Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Pura Vida
... so you're sitting in the back of this car and this girl is driving way too fast and you've all been drinking so although you're a little bit on edge you also don't really care and you've been dancing salsa at this party in the middle of god knows where and this girl is just throwing the car around corners like she's still dancing and the radio is up high and they start singing along to this song and you don't understand the words but it still sounds great and you make up words and sing along too and you put your head out of the window and the night smells of heat and petrol and the car swings one way then the other and the rotten exhaust growls and the roads are a mess and you all shout Pura Vida at the dark houses which means Pure Life and as you come to a junction you think that your pura vida could be brought to an abrupt halt but the girl laughs and the car sings and dances on into the night pura vida...
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Did you get her number?
ReplyDeleteAre you sure you are not on your gap year from university?
ReplyDeleteBut you miss staring at the wall back in your flat in London, right? You miss mindless television, shallow dates, and chocolate girl fantasies. You do miss all that right? Your life has not actually improved. The wild excitement is just as much a sham as sterile art gallery visits right? Tell us, we need to know. We need to know we do not have to get up out of our chair. Nothing improves through travel, you're still lonely bemoaning your lot on your (damp and slightly mouldy) bed at night, the poor kids are just a put-on for 'volunteer' tourists with more money than sense, nothing you do is making a difference, you're still bored, you're still waiting for your life to start. tell us, tell us, we need to know...
ReplyDeleteIt is hard not to bring yourself with you when you travel, but it is nice to be miserable in a warm sunny place.
ReplyDeleteCW
Excellent!
ReplyDeleteWe have some meat on the bone, something we can get our teeth into.
Do you always take yourself away? Or does distance allow you to clear the pollution and see more clearly?
I don't know.
Yet.
As for being on a 'gap year', what's wrong with that? Dying slowly in an office is wrong.
Why is the gap limited to one year? How does that pseudo-psychological career coaching question go? "If you could have any job, what would it be? Then do that." If a gap year is regarded as one of the most fun, rewarding, free, and enlightening time in one's life, why must it end after 365 days?
ReplyDeleteI think all change comes from within. While external change can for a while seem the cause of internal change, in reality it is probably that the external change is reflecting an internal change that came first. For instance, if your life is any better now it is likely to be as a result of inner changes when you were still in London. Of course, travel broadens the mind, but a bedroom anywhere can look much the same in the dark. It is easy to have exactly the same old feelings about yourself anywhere you go if you expect external things to provide your happiness. But if you focus on the internal, perhaps then you really start to appreciate where you are. Then, of course, you really could be anywhere, even back home.
ReplyDeleteDichos peninsulares: Costa Rica 'pura vida' Elogio de la autoafirmacíon elevado al rango de eslogan nacional, semeja ser el espejo ideal de un país que se considera el más feliz del mundo, pero revela el temor del costarricense a mostrarse sin máscaras delante de los otros.
ReplyDeleteLiterary supplement last week, just to matters into context, Ewan
I hope you were wearing a seat belt... Dad
ReplyDeleteHave you got enough underpants?
ReplyDeleteUnderpants? No.
ReplyDeleteSeat Bealt? No.
Pura Vida as slogan? Yes, I can see that.
Internal change? Hmm, not convinced. I think 'experiences' are important, are they internal or external? Surely the latter leads to former...
Gap year? Agree. I'm for a gap life.
Experiences surely are important. I am experiencing drinking a beer while editing what I wrote last year. Right now I am experiencing commenting on your blog. So you must mean nearly drowning in the Volga and cleaning a wound with maggots in the jungle and sipping piña colada on a nudist beach. Sunsets from the back garden are passé I suppose.
ReplyDeleteNot sure I understand your argument. If you are saying that you don't have to go away for 'experiences' that could lead to change then obviously so. Experiences don't have to be extreme but, on the other hand, I was stuck in a rut so I decided to do -and experience- completely different things. As for long term internal change, let's see, but so far I'm waking up with a smile back on my face and I'll take that.
ReplyDeleteGood to wake up happy rather than sad. My argument? Something about plugging a hole in a boat with a rag.
ReplyDelete