frank’s big adventure

“I just gotta get out of here.”

That’s my answer to the inevitable “Why?” that I get every time I mention my travel plans. I’ve thought a lot about this question myself whenever my mind drifts off into the future. Why do I need or want to go to some third world country? What am I expecting to find out there?

I think I speak for most 20-somethings in this country when I say that it’s hard to live here. Not hard to survive, but hard to live. Hard to engage in a world that is cold and meaningless once you bother to look past the facades of consumerist bounty and pithy religious zealotry. We are in the process of inheriting a world that sucks. It seems every week brilliant science minds push forward the end of the environment as we know it. Our democracy feels more and more like some cheap trick or sick joke with every passing sex scandal and comedian candidate. And the internet, our Saviour, is but a series of fleeting, meaningless connections. We have so much potential for discourse and engagement and all we get are porn, ‘pokes’ and photo albums. It’s shit and I’ve got to get out of here.

But there is another reason for this escape, I could find something of worth out there in this world. When the pace of my day shifts from hustle and bustle to slow, reflective contemplation perhaps I will see more clearly. I’ve had several little moments in my life where the world briefly clicked into focus, and if I had the time to follow through and soak them in, maybe I could better handle life in the U.S. of A.

I don’t plan on leaving for good; I’m not an ex-patriot. I feel very fortunate to have what I do, but I am not built for complacency. I get all riled up at the very thought of apathetic stagnation. My time in Austin has taught me loads about the good and bad in people and I am confident that from Austin I can begin to make a meaningful difference in the world. It’s a place that can lure you into a life of slackerdom, but there is a bustling enrgy just beneath the surface. I need a break before I fully engage it though. I need to be comfortable in my own head before I commit to living with myself for the rest of my life.

This is where I stand in my planning…

I have purchased a plane ticket into Delhi, India in early January from Austin. I will be in the air for about 24 hours by way of New York City and London before stepping out into another world. Over the course of three months I will backpack through India, Nepal, Tibet, China and Mongolia before taking a train into Hong Kong.

Following my Asia touring, I will trek through South America with my brother for a few months. Those plans are further out in the future and are merely sketches of possibilities so far.

—

A dear friend of mine turned me on to the writings of Joseph Campbell, who has become my constant guide through this, my first quarter-life crisis. Not only does he address the lack of meaning in our modern world, but he speaks to our great need for (and dearth of) storytellers. The world is moving to rapidly for us to crystallize our culture into myths, which have always been humanity’s bearers of meaning. So we need now more than ever to have storytellers helping us make sense of our lives and our place in the grand scheme.

I’ve spent the past 6 months of my life in Austin serving as Production Manager of the Austin Film Festival. Rigorous, rigorous work to help coddle the storytellers of the modern world. It was the first real taste of that dreaded “adulthood” I’ve looked ahead to throughout my life. Deadlines and meetings and budgets, oh my. But I feel like it is important work which is why I put in hour after hour at the office, grinding though the end of October. I witnessed the power of a group of my peers working together for something we believe is necessary. We are helping the storytellers of our generation get their footholds and audiences and that is why I am coming back for another year.

But in the mean time, I just gotta get out of here.