I don't post here often enough, so I thought I would say hey. Hey! I'm alive and well in New Orleans, Louisiana, where Brendan and I are living until the end of February. We decided to stay to improve our busking skills and take advantage of the huge numbers of tourists that will be here for Marti Gras next month, not to mention to enjoy Marti Gras ourselves. When we leave here we will slowly be making our way (hitchhiking) to Seattle via southern California. We expect to arrive in the Seattle area mid-April.
This busking thing is interesting. Brendan and I keep asking ourselves all sorts of questions about what exactly we want to be doing and there doesn't seem to be one clear answer. It's hard for me to be perpetually excited about busking. Sometimes I would just as soon simply call myself a tourist and vacationer and travel with that mindset, and sometimes I want to go back to Seattle now and live and work there again and then just enjoy a vacation in Europe this summer (we already bought the plane tickets to Germany). And sometimes I'm really excited about busking and the people we inevitably meet when doing that and the great stories we acquire (both through making up stories to tell and because of the people we meet). For now, that sometimes excitement is enough to propel me to keep our trip as is (that is, stay in busking mindset and go out on weekends), but not enough to make me go "Yeah! Let's go out and busk every day for 4-8 hours! Whoooooooo!"
There's this problem of stasis. I feel like it haunts me in life. I claim to want change and to want to try new things, but my actions speak louder than my claims and they show that I like things to be comfortable and familiar. And since I claim to want something other than that, I feel sort of uncomfortable even in familiarity. So the overarching question of this trip seems to be: What do I really want? What do we (Brendan and I) really want? Should it be so hard to answer?
This busking thing is interesting. Brendan and I keep asking ourselves all sorts of questions about what exactly we want to be doing and there doesn't seem to be one clear answer. It's hard for me to be perpetually excited about busking. Sometimes I would just as soon simply call myself a tourist and vacationer and travel with that mindset, and sometimes I want to go back to Seattle now and live and work there again and then just enjoy a vacation in Europe this summer (we already bought the plane tickets to Germany). And sometimes I'm really excited about busking and the people we inevitably meet when doing that and the great stories we acquire (both through making up stories to tell and because of the people we meet). For now, that sometimes excitement is enough to propel me to keep our trip as is (that is, stay in busking mindset and go out on weekends), but not enough to make me go "Yeah! Let's go out and busk every day for 4-8 hours! Whoooooooo!"
There's this problem of stasis. I feel like it haunts me in life. I claim to want change and to want to try new things, but my actions speak louder than my claims and they show that I like things to be comfortable and familiar. And since I claim to want something other than that, I feel sort of uncomfortable even in familiarity. So the overarching question of this trip seems to be: What do I really want? What do we (Brendan and I) really want? Should it be so hard to answer?
Comments
I think what you are feeling is so normal and to be expected. You both want more adventure than you have been able to find in ordinary life and so you play games and role play and busk and travel. But the choice to improve your skills is a difficult one and you're a little intimidated and a little bored with the process sometimes.
The only advice I have for you is that breaking your ambitions down into doable goals is the easiest and most fun way to manage your hope to improve. For instance saying to yourselves, "Yesterday we were able to keep juggling 10 rounds before we dropped the ball, today we need to keep going until we do it 11 times. Then we can quit. Or yesterday we got two laughs, today we will busk until we get three laughs and then we will spend the busking money on frivolities. You need specific assignments and rewards.