Monday, October 22, 2007

Dreams of Africa

I have dreams… dreams of Africa. Dreams of vast deserts and jungles, filled with exotic flora and fauna. Dreams of my girlfriend and me giving food to emaciated children. Dreams of helping the Red Cross deliver vaccines to remote areas where there is no electricity or running water.

These dreams aren’t dreams in the literal sense of the word, they don’t occur during sleep. These thoughts happen everyday when I’m at work; sitting in an office, wearing dress shoes, drinking expensive coffee and not doing a damn thing to help myself or my world.

What am I doing to help anyone but myself and my (distant) dreams of making movies? Absolutely nothing.

I feel guilty.

Not super guilty mind you, just kind of guilty. Guilty enough to write about it on a blog, not guilty enough to sell all my belongings and join the peace corp. But I day dream of telling everyone goodbye, having a last huge going away party and then flying to Dafur and picking up the pieces. Or maybe Iraq. Or Afghanistan.

Maybe it’s not that I want to help so much as I want an adventure. I NEED an adventure.

99.999999 percent of people live normal lives- the American Dream, the 9 to 5, the pay checks on every Friday, the two weeks vacation, the marriage and two kids.

Why do I feel like that’s a huge boring trap?

There is so much more to explore in the world then the five places I go during my week; work, home, Sarah’s house, gym and the bar. Same thing, rinse repeat.

But I’m tied down, just like everyone else, I have student loans to pay off, and a slowly budding career to think about. I can’t just up and leave all my ties behind… or can I?

One day you try to call me or email me and I tell you I’m in Africa, 100,000 dollars in debt and loving every minute of it, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

OMG. I'm totally the same. I think maybe, like, six out of twenty people are the same. You should start some kind of club, or some team, or something else totally cool like that, and just DO it. Strength in numbers, man. Then you could go on CNN to publicize the whole thing and become famous and then people would be knocking down your door for your screenplays. And little innocent, wide-eyed African children would be like, "Man! You're what it's all about!"