Travel
For a brief while, several years ago, after having moved around a lot and seen a bit, I came back home and -- well, processed what I went through. Then, I got sick. Then, I got healing help. Then, I began doing Spring Forest Qigong daily; that was a major, major turning point in my life.
One way I processed what I went through (before the healing, which was the real processing) was writing -- I wrote about 12 "essays," of which this was one, which, taken as a whole, I suppose you could call a work in itself.
That's another story.
A lot of what I wrote is repulsive, frankly -- the poison churning in my belly just before I vomited it and began to get well.
This essay from that series is not so repulsive. In fact, you might say it's edifying. That's why I'm sharing it.
There are one or two Grown Up Words in the writing. I trust you are a Grown Up.
06 April 2022
I never really traveled. I mean -- I just started a couple years ago, and -- honestly -- I STILL haven't seen or done jack.
In fact, not only did I not travel -- I used to sit on my ass and play video games -- a lot.
Oh, momma.
I really liked Final Fantasy -- my brother initiated me when I was nine.
Here's the game --
Gather a party of Light Warriors of different classes; build up each person's inherent strengths with an eye to the weaknesses of the others; pass through a castle of ordeals in the wilderness in order to be judged and undergo death and rebirth at the feet of a hidden dragon king; restore the balance of the primordial elements that sustain life; and conquer chaos for a moment, knowing that, ultimately, you are fated to suffer from perpetual amnesia in an eternal cycle in which chaos can never truly be conquered and from which you can never escape.
*cough*
This is what it looks like when your party walks around in the world:
And you can walk all over this world -- going from town to town, exploring dungeons, fighting monsters, gathering gold, crossing streams and deserts and forests -- just like that -- with that little guy, representing you, walking around.
Then you find a boat, and a canoe, and a fucking airship, and then travel the world with THAT -- same deal.
But you know what I found?
I spent a lot of time playing that game.
In fact, I'm ashamed to say how much, but I'll be honest -- I started when I was nine, and stopped when I was... like... 28. Ok, like 30.
I found that you can take your index finger -- like this --
And stick it on that little guy standing right in the center of the fantasy world...
Leave it there...
And then explore the world map -- towns, rivers, castles, deserts, caves, oceans.
On foot, by canoe, or by fucking airship.
Getting lost in dungeons, waking sleeping elf princes, saving princesses, restoring sight to blind witches, fighting four-headed dragons in outer space. Getting all the gold. Whatever.
Do you know what I found?
No matter what you do or where you go, the little guy on the screen doesn't actually go anywhere.
It's actually the fantasy world that moves.
All those colors and words and sounds and encounters come and go in a carnival of growth and adventure and gain and loss and meaning -- but he just stands there the whole time, from the moment you start till the moment you stop.
Never moving.
