A friend asked my yesterday why I do so many crazy things. What’s my raison d’etre? He mentioned a few specific examples, and I had reasons for each, but those reasons weren’t similar to each other. I’ve been thinking about it since then, though. Is there some universal motivator that’s behind everything I do? If so, knowing what it is might be useful.
The more I think about it, the more I think that I don’t do very many crazy things. At least not when you consider the scope of crazy things I could do. When it comes down to it, I think that my search space for actions to take is just a whole lot broader than most people’s.
For example, sometimes I think about where else I could park my RV. I rent a spot now, but I know that eventually market forces will cause that space to be used by something more profitable. So where will I park next? I think about parking on the street again, the easy choice. Then I think about driving across the US and parking it in New York. I think about leaving it a few hours away at my mother’s house and not even living in it anymore. I think about just going on the road and not staying in one place.
Then I think about moving to Japan for a year, or buying a tiny house in Las Vegas. Living on the island for the six months it’s warm per year would be an interesting experience. The thought even crosses my mind to pick some random city somewhere in the world and disappear to it without telling anyone. I think about living on a cruise ship perpetually.
When most people move, they think about neighborhoods in their cities, surrounding suburbs, or familiar cities elsewhere in their country.
So given how broad my options are, I think I make a pretty conservative choice most of the time. People think the island is crazy, but they might not if they thought of some of the other things I’ve thought about buying. Taking random flights to Dubai, Delhi, or Brazil sounds impulsive, but I’ve thought about going to much stranger places for much longer periods of time.
And most of the time my choices are as pedestrian as anyone else’s. I spend most of my day working, spending time with friends, reading, and other normal activities. Normal works most of the time, but expanding one’s circle of possibilities sometimes surfaces good options that most people wouldn’t think about.
I think what enables me to cast such a wide net is a general detachment from everything. I love living in my RV, but it doesn’t matter so much to me. I could live anywhere else. San Francisco is my favorite city in the US, but it’s not really part of my identity. Other than a general aversion to dependency of any kind, I never really sought out to become detached, but I think it comes from making a lot of changes and being happy with the results most of the time.
Doing things that people think are crazy isn’t an important component of a good life. Plenty of people have great lives and don’t do it. I do think that having crazy-sounding options under consideration is a good idea, though, and I think being generally detached is a good idea as well. Maybe you’ll choose to do normal things, but maybe you won’t. And the only way you’ll know is if you give yourself the option and examine it seriously.
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Photo is from Noboribetsu, Japan
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