All these chains

Aah chains… all those Gold and blitz and riches adorned by women and men alike…
We might adorn them all right, but I am not quite talking about these chains.Chains rule us in ways most of don’t realize, in fact we are bound by them.

It is indeed a grim but hardened reality that we are bound by the chains of geography, chains of locality and the chains of time, and seemingly there is little we can do about it.

What are we but slaves of choices; choices that were and are being made, not by us, but instead, by people, whom we might or might not even know. A little tweak here and a little touch there, and behold…unrecognizable change.

So much of the world to see, so many people trapped in distant lands, so many ideologies I may never experience, so many cultures which I can only read about, so many cuisines, that I can only salivate about, and yet here I am, bound by these invisible chains, that anchor me as tight as they could. The intricacies involved in these tight anchors, is unfathomable. The untold pact, between our parents and us, the unwritten laws that govern our desires to be home bound, the lack of opportunities, or the thing that plagues most of us, the lack of guts to take that initial step.

The most unfortunate thing however, is recognizing the fact that I would probably never meet all those wonderful people across the globe, nor will I interact with all those inquisitive like-minded people trapped in far away lands, nor do I stand a chance to dance with all those beautiful exotic women from distant fabled lands, nor do I stand a decent chance to grab a drink and share a laugh with someone- who by all means, could be the one who appreciates whatever sad joke I make, or whatever post I write.

Do solutions exist even in such an unfortunate setting?
For a few things, maybe. You could perhaps look into a recipe book for a Korean Kimchi, but when you let the cabbage ferment and gut up and take a bite, you would never quite be sure if you just tasted something at least remotely close to being authentic or just some rotten vegetables.
But for the vast majority of the other factors, nothing would even come close to the actual experience of packing up that travel bag, and hitting the raod..

Sure, the advent of the technology has made it possible for us to know more about the different cultures, has given us a chance to interact with people from places we would not have known were present on the globe, but as with everything, there is an flip side as well. As the old maxim goes, “Ignorance is bliss”. I would not have asked these questions if I was not aware of such possibilities. Would these thoughts have crept into my mind, all this desire to roam the globe, to be a modern nomad, would I have yearned so much to relive a historical event in France, or Turkey, if I was happy with the monotonocity of the everyday live? it’s simple…No.

This leads to the next rant. With so much to be seen, does the notion of “the one for you” really hold?
In a world so large, so vast that it would be tough for a human brain to even comprehend the magnitude, would it fair for us to pursue “the one” or can we really be sure that the one we end up with is really “the one”?
Would you have met your perfect partner had it not been for that party you attended, or had you not taken the same course during that semester… would you have met that girl had you not stepped out and made a trip to the East?

The more I seem to learn, the more I want to experience them, the more I long to verify it with my own eyes. And the only way to learn even more is to experience it first hand; be a part of their culture, eat their food, drink their wine, speak their tongue.

“If you can do it with your laptop at your house, then you do it from anywhere on the globe”
– some wise person c.some time

Realizing the entire depth of the quoted text was actually pretty eye opening. With more and more people doing it, random people I meet online serve as great inspirations, and act as real life models for the newbies like me.

One fact does surface, as clear as a shiny crystal…there is only one way to free myself from all these chains- Travel!