Wallet, Keys, Cell Phone

Back home, whenever I left for any event, I always made sure I had three things on me: wallet, keys, and cell phone. Then aloud I would say, "All else can be improvised," and lock the door. It was my way of knowing that I had what I needed, and knowing that what I had was all that I needed.

Someone I used to know used the acronym P-MILK, standing for purse, money, ID, lipgloss, and keys, to make sure she had everything she needed for the day. After living out of my allotted 3,500 in^3 on Bike & Build, I began developing the idea of owning very little. At first, the idea was to dwindle what I owned down to what I could fit in a single backpack. After bouncing that idea around for a few months, more realistic goals to get near that point were established.

Step 1: Reduce everything down to my bedroom and my tools in the garage.

Step 2: Reduce everything down to a single room that I could still live in.

Step 3: Reduce everything down to what I could check on a flight, plus a bicycle.

Well, I made it. Mostly. What I brought to Japan with me was indeed what I could check on a flight, plus a bicycle. I must admit that there are a good number of things in the attic of one of my parent's house, and certainly there are a few, small items I would like to have brought, like shoe covers for cold-weather riding. But beyond these few things, I brought what I needed, and little more.

The experience was liberating. The joy associated with finally moving abroad (a move I've dared myself to make since I was 19) was only eclipsed by the excitement. But, keeping pace with those two emotions, but off in the back of my mind was the darker, now-more-present sibling: isolation.

A friend recently told me that when she had traveled abroad, she acquired something close to notoriety because 1) she was from somewhere else, and 2) people back home weren't doing it. (not exact reasons or words, but I'm trying to convey meaning) But, the story people don't tell you is that such a move, while by no means is unheard of, is also not terribly common. And particularly for those that don't speak, read, or write the local language, there develops a sense of social and societal relegation to undefined corners that presents itself once the "honeymoon" or vacation feeling wears off, at inopportune times, like during the natural down rhythms of life.

People often asked before I left, "What are you going to miss most?" It's a fair question, if slightly deterministic, to ask of anyone making a change. My answer was that I would most miss being able to have late-night conversations with friends and family. It would seem I was on the money.

I think isolation is common to experiences that lie outside the "normal" bounds of the culture from which you came. Bike & Build certainly carried this line with it, though by being around 30 others constantly who were making the same move, the effects were greatly mitigated. It's only now that I'm here that I more fully understand the effects of this unique isolation. And I don't particularly care for it, but you have to take the good with the bad, and there are certainly many good reasons to be here (see my many other posts).

...

In unrelated words, I used to remember the phrase, "Never and always are two words you should always remember never to use." I took this to heart recently, and like a good engineer, have begun looking at the margins of what people say, since that's where new developments and ideas tend to come from. For instance, if someone were to say, "No one buys from that store," I would start to think 1) why they are still in business if this were true 2) since it is still in business, customers for that store must exist, and 3) since customers exist, what sort of person shops there? Then I would develop a profile of a typical customer in my head. I'd think of their relative level of affluence, their method of transport to and from the store, and other things like age and even personality.

For another example, if someone were to say, "Always try your best," I would begin to think of times when trying your best would be a waste of your time, and possibly detrimental, like when you could be doing something more useful/productive, and instead are still chasing something that may not materialize.

What I've learned, in short, is to avoid the use of absolute terms, including the quote at the start of this section. This does a few things: 1) it allows you to not have to eat your words if you were to say, "I would never X Y Z," and then did exactly that 2) allows you to more easily think in the margins, which might help to open doors for you, and 3) give you something amusing to do in your head if you're bored with what the other person has to say.