want to repay him all the fuel that he used to help us explore Oslo, because holy shit we spent the whole time going around. He's also a teacher, what's with me and getting wisdom from teachers? But other than that, he teaches physics to kids that are no different than me a couple years back, and I don't really know how to put it in words, but having someone who is this knowledgeful in something that I am so interested in, and that he teaches, makes me feel that I have someone to look up to. Over these two days we also learnt that other than our interests, we ARE basically the same: we had long hair before, we crack every single of our bones, we talk to our mothers the same. There is a glitch in the matrix or something? No, he eats pizza in a way that Norwegian people are so happy to eat, but Italians would burn them on a cross. Also, we have different music taste, as I tend to go out of my way to make it weird, but we're not exactly the same person. Other than political let's not personal, because at the moment I'm talking about my relative. The point of me telling all this however, I've never been able to express my emotions (period) that well on text, but I just wanted to say that meeting someone like this really meant something to me. Like you cannot comprehend the emotional impact that I received from someone who I can see myself into in 13 years time: not particularly as a physics teacher in Norway (his words LMAO) but y'know, even if tomorrow he ends up being something else in his career, I would still have this sort of "achievement point" or some place to look up to, I don't really know how to explain it, but just having some idea of what I want to achieve after university, because honestly I had no idea what to do once I graduate. Even though I know it's gonna be in 3 years time, me being the overthinking asshole that I am I didn't know what future me would've been thinking. I don't know what to call it, but now I feel like I got some sort of path to follow, I have an idea in mind for how I'd like to become in a sense, or maybe even better because y'know life ambitions and all that bullshit. Basically I feel like I learnt something, again even from such a small experience. And I never felt happier learning something, and yuo know me, I'm all about learning. Everyday of my life I feel like as I'm maturing I learn more and more the value of knowledge, I never feel like I'm good eno- wait no we're not going personal lol. I felt emotional as I was boarding the plane back, couldn't believe that this whole trip was gonna be this impactful on me.

You know me, I probably already forgot some things that I wanted to talk about, but I also learnt that I am better off experiencing life myself instead of through a device.

Queue "0310" by Yerin Baek.

Good bai for now, poposwag.