The New Year hit with the power and dynamism thwacked by a thousand kapok pillows wielded by the old and infirm. So used to not expecting the expected, the new kicked out the old as seamlessly as deciding to update your old-world ceiling fans for something much more whirring. In our futuristic social media present-tense the year just gone had appeared much more adventurous than confining, and although no one had celebrated much at all in ways so usually envisaged, there were new approaches, ‘how-to’s’ and techniques discovered. Much like being happy that your arms have fallen off because of the soap and hand towel savings. That’s the sort of thinking we seemed to learn to do.

In the same way building a life sized elephant out of peas or writing a personal letter to everyone listed on an electoral roll, deep thinking had become a rather impossible luxury prior to this new world that in one fell swoop removed all known routines and consumer distractions. Things no longer had to have reason because nothing seemed to make sense. A lot of us found the only place to go and the only place we could comfortably be, was on the dance floor with our inhabitant neurons. Unusual surroundings indeed. Unfamiliar, but it’s easier to be in the present moment when we’re uncomfortable because that’s when we see things. Traveling is exciting because of this; it makes our mind stop when we can’t name things, or we see something new. It is that moment of looking that we notice, because it brings out of the semi-sleeplike state familiarity brings. It wakes us to our senses and perceptions, which is the access point to the deeper dimension of self. Perhaps the meaning and lesson learned, is that wherever to go, there you are.