Tag: traveller

To Find True Freedom

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

We get used to things. I’ve discussed habits probably as much as anything else on here but this is slightly different. This would be more about adapting. We adapt to our environment then. When we stay in one place or in one environment long enough it becomes normal and we find a way to at the very least survive. In the extreme you could have someone going from a position of power and wealth to one of poverty and subjugation, think of any successful class based revolution for example. If they didn’t end up getting their head chopped off, end up in front of a firing squad or find a way of smuggling themselves out of the country; there is a good chance they would have to either adapt to their new way of live or die. That then is an extreme example and for me right now I am as far from that as I can think. I have adapted to my surroundings though, my admittedly comfortable surroundings.

For me this adaptation has been more about a change in a way of life. Having spent ten years as a traveller living wild and being free – that is the version my romanticised ego would like to portray – I found myself in this little village by the seaside. It was only supposed to be a couple of months, the winter at most with spring bringing new adventures. There is no need to go over this years events but as I’ve previously discussed they have been habit changing to say the least. Now though I potentially change these new habits again and see whether further ones are created or old ones return. Today is Friday, on Sunday I leave my home by the sea.

Undoubtedly there has been a lot I’ve enjoyed about life here. I’m beside the sea and when not rammed with summer tourists it’s slow and chilled out. It is though a bit backwards and insular which is enough to push me away, but it has also shown me enough to imagine a new way of life is possible. There were many times in my past travelling in which I openly admitted to being exhausted and tired of constantly moving and packing but I also really enjoyed the discovery and constant new in front of my eyes. I’m still after all this time like a child when I see something previously unseen. This time has made me realise I am in my heart a wandering traveller. It has also made me realise how easily I could settle somewhere too given the right conditions. It’s all about balance apparently. This mythical never been seen or fully understood beast called balance. But you can’t have balance when you want it all.

As I pack my now enlarged pile of stuff I realise I am happy to move on while also not being entirely keen on the exhaustive side of this moving on. The stepping into the unknown excites and the prospect of being free is overjoying. As I would have discussed yesterday though had I not got distracted by Miley Cyrus, freedom is an entirely mental construct. We need to find freedom internally, allow the mind to accept the ever increasing randomness of existence and responsibly live in the moment. It doesn’t matter whether you’re stuck in the endless toil of menial labour or sailing the ocean. Admittedly one is probably easier to feel free in and we can do ourselves favours with the environment we exist in, but as I said, it’s how we approach existence that matters. One more moment before the next then in this constantly testing journey to free the mind. Maybe that would be a good habit to create. I already have the key after all. I could get used to finally being free. Just be careful not to want it too much.

Out On The Water

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I’ve done a bit of sailing. Not loads but enough to be fairly proficient. I could survive I think, I say that despite the failed sailing exam. There were extenuating circumstance with the thirty knots of wind and a crew who had never sailed before, but I must take responsibility for panicking when a navy boat came up behind me in a small channel and me dangerously tacking into the wind, proceeding to get stuck behind an oil tanker as it started up it’s engines and then messing up my reefing as I tried to make the sails smaller. I needed to be better but it was a ridiculous and comedic situation. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed learning so far, it’s a good way to see the world in a whole new way. I hope I get to carry on again at some point once everything has calmed down.

The reason I bring this all up is I was thinking about the weather. It’s really hot and humid. I had to learn about the weather when learning how to sail because, well, it’s quite important. To avoid embarrassment I’m not going to try and explain it beyond that I think we’re moving through a period of low pressure, we should be getting westerlies and the rains are coming. Now I could be wrong but I think I’m right. Being able to read these barometric charts is quite cool in an uncool way but probably only if you’ve ever needed to know how. It’s actually really interesting knowing what weather is coming up by working it out for yourself. It adds another type of practical to the whole.

I’ll never be a sailing wanker but I am fan. It’s a very social way of life. Everybody is living on top of each other, working together, helping. It’s the complete opposite to living life in lockdown isolation. The calm and the space. I’ve experienced community in a few different ways and this is just another version. Mini communities for one week, one month. Strangers coming together with an intensity everyday society cannot match. This is something I actually miss, this intensity of interaction. Working together is something that can be hard because we don’t have to ordinarily. We will become better at it or lonely. You get to really know people. People are real very quickly.

I realise I miss the travelling community. I love the art of sailing but it’s the travelling that gives me the real kicks. I have arrived places I’ve previously been but this time by sea and they feel like whole new versions. You’re viewing everything from a different angle. I’m looking at places around the world I have never previously thought that much of before. I dream of sailing in the Arctic around Svalbard, the Antarctic, the fjords around Tierra del Fuego and the tip of South America. These are magical kingdoms. I can’t imagine there being a better way to explore them. But that will be then, for now I’ll just enjoy this moment and what it brings, I’ll keep an eye on the weather all the same.

Nomads

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Everyone has an idea of a perfect life. One part of that perfect life is the perfect home and this is something that comes in all forms. Over the years I have fantasised about pretty much all of them, usually the random interesting ones or even better the non-permanent structures. While I am enjoying living in an actual flat, and have enjoyed living in the little cottage I grew up in, there seems to be something lacking in living in such places. Perhaps this will change as I age, or if I have a family, but there is something too fixed and permanent about it that never sits too easily for me. Of course were I to acquire an old house that needed renovating, and which I could create something cool out of then things may change.

I don’t deny I am a total romantic. I also make fun of romantics for being romantics and find myself being completely practical and unsentimental whenever possible just to convince myself and others that I’m not a romantic. I then go and fantasise about living in a horse box lorry similar to the one I saw in Nepal, or the sailing yacht traveling the world. Even when fixed the romantic dreams of the hob house surrounded by a permaculture garden. The sailing boat actually isn’t that far fetched it’s just I haven’t got money to buy a van let alone a boat. Talking of water though, my most favourite dream has and seemingly continues to be the canal barge.

About four years ago I very nearly managed to acquire a narrowboat but backed out through my own fears of living such a tame life, more than some external thing preventing it’s happening. That fear seems to have passed as I move deeper into my thirties, but I’m now stuck with the issue of the Scottish canals being tiny and expensive to live on and having absolutely no desire to live much further south than I am amongst the English. About a year ago some plans were drunkenly drawn up with a cousin to build something really cool on a barge and sell it’s produce on the canals running through Dublin. I would mention what it is but seeing as I still think it’s a great idea and nobody has done it yet, I’m not so silly to just reveal the secret.

Anyway the point is that the more I’m in Dublin, the more I’m finding myself romanticising over the prospect of living on the canal here. It seems cheap, 175 euro for a one year license apparently, although I’m sceptical there aren’t other costs, but even then with it being over one thousand in England and anything from one to five thousand in Scotland, Dublin all of a sudden starts seemingly looking like good value. I enjoy Ireland too, and a large part of my heritage is from here, I could even get over the fact it’s a poor mans Scotland. It’s not something that will happen immediately but with seeds planted already they have now been watered, certainly a watch this space moment.