Thoughts from a Journeyman

According to Wikipedia a journeyman is someone who has completed an apprenticeship and is fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. I use the word here instead of traveler, because I feel the word journey is greater than that of travel (which to me is more going from A to B). Anyway on with the rant...

Perhaps because I don't have any roots the restlessness is forever in me. To quote myself from an old lyric I once wrote: home should be where you've never been. This is how I feel. Nothing like being on the road, sometimes with a clear destination, sometimes not... it doesn't matter which. I have journeyed far in poverty, the same with wealth... neither is better than the other. Some places I return to, some places I don't want to see again.

Books and blogs can tell a story, but to see for yourself can not be competed with. For me a journey, especially a journey where you almost feel lost, scared and left completely in the arms of the unknown, is the best life can give. People differ very little. In general terms we are all the same, both good and bad... but again generally the former. Most of us want peace. Don't let assholes ruin your journey.

Some years I have journeyed a lot, some years not at all (still I journey in my mind, but it is not the same). Physically reality is charming. Perhaps this is why we choose to reincarnate (if indeed such a system is in place). I don't see memories as bad, they should be collected. For each journey something new is learned. Sometimes I have to go to the other side of the world to learn something about myself, which I could not have learned if I had stayed put.

I am very grateful to be able to journey, but in life I also make it my intention to do so. Money, work and all that has only one purpose really: to aid my journey nothing more. I have met those that claim they can't afford to go anywhere, this is a lie... a deceit. Anyone in the west can arrange life in such a way that a journey once a year is possible. For those that have not journeyed so much, well they don't need to go very far in order to experience strange lands. For the journeymen of this world, well they have to go a bit further. Neither is superior to the other. It is all in the experience.

Some are not journeymen, it doesn't suit their tastes... I am not trying to convince anyone... this rant is nothing but a love letter to the journey.

The more we journey, the more we grow. These days even the 'poor' have a chance to journey with cheaper transportation both in Asia, Latin America and even in Africa. The world is shrinking, yet the more I journey the bigger it seems... the more important the world seems to be. Alchemical transmutation is a journey. And a journey can be transformative.

Our existence can't be coincidence or chance, I can't believe this anymore. This doesn't mean I advocate divine rule... instead I would say that our existence is a natural side effect of life. When that fish crawled out of the ocean it would only be a matter of time before it evolved to the point of being able to order a taxi with a text message on a mobile device.

I only wish in a sense I had been born a little more into the future because I would have loved to journey up and out... see Mars and Saturn. If ever we reach that point as a race that is. Aliens! Please pick me up...

back