Cultivating The Infinite

We live in a modern culture that is afraid of death. We are afraid to think about it and deal with it. Instead of confronting it we fetishize immortality and glamorize hedonism - indulge as much as you can before you die! Live your passion!

2012, Cappadocia, Turkey - during my big 10-month Euro trip

2013, Dead Horse Canyon, Utah

One of those indulgences and passions is travelling. Social media has catalyzed the glamorization of such lifestyles and even enabled Instagram starlings to live off #vanlife. We "like" posts about people who travel their whole lives and think that's the dream, that they are supremely happy. We work so hard and save up lots of money so we also can retire and travel for the rest of our lives.

From the confines of a cubicle, travelling can easily seem like a permanent escape. This is exactly what I thought when I quit my office job and started living like a nomad. For a number of years it was amazing. I felt free as a bird, close to paradise and far from trouble, everyday bringing fresh and new experiences.

Now I can say I have travelled a lot. And I'm not saying it to brag. I try to be humble and grateful for all of the travelling I've done in my life. I've been labelled by some as the "world traveller," or someone who's "seen the world." I'm saying this because I can tell you from experience that, yes, it does get boring.

2014 India & Nepal trip

2015 Grenoble, France - hiking the foothills of the Alps

Everything does. But with most things it's hard to notice because you can put them down and go back to them any time you want, such as playing a sport or a musical instrument. When you're travelling you could be on the road for months without a break. Imagining playing a guitar literally for months like this.

After awhile I started to notice I was getting diminishing returns from travelling. All the temples, however from different cultures, started to look the same. Same as the cities. I was slowly getting less enjoyment from every new museum, every hostel, every traveller and foreigner I met. I felt my learning and growing slowing down, I felt myself stagnating. What originally felt like an infinite world was shrinking, becoming more finite. Experiences that were so thrilling before started feeling superficial, barely tickling the surface of my soul.

Travelling became boring.

It was only years later that I realized the essential truth of this internal shift - I had reached a turning point in my life. I became fulfilled by travelling, so that travelling could no longer fulfil me. Travelling was once infinite to me, then I travelled so much I became it, and it filled me with the infinite.

Travelling illuminated the infinite within myself.

2016 Picking morels in the Yukon

2017 Macchu Picchu, Peru

They say home is where the heart is. Travelling filled my heart up. One day it filled it up so much that it overflowed. I realized that was the whole point of it all, to fill my heart up so it's overflowing all on its own. That's what home is, an open and full heart. Only with this realization could I start tapping the infinite potential illuminated within myself, to be able to fill other people's hearts up.

Then I saw not just my own infinite potential, but that of those around me who have gone on a similar journey, exploring their own passions whether it be travelling or some form of creativity, and have found home in their heart. I saw the infinite potential of our connection, each of us learning, growing and working together everyday.

Then I saw the infinite potential of land. With the right people, we could tend to land in a way that supports not just us, but the people around us. We can grow food, create art and healing spaces, pouring our abundant heart out to the greater community.

2018 Sailing Canada's west coast with a hardened group of adventurers

2019 Burning Man, which reinforced in me to give without the expectation of receiving

All of these realizations brought my journey full circle. Travelling was once infinite to me, but it only illuminated the infinite within myself, the people and the land around me. Travelling taught me to eventually stop and stay in one place, to immerse deeply and cultivate my own infinite.

2020 Finding my community