Life changes
Lately been watching an interesting vlog about a hobo in America named American Hobo - Train Riding. He hops trains and lives this life he creates. Riding from Canada to Florida. Documenting his life stories. His train journeys are here. Give them a watch. I think they are not only fun but they are educational and let us see we can make a change. Become a new thing. What is interesting before he hopped trains across America he toured across asia on a cheap bike. His Asian adventures are here.
This is one life folks. This is a person that decided to become something else. Maybe this is YouTube at its best. When we see a thing intriguing and challenging. Other people do this too. I particularly like Tobe Explores and Transient Kiwi. They both own their lives. Have taken charge and decided what once was just did not make it.
A final thing but not final in thought is Tectonic Traveler. This person has lived this life from Alaska to Colombia. He does shorter vlogs these days on life how he finds it.
These are just ordinary people really. In extraordinary moments and lives and for some reason their existence resonates a lot more than the expat cambodia daily vlog stuff here. I don’t link them or subscribe. Sometimes they seem too much for me living here so I leave them.
It doesn’t take amazing adventure though. What it does need is admitting age has nothing to do with change. That we can own our times. Our moments. Look at those guys. You may see it as extreme. Or dangerous. Or frightening. In my own small change it has dawned on me I had no idea what was to come. Much like any of these people. They all decided the unknown was what they needed. What fuels them. Their difference is not being superheroes or role models. It is belief. Belief in oneself.
I feel more people would take a risk. Hop the train. Walk or bike the countries and cities if they could reach beyond the risk.
I had no idea when I left. Some days no idea where I would be and other days I reveled in it. In the end it became a heady brew of life. I think we all need that. Somehow we have just taken less. We fear age as a limitation. An end. It’s not. It’s just a glass ceiling we bump into. Feel its limit. Get run down into places it heckles harder to climb out of. Sad really.
So what’s the message? There is none. No rescue. No step. There’s you. There is me. We don’t need rescue or steps. An expat I met here once told me he wanted,
Freedom and dignity in his last life acts
He felt the Philippines was not delivering. He felt lost there. He looked at Cambodia as a change. A reset. Not a rescue. He was 80 years old. So what’s the thing folks?
What stops you from jumping your own hobo life? You don’t need all the answers. Hell, you don’t even need the questions. You need to just do. Like Tobe would say doing it wrong is still doing it.
More tomorrow over coffee. Always a thought and a walk.
Coffee, walking, change
Mornings are the first two. I love them here. The basic act of movement for no sake. No reason other than my love and desire. The coffee is fuel. Maybe today the writing is a final thought on things. Things like change. As we age I think we become fearful. A friend I worked with when I left could have done something. Not similar or the same. His own thing. His adventure. Who knows where a person will go when they let go. I do think one persons decision won’t work for others. Each person needs to decide or not. I feel bad for people after working the decades to not take life back. I have seen them though. Like my friend. He maybe still sits in McDonald’s in Fremont California with the breakfast sandwich and coffee. Alone. Divorced.
I’ll get going soon. Adding a few likely thoughts to the morning coffee. Enjoying just the difference of a person’s experiences and how they find their world. We each have the hobo in us. The sense of wandering and being lost or just not found. I hope to never be found and figured out. My little hobo voice has lived on since I did archeology so long ago. Somehow the decades doing IT in Silicon Valley put it all on hold but I could feel it simmering just there.
Now I write it because this is my avenue. My path to not knowing. On to coffee.
☕️ 4 min read