I often ask people I meet. 'If you had all the money in the world, what would you do, how would you spend your time?'
The answer I most often receive is:
"I would travel the world!"
"Great!" I would say. "Then What?"
"Well, I don't know."
And neither did I...
Why I Traveled
I've spent my last 7 years (6.5 out of my home country) living in 5 (for ~1 year) vastly different countries and traveling to over 40. I was 'searching for something', at least, I thought I was... I enjoyed the rush of a new culture, constantly a chameleon as I attempted to relate to the new worlds, new languages, and new loves.
One of the most powerful aspects for me was the ease and ability to re-create myself. I love reading. Whenever I learned about new human behaviors, modes of thinking and methods of relating I wanted to acquire; I simply applied them and moved to another place. I realized it's our relationships and environments that ground us, that hold us accountable to "who we are" which is, in one sense, a wonderful idea (if we're not trying to transform ourselves). I was constantly morphing, experiencing the world through various egos. One move 5 years ago was based on my desire to become a 'player' I wanted to 'hook up' with more women, but I had already established myself as a 'shy' and 'introverted' person. So when I moved to a new continent, I immediately adopted the 'extroverted', 'charismatic' behavior that I wanted from the beginning. That way all the relationships I had made expected me to behave that way and reinforced the change in me. It worked, and after having my wish met, I realized it wasn't who I 'really' was. Over the years I began finding out traits deep within me that felt more real to me than the ego-driven attributes I had been dressing up in before; as they did not provide me with any authentic joy.
So, I kept moving and morphing. Country after country I absorbed information about human behavior, culture, desire, and needs. I found out the main things that were universal across our world was how much our culture's and our environments dictate our behaviors. How they dictated my behavior. Not only was I trying to change myself each place I went, but I literally felt like a new person with a new environment, diverse loves, various desires, and random stories. When I look back at my life it's like a series of different sitcoms with different characters and plot-lines, even the main characters changed...
Then I realized something. I kept traveling because none of the cultures I was experiencing were my culture. I realized as I transformed myself that I didn't belong to any of them. I had fun, the stories were ridiculous, the pictures amazing. But, the joy stopped coming. My internet avatars, my online aliases looked great; but I was left wanting inside. My last bit of traveling I was living in a van in New Zealand driving from waterfalls to beaches, mountains to lakes just taking in the most amazing natural landscapes. Then something happened. It wasn't working anymore. I wasn't getting that same 'fix' of new places that I used to. The excitement had worn off. I had progressed as far as traveling would allow me to. I realized that it was time for a change. But, what change could possibly work when I have changed everything about me so often?
Where do I go now when I have no home, and I'm an outcast in every culture...
My chameleon skills had improved, I could fit into just about any culture, I had done it time and time again. However, this time was different.
I didn't want to anymore.
Designing Realities
For the past several years before this moment, I had been having this idea, this little flame of a desire to create a new society. It's what drove me to experience so much variety. I would guess a part of me was searching for a way to not have to create one. An out. That maybe, I would just find the right society for me, a place that felt like home. My tribe. A destination I would never find outside of me.
There is a saying 'home is where the heart is'. I look at this expression as, home is where my passion is, my bliss not some destination but a process of creating. I realized my passion was in designing myself, experiencing cultures and evolving through various realities. I find myself continually grateful for the experiences I have had and yet, I felt a sense of obligation that I needed to do something in return. The world had provided me a great gift and it was time to gift the world back. That little flame has erupted into this insatiable drive to take these experiences and create a model that would work better; for not only myself and my future direct-family, but for as many people as I could, my whole family! My tribe.
I decided it was time to create a new society. For as many societies as we have on this planet I still think we're desperately lacking in diversity. How many of you feel as I do? As outcasts in your own society? Where we have transformed our perspectives so drastically that we're unable to enjoy our cultures anymore. Not depressed, but longing for more. More meaning, more relationship, more authentic interaction, more gifts, more moments of bliss, more awareness, more compassion. A world where our societies prime directive was making the world as beautiful as possible and helping each other meet our needs as effortlessly and playfully as we could! Having seen such a diversity of models, I knew this was something we humans could do! I turned to online communities to find my tribe, it worked. Almost...
So, I realized the point of travel for me was to show me different realities in which to open my mind up to the infiniteness of possibility in human interaction. To realize that our worlds are based on the environments we are in an if we want to transform ourselves we transform our environment! I believe this is why it's so difficult to adopt new routines and habits if we keep the same environment, it's why humans so rarely change. We are rarely changing our environments. It's what so many of us long for. But, the ultimate change of environment is not to go and experience ones that have been designed before. But to take part in the co-creating of an entirely new one. One built entirely by its participants with the powerful knowledge we have access to today.
Now What
So, here we are. You've traveled the world. Maybe you've been living in other cultures playing from your laptop. You've been there and done that. But it still doesn't feel right. Our dominant cultures are still progressing on dangerous paths.
Now what?!
I'm developing a new model. A new way of being, a new society for the 21st century. If you feel as I feel, I invite you to collaborate as we open-source a new reality.
With Love,
Rieki
Check out my proposal for a new society (Our NeighbourGood), it is just a brief overview to lay the ground. I will be sharing more in depth about it as I translate the designs onto Steemit.