Since I got back from holiday, I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of “routine life” vs. “being on vacation.”
What is it that can be so great about a vacation? And why is it that we often dread the return to “reality”?
I was listening to this Tetragrammaton podcast with filmmaker Roger Avary, where he talks about his experience in prison and a perspective he developed that in a way, the whole planet is a kind of prison.
From a certain perspective, that’s true, but the flipside is equally valid: all of life is a vacation.
Part of my holiday this summer involved a cruise in the Mediterranean. It was beautiful. But looked at from a certain perspective, a cruise boat also has prison-like characteristics.
And for certain rare individuals, time in prison can take the shape of liberation.
None of us can escape either of the two faces of the coin that is this reality: constraint and freedom.
At its best, constraint offers comfort; at its worst, it’s smothering.
The openness of freedom can be terrifying at worst, liberating at best.
Perception is confabulation, there’s no getting away from that. So confabulate smartly.