http://www.gq.com/news-politics/mens-lives/199802/elizabeth-gilbert-gq-february-1998-last-american-man-eustace-conway-turtle-island?currentPage=7

dolce far niente – the sweetness of doing nothing.

I sat with a really amazing woman today who taught me some really amazing things and made me think about some things that others go through and the things that I experience.

* That addictions are fueled by the feeling one gets from them; happy, light, accepted, at home, weightless, content, that nothing else matters in this moment. This is true for all addictions whether it be spending, eating, drugs, alcohol, gambling etc. It is the feeling of getting rid of all of the things that weigh you down in your everyday life. But the trick to overcoming these addictions is by finding these feelings in all of your life. Being happy, content, at home, accepted. But addictions are not only fueled by the feelings you get by engaging in them, they are also fueled by the reasons you do take part in them to begin with. Things like abuse or public abuse like bullying or someone who uses their power over you whether that be power in the form of age, economics, race, gender etc. And thus impacting your sense of well being and self power and so this dismemberment of power from ones self can manifest in ways of addiction. Addiction is the pursuit of a feeling. Which is why people who have been heavily disenfranchised are more likely than those who have not been, to attain an addiction. Racism, poverty, abuse, feeling powerless and then feeling a lack of self worth – all of these things are segregating and power reducing.

* I associate the Gold Coast with all of the bad things that happened to me here. Bearing the brunt of racism and bullying because of being part Asian. Being bullied for being overweight during different intervals of my life. Having poor self esteem inherited from my parents – never being thin enough for them. My mother always handing me clothing, an extra size too big because that’s how she saw me, and now, I do the same thing to myself. But I am getting better. Changing the way I see myself. I am not my weight. But that’s still a really hard thing to get past. I resent the Gold Coast for a lot of things which is why I am always more anxious here. More nervous, out of place, not happy. These things that happened in my life are blockages to living a full life here and meeting a community of people who are like me. People who push the boundaries and see magic in life and in the world. But I’m not there yet, by any means, to forgiving and forgetting this place and the people who made it difficult for me. I’m working on it.

* Hawaii for me felt completely right from the get go. I moved with ease there, still do. People accepted me for who I was. My mixed heritage, my yo-yoing weight, my passion for life and for asking questions. I am light in Hawaii, I feel like I float on the breeze, I can breath there. This is also how I feel when I travel; a freedom from parts of myself that are bruised, freedom from those who I feel made me feel this way….freedom.

There are some places where the heart sings that much stronger, where the soul yells for joy at everything, where even the toes feel happier…there isn’t an inch of your body that isn’t thankful for it’s time in the sun… this is hawaii.

I know that I’m supposed to be like nearly everyone else and climb a tree and yell in a state of elation that “OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD.” But, I can’t. It makes me sad to see a world where murder is still rejoiced in. And I know this man has been accused of a lot of very bad and inhumane things but I cannot and will not jump on the bandwagon of bloodlust and cheer for his departure. I am fully aware of the fact that I am probably only conscious of 2% of the goings on in this world. The media feeds us what they want. We only hear what they want us to hear and because of that I am extremely skeptical. Everyday I want to feel better about the world and as each day passes, I only feel worse. I have no doubt that the “free world” will invent someone else for the public and itself to focus all of our/its hatred and fear on. How do we ever expect to heal ourselves and the rest of the world when we celebrate things like murder, revenge and uninformed hatred? We talk about how terrible Osama was and yet we rejoice in the ways we hate him (and extremists) for; uniformed hatred for another culture & revelling in revenge. It’s clear that we never graduated from the days of town executions. We have turned the world into a big game of cat and mouse. No one is the enemy and no one is the friend when absolutely nobody takes any time to understand the other.