Global Soul
Where I’m exploring
February has been a tough month because of different reasons. Writing always helps to filter out the noise inside my head but what helps even more, is just getting outdoors and exploring the wonders of the natural world. After three years of living in Vancouver, I still keep discovering new places just a short drive away from home.
What I’m reading
The Global Soul by Pico Iyer
The first chapter The burning house captivated me from the beginning till the end. Sometimes you think you have figured out some parts of who you are but you haven’t yet found the language of how to express it. That’s exactly what I found in this chapter.
Travelling and living in various parts of the world made me realize how much my perception of the world kept changing. Inspired by Emerson, Pico defines the Global Soul:
The key lies entirely in perception: it was not so much that man had been exiled from the Garden as that he had ceased to notice that it was all around him. In that sense, our shrinking world gave more and more of us a chance to see how much we had in common and how much we could live beyond pretty allegiances and labels, outside the reach of nation-states.
He wonders whether a new kind of being is coming into light: a citizen of an International Empire made up of fusions and confusions. A person who had grown up in many cultures all at once and lived in the cracks between them. A soul that lives and thrives in the international airspace with the air miles as his currency.
I have met quite some people on my travels who had the characteristics of a Global Soul. They were half-this and half-that. Half-English and half Chinese. Half-Colombian and half-Australian. But they usually identified themselves with a country completely different than their respective halves. Spending time in the country of their first half was never enough. Something was missing. There was a constant longing to spend time in the country of the other half as well to feel fulfilled. I call these people, including myself, dislocated souls. On a continuous and never-ending journey of finding one-self to feel complete.
Every country which is new and strange allows me to keep alive a sense of wonder and detachment. A lack of affiliation may mean a lack of accountability and forming a sense of commitment can be hard without a sense of community. This internationalism may reflect too roaming and undefined a sense of belonging. The Global Soul may see so many sides of every questions that he never settles on a firm conviction: he may grow so used to giving back a different self according to his environment that he loses sight of who he is when nobody is around. (…)To lack a centre may be to lack something essential to the state of being human.
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
—Graham Greene
What I’m writing
Building the life of an independent creator — The practice
I have been working on a few essays which I refer to as Building the life of an independent creator. My intention is to outline in 3 main chapters—self-awareness, courage and practice—what it takes to start building the life of a creator. The idea came from my own journey of stepping into the elusive space of creativity.
Quote of the week
My country is the world and my religion is to do good.
—Thomas Paine
I often get the question: Where are you from and what do you do?
Although my answer has drastically changed over the last few years I found this quote to be very eternal.
I believe there is a great need for a global perspective on the challenges we’re facing as humanity. Everything is interconnected and the solutions don’t come from following the traditional methods. Experiencing the world by understanding the people that inhabit it is the only feasible method for a sustainable future.
What I’m listening to
Rolf Potts interviews Gary Collins from The Simple Life Now
This conversation has a lot of insights regarding minimizing your lifestyle, eliminating bad habits, approaches to personal finances, etc.