Tag: Dreams

Eleutheromania

Human life is full of emotion and conflicting experiences, perspectives and desires, but one need that rings true across all of humanity and beyond is that for freedom.

It seems that with the complexity of the human experience— the establishment of civilization, and the fascinating ability for us to walk around in our own minds and objectively analyze our own consciousness— we would have held more tightly to this innate need. Instead, it seems that we have allowed ourselves to drift away from it.

We have allowed ourselves to shift our understanding of freedom over and over again to fit society’s mold of what we are expected to want and to be. There are endless layers of expectations and assumptions telling us what we should desire and strive for, from the way our bodies look to our sexual orientations, to how much money we make and how many things we own to how we speak or where and if we are educated. It goes on and on.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted freedom.

Freedom from the strict religion I was born into.

Freedom from a dysfunctional family.

Freedom from what people thought and said about me.

Freedom from my thoughts, my body, my entire life.

When I traveled abroad for the first time, I felt freedom.

No one knew me or my story in the hillsides of Ireland or the bustling streets of London. I could be anyone, going anywhere, for any reason.

I was somewhere completely new with virtually no reminders of the life I had temporarily left behind. Even I began to forget the crosses I bore, so how could anyone else know about them?

It was through travel and shedding the parts of myself that were damaged that allowed me to find my freedom. Perhaps the most important things I learned from this experience were that your freedom does exist, and once you find it you should never take it for granted.

When I returned home, I became so aware of the ways I compromised on freedom. I think this is inevitable once tasting something divine— you cannot rid your palette of the sweetness of what belongs to you. Even then it is so easy to drift back into the world of compromise and expectations.

I allowed myself to be mistreated, to be relied upon in ways that prevented me from dreaming, and to insist to myself that the path everyone else was walking was also meant for me, but I just so happened to be miles behind. I told myself I couldn’t do this or that because of my body, my illnesses, my station in life, and in that way I temporarily convinced myself that I wasn’t worthy of the freedom I had experienced.

Leaving “home” was my equivalent of freedom. I did it by buying a ticket and leaving everything behind. It was immersing myself in the unknown of new places and cultures that satisfied my eleutheromania— that vibrant zeal for freedom that many people with hearts like mine satisfy with wandering and adventure.
There are many areas of life that require compromise, but I suggest not letting your quest for freedom and happiness be among them. You can always find about a million reasons to compromise in the world and believe that the things you want are not necessary, and that your goals are too far-fetched. You’ve got to free yourself of those notions and realize that compromise will only get you so far before the bars of your cage become too real.

I find freedom in anonymity and also in sharing my story.

I find it in tasting new foods, hearing new languages, and experiencing new ways of living.

I find it in realizing that there are a billion opportunities to learn, grow, and inspire.

I am still learning, growing, and finding myself. I am not some embodiment of happiness and freedom and I am not brimming with hope every moment of every day. But it has been so long since I felt alright discussing these things. Even now, I feel like a fraud, since I have so little experience embracing these qualities of life. I still struggle with freeing myself from what is expected of me, of the negative emotions I have about myself and the world, and the memories I have to tuck away to feel okay.

This is a journey for me, and these realizations are a sort of map.

Freedom, Happiness, and Hope are some of my greatest destinations.

I hope you’ll join me.

Love, Ari

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Resfeber

Many lives have been changed with a plane ticket.

Most of us find ourselves spending hours scanning various sites, trying to find the best deals, celebrating when we do, and cursing ourselves for not booking sooner when we lose them again. Some of us look for years, checking now and again, telling ourselves that one day it won’t just be looking.

When that time comes there is that inevitable moment when we are hovering over our device, ready to click the button that will begin the process of taking us away. Sometimes we are excited, other times resigned, but always on our way to something new, somewhere beautifully, magically, not here.

With a click of a button, there is no going back. The emotions come flooding in— there is the thrill of going to a new place, the relief of running to or from something, or even the thoughts such as “Oh God, what have I done?! I hate flying!”. (This last one is me.)

Airports are strange and inspiring places. They have undoubtedly seen many more broken hearts and reunited smiles than most of us could imagine. They are so unshakably human, most often complete with rude TSA agents, overpriced soggy sandwiches, and not enough charger ports to accommodate the milling crowds. Despite these things, airports are magical; the last frontier before your life changes, the last place you see before you defy all the laws of gravity and humanity and become airborne.

 

I will admit it, I hate flying. I hate being crammed into a flying tin can— the mechanics of which I simply cannot understand— with hundreds of strangers, being flown through the skies by someone I’ve never met, with little to no hope of escape if things go terribly wrong.

There is almost nothing I hate as much as getting onto an airplane, but none of that matters when we land. None of the sleepless hours, leg cramps, panic attacks, and turbulent minutes mean a thing the moment I catch sight of some new shore spread out before me and I realize that I made it, that I am living my dreams.

I think that everyone, no matter what their dreams are, have the same feelings that I do when the plane is filling with people and I hear the hatch door close. We all experience that same lurching in our gut when the turbulence hits and we are convinced that we are not going to make it. The thing is, if I didn’t get on the plane, I would always be stuck where I am. I wouldn’t grow, I wouldn’t experience new things, and ultimately I wouldn’t be happy.

Yes, I would be elated to get off of the plane, and I would be much more comfortable driving home in my car with four wheels on the ground. But when I got home to the life that just couldn’t fill me, I wouldn’t be happy. I would still be empty. And more than that I would know that I allowed fear and my desire for comfort to steal something very precious from me. And I would have to ask myself, “Was it worth it?”

For me, the answer is always no. As many times as I complain about the flight as the fated hour nears, and as many nightmares and panic attacks as I have in the days leading up to boarding, I have never let them stop me from getting on that plane.

If I can pass along one piece of advice, let it be this:

Don’t let fear and comfort stop you from doing what it is that will fulfill you.

I can’t say that all your dreams will come true and everything will work out just as you expect it to— if it did I would already be a best-selling author living in a villa of my own on the Italian seaside— but it’s a start. You owe yourself that.

I can’t exactly say that I’m a success story—so honestly,who am I to be handing out this advice?—but what I can say is that I am writing this from a beautiful B&B in Italy, with a view of the sea and a mug of tea. So this might not be a best-selling novel, and I might not own the B&B, but I’m here, and I’m happy.

 

As little as I am certain of at this point in my life, I am sure of this: I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t gotten on the plane.

To those reading, I hope that something in this spoke to you, and I hope you get on the plane.

 

Love, Ari

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