My oddest blog reflection so far

Not getting enough sleep makes your brain so slow. I didn´t sleep last night. It wasn´t Eva´s fault, She sleeps as good as me and her mum. Very seldom wakes up in the night. Nope, I had a visitor, which made my thoughts wander. Arita Baaijens came to visit over the day. She is probably the foremost female camel explorer on earth today. She just came back from the Altai region in Siberia. She was looking for Paradise. Travelling by horse this time. A great meeting and I liked her very much! She is really like a sister to me. Like Marianne Ahrne. Also a camel traveler and sister. We are kind of all of us in the same boat. A ship that is moving away from us, slowly.  We are getting too old to a certain degree. In the eyes of the media. They want younger people with less brain power, fresher looks and more wasteful energy. Not much one can do about that. Such is life. We live in a Big Brother world right now. Todays survivor in the Expedition scene, has to know how to handle Twitter, Facebook and other social media. You need to update every three days. Both at home and on Expedition, to survive. Because, the competition today is enormous. And, life today is such as, anyone can get famous for doing nothing. However, I realized after meeting Arita, what a waste of profound knowledge! I mean, missing this great knowledge amassed during all these Expeditions. Because we, the old type of explorer who dislikes satellite phones and GPS:es and think that if you carry any of these, how can this be exploring? When bringing a satellite phone to communicate every day with folks back home, how can this be unsupported and called exploration?

And that is what we talked about during her visit. Life and the quest of being an explorer. As Arita said:

“One has to start all over again, every time it is time to leave. I am getting fed up with that!”

I agree. Money is always an issue with people like us. It is kind of like we don´t really fit in to a normal 9-5 life, which is dominated by paying your dues to society. Like taxes. Which I seem to spend all my life doing, catching up on unpaid taxes. Which means I can never really fully concentrate in finding new, visionary ideas. My age makes me know the dark sides of life, which you tend not to know -Thank God- when you are young. So one wastes energy.

Meeting Arita was meeting a soul of the same thought. She was very kind, humble, intelligent, passionate and interested. And very down to earth. I feel so much hope after meeting her. But, we did dwell on the subject:

What happened to all these explorers after they had done their trips?

I do know a few of them. I have heard about many others. Some dead. Many got forgotten, which they didn´t like much. This wouldn´t bother me, or Arita, a thing. Quite a few ended up just making the day economically. I guess I am heading there….but, the question is, would it have helped if they, or me, would have chosen another job? A 9-5 with a steady income?

I doubt it very much. I tried it once. At a travel agency. A nightmare after awhile. For me and the employer. I think we will write a book about these people. Me and Arita. As she said:

“The older you get, the more you enjoy biographies about other people.”

So right, so right. I am reading Tony Blair’s new book right now. I like it. I didn´t know it helped drinking a lot. Hmm, maybe try that then….

About the money issue, read this! I agree….