i was born and raised here in british columbia; educated here, worked here, stared at these grandeur mountains from all the multiple beaches, toured the local breweries, skied the world class mountains, sailed to multiple islands, driven a lot of these streets and highways, hiked some of these trails and camped at many of these lakes. and at the end of the day, i find myself bitching and complaining and worrying about little and very insignificant things. and it’s these little things, which i’m letting bother me, which pull the drapes in front of all these surroundings that others would die to experience. i’ve recognized that i’m spoiled.
vancouver has got to be one of the highest standards of living in the world, and i’m finding myself unhappy while in the middle of it. maybe it’s because i was born and raised here, that my perspective of this place is taken for granted, compared to others who have worked or made sacrifices to be here. whatever the case, i realize that i need to develop my perspective of this place, i need to see it from another vantage point, and i truly need to experience what it’s like to not have these surroundings at my disposal or at my convenience. basically, i need to remove this safety net from under me and experience a culture shock.
i don’t know if it’s possible to choose a culture shock, but i’d imagine that if i were to experience one, it would be at the other end of the world; in a polar opposite land and culture.
back in christmas, i mentioned a trip to south america to my family and close friends and were met with all these concerns about the drug trade and kidnappings and muggings and stabbings and corruption and political instability and piranhas and food poisoning. a pretty stereotypical perspective on some of south america’s history, or at least a shocking collection of words that you wouldn’t commonly hear of in british columbia. but with these incredulous looks from some and these looks of excitement from others, i knew that this was exactly where i was destined to travel.
surely there are other places in the world where i could experience these things as well, they can’t just be confined to the boundaries of south america. but i was also taking into account the effort and sacrifices that people would have to make to get to this land, much like the sacrifices and effort that most people would have to make to experience the very condensed and expensive vancouver. and if you entertain the thought of all life originating from africa, europe and asia seem pretty close. if anybody would have had to travel a great distance to reach ‘the end of the world’, it would have been those who crossed over to north america and eventually as far south as possible. which leads me precisely to patagonia.
[photo from wikimedia commons]
