Conversation with Darkness

On the 44th day of the trip to Laos, 

Schiu talks with the darkness

※Today I walked 28 km, from Nong Kham to Kashi.

I was still on the road today. In the past, I used to walk an average of about 4 kilometers per hour, but now my speed has decreased to about 3 kilometers per hour. The roads up the mountain that kept appearing in front of me were slowing me down.

Luckily, as soon as I got to the top of the pass, there wasn’t much of a downhill road, and there were villages waiting for me right on the ridge, so I didn’t have to feel the fatigue of my feet on the way down, but I was worried that going down the mountain would be more tiring than going up the mountain.

However, the characteristics of the roads in the northern part of Laos, which I am walking now, have made me feel that I don’t have much difficulty. And when I think of the nightmares, I had in Saisombun a few days ago, the more difficult the mountain road

On the contrary, I felt that it was safer to walk, so I was walking with ease. But on both sides of the steep road, there were cliffs of a thousand roads, and I couldn’t shake off all my impatience.

Also, the more I look at the cars that pass by me, the so-called public transportation, the more I see that most of them are used cars that have been in production for more than 10 years, or even 10 years, that can be said to be new, except for some new buses that connect big cities.

It was just a wonder that no one knew when a catastrophic breakdown would occur, and it was just a wonder that it was just rolling, and even more so when you look at the reality of Laos, where the history of automobile adoption is even shorter.

Especially because I was able to connect small towns in the rugged mountainous regions and drive long distances, it was obvious that I was a ticking time bomb that could explode at any moment, so it was only natural that I would be anxious to entrust my safety to them.

I don’t know if that’s why the Lao government announced a total ban on imports of used cars that are more than 5 years old, and although it was late, I thought it would be a good thing to reduce accidents.

Anyway, even though I was walking hard, my whole body was drenched in sweat, and I felt more relaxed mentally, even when I saw all the other foreign tourists I met using bicycles and motorcycles.

Perhaps it was because he was determined to take responsibility for his own safety? The interpretation was better than the dream, and I was walking helplessly, even comforting myself. So, I thought about this and that, and relaxed a little,

I was already immersed in the appreciation of the mountains dyed by the setting sun, but as if to mock the unsightly dog, a steep road that climbed 1.000 meters above sea level appeared in front of Kashi, and I stood there to try it out.

As we climbed the mountain, the winding uphill road surrounded by forests and valleys continued for a long time, blocking the way from leaving the mountainside, even though it was clearly close to the crest of the pass.

I felt as if I was being sucked into another world, or rather, I was already in another world, and suddenly I could see myself in the world I had lived in, hidden by a lifeless gray shadow.

Yes! The world in which I have lived has been a cruel battlefield filled with the greed of human beings devoid of pure affection, in a competition to artificially create reality, where there is no eternal winner, where only materialism and plutocracy, perhaps challenging the gods, prevail.

But now, in another world, with which I am at last, because everything is so peaceful, and so free of miscellaneous thoughts, I am vaguely struck by the fact that it is neither great nor eternal.

As a member of nature, a simple living being who can only breathe and feel in nature, I must eat only the simplest pleasures and love, and I must live my life fulfilling the responsibilities of a dwarf in nature.

In the prejudice of my knowledge, it is natural to live in the human social community, and to occupy a firm position and territory of something, and to maintain and manage the external self, to cultivate the inner self as a warrior, and to be faithful to all competitions.

The world has long since changed drastically from the primary structure (physical and whole-body labor, such as agriculture, fishing, forestry, etc.), to the secondary structure (manual manual labor, such as machinery manufacturing), and to the tertiary structure (physical and whole-body labor, such as various service industries, and simple mental labor).

Recently, they have again demanded a change in the 4th structure (manual simple labor and high mental labor, such as information processing and communication work) and the 5th structure (physical and whole-body labor, such as recycling and environment, and advanced mental labor), which changes the category from physical labor to mental labor.

Rather, it is evolving, demanding that it be the basis for increasing the economic value of life, and in other words, the free human life changes from a primary structure to a fifth-order structure, and mental suffering is inevitable under the sensory delusion of being future-oriented.

Losing mental freedom, being confined to the reality of fierce competition, and struggling with time, in other words, the more mental work you do, the more physical space you have, but eventually it expands into physical laziness.

As the healthy mind connected by a healthy body becomes incomplete, it means that in the time allotted to me, I can not only undermine all the health of the mind and body but also dry up the pure recognition of the human being.

Then, as a human being, I have to say that physical labor is an absolute choice and mental labor is a necessary choice in my life, because I need to think about how much a choice can be a choice that can make me human.

Ultimately, work for health, when properly balanced, is to maintain both mental and physical health, so that my life can be peaceful. In other words, you need to move it regularly so that it doesn’t rust.

It was clear that only one’s own limitations were important variables in one’s life, and that one could not help but wonder how I lived beyond those limits, and whether I had been pushed aside by the side effects of such inadequacies and overloads.

Perhaps it was because I had always been tired of both body and mind, that I had been living in a way that was unknowingly accumulating in me, killing me, and just being swept away by material civilization.

Above all, in the way of life in Mother Nature and as a member of it, there is no royal road, but the maintenance of that balance is the preciousness of the long and short, but we fall into the illusion of selfishness, and we go beyond our own limits and repeat ourselves to cause problems.

Perhaps it means that I have been living with uncertainty that I don’t know about, so it had to be premised on the fact that there should never be coercion or oppression for any reason. It’s just that you have to make your own choices and take responsibility for yourself.

And yet, if everything goes well, it is because it is good, and if it goes wrong, it is only the fault of the ancestors, and even the primal instincts are torn apart and scrutinized, and the realm of the gods is sought, even if they leave civilization and live a life of humble savagery, with only the most primal instincts.

If my heart wanted it, I didn’t have to be conscious of anything at all, I just had to choose it and live it hard, and my life, which no one can replace, is my reality, and only pure choices can make me human.

I don’t know if it’s an excuse or an excuse, but I felt like I was searching for my original self and finding the happiness of a pure human being, but in any case, I was just scented by the unconditional world I was living with at this time, when nothing was even more sceptic.

The fact that the world can be beautiful now is that it is only more beautiful because I am in this world, that the wind blowing through the valley is just that the world is more beautiful because of you, that you are singing and waving for me.

Luckily, thanks to the late philosophy that I didn’t even know today, I was able to find my lost self, but I was satisfied that I had walked the entire 28 kilometers without any problems, and that the was enough to be used as medicine.

However, the long road at an altitude of 1.000 meters was not an easy one, and there was no escaping the specter of darkness that had come to him.

Still, compared to the old days when there was no flashlight, I was able to walk, counting the stars, relying on the laser show of the flashlight at my disposal, and even though it was unwelcome darkness, I could accept it as a little of a happy struggle.

It was only at about 8 p.m. that I arrived at Kashi, and I felt like I had to sing a song that my hungry belly button was singing above all else, so I hurriedly finished my dinner, but as usual, I stopped talking gibberish, and I was already humming in dreamland.