these days.

I've been listening to this song by Nico (from the album Chelsea Girls) a lot. It's a beautiful song if you're not familiar with it. It reminds me of New York. I spent a lot of time wandering the city streets while listening to it, the melody making everything seem to move a bit slower. It's been odd to listen to it here. I tend to tie memories, people and places to songs, so listening to These Days has been a strange layering of New York and Asia experiences and sights. It was disorienting and homesick-ening at first, but now it makes me happy. Instead of separating New York memories and Asia from each other, in attempts to compartmentalize and cope with missing people and places, I'm blending them together, carrying my loves with me. I feel more whole now during my travels, which makes sense in a way as the people and places I love are a part of me and who I am.

On my travels, I often hear the question, "What are you looking for?" With a few exceptions, it's your average default question, where the answer isn't genuinely sought after and will probably be forgotten when given. Much like, "What are you doing after college?", another question that I became very familiar with last year. (And still get now, but it's lately transformed to, "What are you doing after college after traveling?") The answer is repeated so often that it becomes a schpeel, and not so much an opening for conversation, once again though with a few exceptions. While walking earlier, I was thinking about this question. And I mean really thinking about it, not just mentally editing and perfecting my schpeel.

The purpose I set for my travels before I left was simple: Learn about the world. Mixed in there was also an expectation to learn about myself, as cheesy and typical as that may sound. Now, I'm coming to realize that what I'm learning is my existence in the world. It is very true that we are affected and influenced by environments and contexts, that they become a part of our identity. So, the more I learn about my environment and context, the more I learn about myself. Right? Does that make sense? It made so much sense in my head while walking, but as usual I'm stumbling over written explanation...

By learning more about the world, I'm learning more about my place in it, my existence in it, how I fit into it, how I contribute to it. Having been in bubbles of school or suburbia before now, I never really thought of my existence beyond a limited radius. But now, thrown into the world and bubble-less for the most part, I'm starting to see the larger picture. It's overwhelming, especially as you also become aware of your own smallness in the grand scheme of things, but I think it's extremely necessary for knowing and more importantly understanding who you are. It shifts your perspective to include the varying worldviews and lives of so many other peoples and cultures. It's from these differences that we learn, I think. When we learn what those differences are, we learn about the world. When we apply those discrepancies to ourselves, we learn about ourselves. I wish I was more articulate or more poetic! But as it is, I can merely ramble and hope that it makes sense...