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January 15, 2014

Please Be a Traveller: A Letter to My Niece. ~ Sion Lidster

Know that there are worlds within worlds. They are taking place everywhere, all the time.

Dear Erin,

Right now you are probably fast asleep in bed, dreaming through the adventures of your day. Or at least you should be, if only for your parent’s sake!

I’m typing these words 6,000 miles away from where you and my family live. At less than two years old you are fanatical and inquisitive about everything. You are developing a sense of play—your imagination is exploding leaps and bounds every second. A cardboard box becomes a cave in the boundless mind of youth. Your livelihood is being nourished. Your scope of the world is infinite.

Never lose this.

This is what people lose when they become accustomed to the idea that life is a strive. This is what deadens people to the open door inside. Life destroys the curiosity of some. Don’t let this happen to you. Be awake to your world. When you lose your curiosity you will come to a standstill in life that will be a void to think back on. You will one day ask yourself—“where did the time go?”

A wave of sadness will brim in you at the time you lost to a life you didn’t enjoy living.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Know that there are worlds within worlds. They are taking place everywhere, all the time.

People are packing their days and nights by soaking in the world around them. Every nook and cranny of their existence has been shaped, colored and filled by a boundless infrastructure of culture, emotion and sheer will. Every person in the world has something to teach you, a story to tell you and reason for all they do. You will learn so much from everyone, they will paint you a picture of seven billion new lives—all you have to do is explore.

Explore.

Explore yourself—your mind, your fingertips and toes.

Explore your passions with an unrelenting gusto. Take that thing you love today and go with it. If you love it still tomorrow then keep it going. If you don’t, know that you can stop. You can stop anything, at any time. Do not feel pressured to finish what you have started if what you have started blights your day. Nothing is forever—be free. Then take the passion of your new day and run away with it again. Go to the corners of the earth if that’s where it takes you.

You may never find out what you are meant to do with your life. You might dedicate your time to a cause, to a person or to a career. You may plan your days, weeks, months and years a decade in advance, knowing exactly where you are going and what you are doing. This is a rarity. This is not what I have found, nor would I want to—but I am me and you are you. You follow your happiness.

You might drift on, floating through, never finding that existential true calling that many find a need to achieve.

I want you to know that this is okay. Know that what you are doing is learning, becoming. Just be a part of it. Enjoy it.

Know this:

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” ~ Oscar Wilde

When anybody tells you that there is a correct way to live—learn from it but don’t feel the need to believe it. Develop critical thinking but don’t drown in cynicism. Rise above. Strive to understand. Explore.

Find idle time. Do not be worried or anxious about filling each moment as to never waste an instant. Find your bliss. Bliss can be laying in bed all day, snoozing through thoughts and lost just in the fact that you are alive. Bliss.

Explore the web of destinies. Pickpocket your moments from the world. They are endless.

So, for your journey, here’s a little travel advice from your Uncle:

  • Pack light. Rely on very little, if anything.
  • There are a million ways to fill your time when the plane is delayed.
  • Don’t be freaked out by airplanes. It’s science. The world works.
  • Love new accents.
  • Write through the goodbyes and hellos.
  • Hitchhike your time.

Please, be a traveler. A traveler is awake to the world that their senses allow.

Indulge in the visions that your existence creates.

Travel, travel the world if that is what you want but travel through your world at all times. If you never leave the place where you’ve grown, be sure to travel through that town everyday. See the town through tourist eyes. To be stagnant is to be already dead. You can’t let this happen to you.

You’ve got some living to do!

Love, from across the pond,

Uncle Sion.

 

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