Tag Archive for 'adventure'

At the Edge of the Solar System

drake published on March 2, 2012 in celebrity, technology and transportation. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Good morning SuperForest!

You may be familiar with this pale blue dot:

Hooray Earth!

And  you may remember the beloved Carl Sagan’s words about this image:

“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.”

And, being that we are a repository of existential loveliness, you may remember Jordan and Jackson’s fabulous posts. But hark! There’s news!

As I type these words on a chilly gray Park Slope (fancy!) day, our species may just be crossing a threshold. This cosmic coming-of-age is due to the fact that Voyager 1 and 2, that dynamic duo of interstellar explorers is in the blazing precarity of the heliosphere, the outermost edge of our solar system, where the wooshing solar winds meet interstellar gases, and beyond lies … the unknown. As in, team humanity is almost out of reach of our fair and noble Sun’s magnetic fields, and those lovely little Voyagers are about to — as in within the next decade — exit into the greatest of beyond. Our first kiss with the outer cosmos. And you always remember your first.

Hooray humanity, and our soon-to-be universe smooch!

This post inspired by the wowtastic RADIOLAB from WNYC, which might be the most aurally delicious podcast around. 

(BONUS BOWIE (WHY NOT?))

 

 

Drake’s Journal: A Reflection (Dropping Anchor in New York)

drake published on February 24, 2012 in build, transportation and zeitgeist. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

You are falling from the sky.
The bad news is
you have no parachute.
The good news is
there is no ground.

- Chögyam Trungpa

Oh, Dear Beloved SuperForest,

It has been too long.

Transition is like a window to your heart. Everyone sees you blown apart. And, friends, I am being blown apart once again, as in a week’s time I will be setting down by traveler’s pack for what might be a long while, to pursue a writing career in the great city of New York.

I have shared with you, my fair and precious readers, snapshots of my life on the road, and perhaps I should have shared more; it was difficult to gauge how much I needed to withdraw from the world in order to find myself or whatever it was I went looking for. I’ll be regaling you with some of the best stories from my travels soon, but in the meantime, I think we’re due for a heart to heart.

As of one month ago—that is, the end of January—I was planning to be returning to South Korea to have another tour of teaching English, and, to me, more importantly, to immerse myself in the Zen Buddhist culture there, before wending my way up South America to New York in a year and a half to get into journalism. Ant though this narrative sounded good to me, an I would have time to write and take part in other project publications, it did not release a sense of yearning and dread, a dressing more tart than balsamic vinaigrette that the salad of my soul needed to be rid of. And so I felt haunted, in a way, walking lonesome on snowy Turkish mountains and longing through the second deck of a London bus – and a close friend asked, Why not go to New York now? why not go?

I gurgled back I’m just not ready! and I don’t have the money! and, to myself, AHHHH! But the challenge of that fabled metropolis, and the adventure of forging my career, filled me with a mixture of excitement and fear. With a lingering question in my head, and a fork in the road approaching, I boarded a flight to JFK, to visit friends I hand’t seen in years, and to dip a toe into electric waters.

On the other side of the Atlantic, I was greeted by a third-grade classmate who’s already gone to LA and now to NY and is well on her way to her dreams, and, standing in the Strand Bookshop near Union Square, sisterly asked, Are you going to come here? and I thought Y..yes? and I said mrmrmrmrmaybe? In Manhattan that night, and on the subway to Brooklyn, I took in the young and hardworking swirling about, and thought, these are my people.

A week went by in the city: Warm weather. A Super Bowl victory. Friendship renewal. A phone, a charger. The fluttering bird inside my chest: perching, roosting, possible nesting. A decision made. One very disappointed school in Korea, and some very happy parents in America.

So, next week, on the day of the leap (that’s the 29th), I will land in New York, one-way. Two bags. Friend’s couches to as-yet-unknown-sublet to one-day-a-lease. Freelancing to as-yet-unknown-internship to one-day-a-full-time-job. And a lot of what I need to do to get to what I want to do, somewhere in the thought-and-word industry. Known and unknown.

A great leap in the great leap year of the water dragon.

And if you’re in New York, you are always welcome with me.

Love,

Drake

(p.s.: This replugging means that this SuperForest is about get real energetic. This is going to be fun.

Drake’s Journal: Arrivals (A New Year)

drake published on February 2, 2011 in build, superforest journal, transportation and zeitgeist. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I took this picture in Beijing Capital Airport, staring at the ceiling after a 9 am flight from Seoul, beginning a five-hour layover. I was on my way to Lanzhou in northwest China, where I now write these words. My sister said the layover would be good for me, would allow my soul to catch up with me. Her advice, as ever, rang true.

I enjoyed a series of goodbye parties on my way out of Korea. I was swimming in love, swathed in affection, wading in wonder. So many hearts were born to me, from my students to my coworkers to my dear, dear friends: my extensions, my extended family. Phalanges, philosophers, philo. Love.

See you later.

And so I left my love and my longing behind, cuddle-tangled roots of friendship in a land I found myself. The departure was difficult. A combination of courage and privilege has allowed me to move once again, in my  journey of discovery, as Krishnamurti says:

And to take such a journey we must travel light; we cannot be burdened with opinions, prejudices and conclusions – all that old furniture … forget all you know about yourself; forget all you have ever thought about yourself; we are going to start as if we knew nothing.

And so, fittingly, it is a New Year. The Chinese celebrate this by cleaning their doors, their floors, cleaning away what was, making themselves ready to welcome what will be. What we will be. What I will be. So I am here, in Lanzhou, staying with a friend that I met on the train in Beijing and his wonderful family. The only foreign face here is my own, yet I have never felt more welcome.

Benjamin, the amazing human in the center, has brought me into his life, his family, and his friends. Already many toasts have been made; already, birthdays celebrated!

Liggia, cutting the cake, turned 21 on Monday. She seeks to be a communications scholar: swiftly we began discussions of American versus Chinese media, smiles and jokes. If you would have told me — and if I would have remembered — on my 21st that I would be adventuring around Asia, full of conversational confections, I would have been thrilled.

So, let’s explore. Let’s wander.

I feel full of love and possibility, and I hope that you do too. Call home, go home, home, home, home: the Chinese have taught me the importance of family, and gravity of relationships: dear reader, if you are part of my immediate family, know that I love you, and wish I were with you; if you are a drop more distant than that, I wish you were here with me too. Let’s share this.

新年快乐, xīn nián kuài lè, happy new year!

The year of the rabbit: Be agile.

Back From Qatar!

jackson published on November 20, 2008 in Uncategorized. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Hello SuperForest!!!!

Oh man, the United States is an amazing place to return to.

Qatar was an incredible adventure!

SuperForesters Andrew, Nicholas, and myself worked liked wildmen. We were up with the sun every morning, hauling photo gear from place to place under the merciless Qatari sun. Multiple photoshoots every day, work until sundown, download cards, and clean and organize gear, repeat.

The work was hard, but the adventure was as rich as a mousse.

You know those trips where you know at the end of it you’ll look back on the experience as one of the highlights of your life? This was one of them.

The gig was in the middle of nowhere, with a huge dessert across the road and the lights of Doha on the horizon. That dessert was absolutely tantalizing to me. I felt absolutely that to not spend at least one night in it would be criminal. But I was a bit afraid…

Then, on the second to last day, I got an email from the incandescent SuperForester Christine. It is a quote from the actor Sterling Hayden, (who is soo excellent in Dr. Strangelove.)

Here it is:

“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

“I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.”

What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?”

– Sterling Hayden

I’m not so sure about the need for financial unrest, but the need to not settle for security rang very true for me.

So, the second to last night I was in Qatar, I borrowed a sleeping pad, jumped into one of the Land Cruisers and drove into the darkness of the Qatari dessert.

I drove until the lights of our building were quite small on the horizon, stopping to pick up a load of dry branches from dying dessert brush.

Soon all was dark. Only the moon and the lights of Doha.

I dragged a few rocks into a circle and within built a fire, teepee style, like the boyscouts recommend. To protect myself from dessert carnivores, I did a hilarious side-shuffle dance in a big circle around my fire and bedroll, peeing as I went. It is good to let the desserts full-time citizens know that you are there. I was merely saying, chemically: “I’ll be in this little circle. You can have the rest.”

Then, wrapped up tight in my blankets to keep out the cold, with the moon and stars above me and my fire at my back, I called my father and brother to tell them that I loved them and that all was well. It’s a trip to have full bars in the middle of nowhere.

Here’s what it looked like:

The next morning:

Adventure is the spice of life. Get it when you can.

So glad to be back! Stay tuned for more info!

Love to you all,

SuperForester Jackson