Friend Ships

The best ships are friendships

On  land you keep both eyes open, at sea one eye closed

Walmart on the water" That's  not Michael Stypes,
that;s me in the corner-losing my religion

Cruise Ship Service is about downplaying the negatives and creating the illusion of perfection. The FOH (front of the house) is all things to all people.

 Now that I am finally traveling as a guest ,  I  DO  like to be served, but invisibly. Yet everyone is calling me “Mr Reif”.

Working on ship  with Guest Status on this  floating hotels,  you are the United Nations Ambassador, and the whole passenger   manifest   become   non-persons and are granted an ethical equivalent of diplomatic immunity. Anything goes. No judgments.  So on the one hand , I like the anonymity but on the other hand, if it wasn’t for Facebook and the internet, I wouldn’t be able to keep track of the volumes of people I see each day. 

No Man Is An Island, yet after all these sea days  land is seldom seen and you can count your friends on one hand. The best ships are friendships.

I think back to The Maldives....

I am an expat, yet not every country will do. I don't know why, some countries fill the gaps and others emphasize my expat-ness. In reality those that satisfy me are those who simply allow me to live with my ''idea of them." 

 Life’s a beach in an ocean of ennui is the take away from the Maldives. These Islands are  extraordinary within their  limits, but their  limits are extraordinary. Yet if I do the math, an   emotional algebra adds up to 1+1=infinity. It's a pristine place.

This is no 9 to 5. You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. It is just a fraction of you. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating.

Curbing My Enthusiasm

My passion gives me moments of wholeness, but when I lack enthusiasm, It appears like an illness- monotony, boredom, and near-death. You see, Cash can buy, but it takes enthusiasm to sell. I've been doing a lot more buying than selling these days, a lot more consuming. Buying is indifferent, it doesn't have to ask because money talks for you.

Thousands of ppl  live like that, or die like that, without knowing. And then some shock -and-awe  takes place- a person, a book, a song, a country, a beach; and then it awakens you and saves you from death.

We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls