It is funny how being a trainer and a facilitator makes me think very deeply over and over about certain issues of my own personal life – I guess much deeper than I would have, had I worked as, say, an engineer. Perhaps.
Anyway, one of the issues we often play with on my workshops is the question of crucial turning moments of our lives. Moments when we took a big leap into the unknown and so our lives took a radically different course. And so, while working on these things with the groups, I think about my own turning points over and over again.
It seems to me that one of the main turning points in my life was when I, at the age of 17, in secret packed my backpack, took my passport and a few bucks I have had, and left home. This ended in a half-a-year hippy style roaming through the Balkans, Middle East and North-East and East Africa. Partially this was a turning point because I finally ceased whining over my imperfect life, imperfect parents, imperfect teachers…, but rather chose to do something about it; made a bold step into the unknown to see what turns out. I still can not really understand where did I get the courage to do that from. I must had been pretty desperate.
But perhaps even more importantly, this step forced me to start facing the existential dilemma of freedom – at the age of 17. You see, on the one hand there was an utter beauty to the freedom I was experiencing from the moment I walked away from my pre-set life. Suddenly I was totally free, free to go wherever I wanted, free to do whatever I choose to. I was free to rediscover myself every single day, to live or to not live, to carry on a virtuous life or to lie and steal… Suddenly all the moral and cultural obligations started to melt away and the feeling of freedom while moving through my days somewhere on the South Balkans, was incredibly uplifting and intoxicating.
But soon enough I started to discover the other side of the coin, the other side of freedom; the responsibility. When I, a brave free guy, found myself with zero money on the streets of Istanbul, freedom was not so fun anymore. When I was going hungry in the dodgy parts of Cairo, I couldn’t just go home and open the fridge – since there was no home anywhere near. I was free and I was fully responsible for myself at the same time – there was nobody to blame anymore, the way I was used to blame everybody in my previous and not-so-free life. I was also completely free and fully responsible to choose whether I wanted to wait a few weeks – in the company of about a trillion blood-thirsty mosquitoes – in Southern Sudan for the jungle river to recede after the rainy season so that the truck could pass through, or to ford it (neck deep) with the risk of a close encounter with a crocodile, and keep walking on the other side through the wilderness until, well, until I got somewhere. When a drunken soldier had his gun pointed at my head somewhere in the middle of Ugandan forests, demanding money which I did, of course, not have and which I was actually needing just about as badly as he was, it was completely within my responsibility to find a way of getting my ass out of it. Nobody volunteered to take the responsibility for it and I was not in a position to call my daddy to help me out. And so on and so forth…
To cut the long story short, the choice of making that step into the unknown certainly reshaped my life and after that nothing was anywhere near the way it used to be. Not only did all these experiences utterly reshaped my perception and interpretation of life, but the freedom and the responsibility entered full throttle, and they were not just fun. Speaking of freedom; not so long afterwards the freedom crash-landed when I was called to do the obligatory military service. Oh boy, was this a different story altogether, ha ha…
The both sides of this freedom/responsibility coin I am still taking dead seriously – as you may track down throughout this rambling of mine in this blog. And perhaps this is also the reason why I get so irritated with people whining over the imperfect circumstances in their life and acting out this victim role forever. Because I used to waste my time there too and I am still a bit embarrassed by that period.
And perhaps this is why I struggle and juggle so seriously with this dilemma as a parent of teenagers, trying to get the responsibility side of that damn coin across, not as an moral obligation, but simply as another aspect of life. Because I would truly love to contribute to the lives of my teenagers in a way that would help them to at least start sorting out this eternal dilemma of life as soon as possible and enter the adult lives with more inner clarity than I have had. Which is, in the absence of maturity rituals and while trying to not use power over them, not the easiest thing on Earth. But being aware that learning to take full responsibility for one’s own choices and feelings seems to be a crucial step on the path of emotional growing up and also on the path toward a fulfilling life, I just feel that as a parent I definitely wish to find a way to help them in this matter.
interesting post
Comment by Perez Christina — October 11, 2009 @ 1:28 am
I had that a very similar experience (not in specifics but of emotion) when I was 13 years old. It was a moment where I took complete responsibility for the person I had become. It’s hard to do that, even today people excuse what I did as a response to my environment but I know I made those choices. Children make choices everyday, maybe with a little less finesse and sophistication, but they make them all the same.
Meanwhile, were your parents totally freaking out when you disappeared??
Comment by Hayden Tompkins — October 11, 2009 @ 2:14 am
There’s nothing like a little starvation to readjust one’s priorities.
Comment by razzbuffnik — October 11, 2009 @ 7:21 am
That last comment after mine is probably spam. It’s the sort of thing that could be applied to any post and almost sound valid, but it doesn’t really make sense. Once you allow a spam comment through, they will keep on targeting you.
Comment by razzbuffnik — October 13, 2009 @ 8:23 am
Christina: thanks and welcome. I would be really interested in what you found interesting in my post and how it relates to your life.
Hayden: yeah, right you are, children are indeed making choices every single day, often very tough choices, and we seem to forget that. My parents: yes, as you say, they were totally freaking out. They felt horrible, confused, afraid, hopeless… Their son disappeared without a trace and is was of course the most horrible thing. Now I can pretty easily empathise with that.
Razz: starvation – a good point, I fully agree. I often think my kids would need to experience a bit of hunger, a couple of days per year, say, to get a bit clearer perspective.
The spam comment: thanks for that! I did not even think about this possibility. I was just trying to understand why would a person read the writing style he or she did not like and why would then want to post a comment at the top of it. Yes, I am a very naive person…
Comment by Robert — October 13, 2009 @ 8:01 pm
Hm. I usually don’t blame anyone for any mistakes I make or for the kind of person I am, but then I usually don’t plunge past any fear to make a mistake. My heart sped up when you talked about your adventure into adulthood, and responsibility. I could take off with no resources to a destination that goes against my comfort zone, but– that’s it, “but”. I think that’s what gets most teenagers. Me being one of them, its so scary to think about taking that leap you’re talking about. Its like a candy dangling in front of a child, but is guarded by the monsters from his closet. Though, I think the childish fear might turn to an irritated form of anger and that anger might transform into action. As for responsibility, I’d like to think I have a fair measure of that, though I could use more.
Comment by confusedLilly — October 16, 2009 @ 8:22 am
Nice post. Got me thinking about my turning points in life. I guess I didnt have one as big as you, I’d say mine were less turning (about 30°:) ie. studying in new city…and biggest one being overland travel to India.
For some time now my mind doesn’t give me a peace. It eats me little by little. Having an good job, ok girlfriend, no credits,… I’m silently craving after freedom (=traveling for a bit longer then just 3weeks) before I have kids and bigger responsibilities.
At my job they’re not in favor of it so I’m afraid to just let go and go. Coming back jobless would be maybe more stressful then all energy I’d got on the way.
By now, I guess everything went more or less very smoothly
Not having BIG turning points means also I didn’t have to make big decisions.
Are we humans made this way that we seek easiest way through life and then complaining about boringness?
In one previous post you mentioned that your wife keeps you busy with researching, opening doors and dragging you towards new horizons. Could you maybe please explain more…
Very good blog btw. Reading it for some time now – should be a book
Comment by Gregor — October 16, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
Lilly – yes, Lilly, it is this “but” thing that stops us. What if? I am not trying to say that it is wise to blindly jump into just about anything that pops up in front of us, however, if we keep stopping ourselves all the time with “what if” and “but”, we will spend our whole life on one foot, never making a step anywhere.
, http://robertkrzisnik.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/how-lilly-kept-putting-out-the-fire/
I checked out your blog and I loved it: the honesty, simplicity and purity of it. I even got a bit cold while reading it
Gregor – ha ha, love your estimation about 30 degrees… Brilliant. Yeah, I can hear what you are saying about being eaten up by your mind: is this all to the life? Is there more or do I just walk the well travelled path? Will I be sorry if I go left, or will I be sorry if I go right? It is an neverending story, isn’t it? We don’t have a “control life” to compare our actual life with and measure are we doing well or not. And yes, we seem to really enjoy complaining, though the conflict between trying to meet the need for fulfilment and adventure and excitement on the one hand and the need for safety and security on the other, does seem to be a complex one.
My wife? Ha, well, I just wanted to say that her being a researching, digging, studying type of person means that she tends to very pro-actively seek where to learn more and expand horizons, and keeps waking me from my tendency to sit in a zen-like state, gaze at the clouds and observe the world passing by.
Thanks for appreciating my writing.
Comment by Robert — October 19, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
Hi, you held me with you throughout this article as I too have searched for personal freedom but then with help of some good people I realized that we do have a freedom to choose our life but it has to be done with responsibility. Nobody else is responsible for my choices. You are very right when you say that it requires emotional growing up to have the ability to take responsibility and use your freedom. Actually only a responsible person is truly a free person. If we are seeking freedom because we feel tied down to certain norms, codes, or way of life then first we must seek inner freedom. Escaping the physical environment that binds us to those norms would not make us feel free as freedom is a feeling and unless we feel it, we have not got it even though we may have escaped from the environment that is appearing to be binding us. In fact, when I understood this, I made it a point to live in the same environment and took a path of inner journey, where I looked inside whenever I felt the stress of the norms. I realized that this stress is inside me, so it has to be addressed inside me, it was due to the ideals had become my own ideals as they had been passed on to me when I was a child and I had to experience all the pain to really change my beliefs to get liberated. It has been an incredible journey of inner liberation for me. If you educate your children to accomplish this journey it will do them good. Looking at your desire to give a good life to your children I would recommend you to visit the site: http://www.onenessuniversity.org/..and attend one of the courses there. It has personally helped me a lot and I am sure that it will help you and your family. I wish you all the best life.
Comment by Pratishtha — October 21, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
Pratishtha – Welcome. I can see you walked a long way down the road of seeking true inner freedom and I am celebrating that with you. Great.
Comment by Robert — October 29, 2009 @ 12:44 pm