131- Nooks and Crannies

Whenever I visit a new place, I often choose to take the roads less traveled as opposed to going full on touristy. I have lived a little over a year in London, and I feel like I have not even begun to scratch the surface of everything there is to see in this city. I feel like I haven't even begun to even sharpen my figurative paint scraper when it comes to discovering all there is to know about the UK. That's how crazy it all is.

There is value in being Roman, as opposed to just doing what the Romans do. I will never be truly British, or, never truly be a citizen of England, given that I had spent the first 30-plus years of my life in the Philippines, and look to spend most of the rest of my existence away from the UK. Being moved after experiencing a small sliver of life away from your place of origin, however, carries its own profound sense of majesty. It broadens how you view the world, and makes you more introspective. It makes you know yourself better. Once the sheen wears off, after a few months or years in a new place, things tend to fall into a a state of habit. That does not mean one has to stop wondering, and wandering, though. I don't ever want to settle for just being one amongst the proverbial herd. I want to keep standing out, in a good way. Like Mufasa told Simba, one should not go looking for trouble. Instead, one must yearn to ascend to greater heights purely due to the knowledge that such will be able to make him/her see more of the universe, or, the universe from a totally different perspective.

The day I become totally ordinary is the day I ought to just hang it up, and give up on all things exciting, enriching, and plausibly "real". That's the day I should tell myself to just stay and bed, and never get up to fry an egg and find a cuppa joe.

After moving through the nooks and crannies of this world, I've found myself emerging before a few stunning vistas, and plazas full of people I don't know. After milling about in these places, I find myself back where I started- yearning to explore even more nooks and crannies. So, here I am, off to the next adventure. I think I am a bit more enlightened as far as directions go this time, though- better acquainted with many things, but not any less curious about the unknown.

MC