What makes a life great? Is it happiness? Is it really possible that we are just here to pursue our own happiness? Love. Sex. Adventure. Money. Friendship. It all sounds nice, but does it make a life great? Why does it feel like there is something more to it, that we are missing?

What about contribution and fulfillment? Am I hear to make things better for others, for society? Why are we made to be so selfish, to put our wants and desires first, if we are here to serve others?

What is it that I actually want? I don’t think it is happiness. I think I want understanding. I want to know why we are here. Do we have enough time on earth to do anything truly great? Are we just another creature on earth looking to propagate as much as possible?

We push and fight and protest and advocate. And then we die. Does suffering lose meaning because we all eventually die? Or does suffering mean the difference between seeing death as a curse or a gift?

Do people forget they will die? That our most precious currency is time? Why does the drive to accumulate wealth (and stuff) consume so many of us? If we are all going to die, why are there so few painters and beat poets and musicians and writers and performers, expressing life from the depths of their souls because that is the only choice that makes sense?

We live life on the surface, and refuse to dive deep into what it means to be alive and have consciousness.

If I want writing to be about anything other than my own vanity, I want it to be about what it means to be alive. The great “why?”. Maybe this is what real adventure is. Maybe experiencing new places and people and geographies is a means of connecting with previously unknown reasons for the living fight against entropy.

Or maybe it is the only way we have to learn that the places and people and geographies on the other side of the world aren’t so different from the places and people and geographies we grew up with. Traveling is the most effective remedy for my own hidden prejudices, and writing is a way for me to understand the impact of those experiences.