Since I left on my trip, I’ve had quite a few deadlines to hit. Bus at 07:50. Ferry at 15:45. Plane at 14:30. Pick up the key after 5:00 and before 6:00. Meet so-and-so here at 7:30.
I’m also constantly checking to see if I still have my crucial items: passport, laptop, wallet and tickets. Occasionally I’ve had a moment of panic, but I haven’t run into any catastrophes yet.
It almost seems like I’m going to have to keep my luck going and continue hitting all of these targets as they arise, lest my trip grind to a halt. Sure I can deal with a setback here and there, but there are certain mishaps that I feel are just completely unacceptable.
I can’t lose my passport.
I can’t miss my flight.
I can’t let my laptop get stolen.
I can’t let myself run out of money.
Whenever I sit down, I hook my laptop bag and backpack straps around my feet. When I stand up I check to see if my wallet is still where it should be. I feel for my passport whenever I think of it. I’m extremely careful with these things, but I deep down I do know that absolute security is impossible, and there is always a risk of something bad happening. Read More
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David on October 29, 2009
When I was taking French classes a few months ago, we were each asked to write a composition in French and pass it to another classmate to read. It struck me then that I very seldom write more than a Post-It note’s worth these days. By the end of a paragraph, my hand is cramped and sore.
And what an ugly paragraph I created. My letters were inconsistent and strangled. To this day, after nearly twenty-five years of handwriting experience, I suck. With considerable shame, I passed my composition, which demonstrated both the penmanship and language skills of a six-year-old French boy, to another classmate.
As if to redeem me, I received an even uglier paragraph from the student to my left.
My generation is lost for handwriting. I’m a computer person. I write thousands of words a week, almost entirely by pushing buttons. My penmanship skills are rarely called upon, and I know I’m not the only one.
After a few weeks of class, I had a chance to see everyone’s penmanship at least once. It ranged from virtually indecipherable to pretty good, but none approached the elegant cursive one might see in a Christmas card from an aunt born before the war. Read More
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David on October 15, 2009
Recently I knocked from my fridgetop an adorable little bottle of Spanish balsamic vinegar my mom brought from Barcelona. I was feeling especially grounded that day and somehow, before it even struck the floor, I was over it.
On a different day I might have sworn and fretted about it, cursed myself as I picked up its pieces, felt bad about wrecking a thoughtful gift from my mom, and pondered my chronic failure to keep my belongings organized and in good condition. One thought may have led to another until I decided I was in too bad a mood to write than night, watched nature shows and ate Ben & Jerry’s, and went to bed disappointed with myself.
Sour moods are like that — infectious and self-sustaining — and they’re born in the moments when we feel resigned, disappointed or incompetent.
Normally, when something breaks like that, there’s a rather strong reaction. The body tenses, gasps, swears, maybe groans like Homer Simpson. The mind sulks, scowls or scorns itself.
It doesn’t feel good. We feel run over, shameful, wasteful, distinctly worse off than we were before this (latest) minor tragedy. A little cloud forms over one’s head: loss. Read More
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David on October 1, 2009
As promised, here is what I plan to do before I die. This list is now a permanent addition to Raptitude.com, and the most up-to-date version can be found by clicking “The List” tab on the top of any page.
If you want to make your own list, here is the comprehensive guide to making one that you will honor.
A few notes:
You’ll notice my list is very travel-heavy. One of my major goals in life is to achieve a location-independent income, which will allow me to move around the globe without the constraint of limited vacation days. Without the intention to live this kind of lifestyle, my list would not be realistic to me and I’d probably soon forget about it.
I have tried to eliminate redundancies, but some are inevitable. I want to see the Louvre
and tour Paris, but it is unlikely I’ll do one and not the other. Still, both are important and I don’t want to leave either off my list.
The list is not complete. I cannot be sure I’ve thought of everything that deserves to be on it, but this is a pretty good start.
Here goes. Read More
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David on September 10, 2009
Asking for help has always been so hard for me. I always hated it when I couldn’t do something for myself. I felt like a failure. I was so used to being asked for help, I sort of felt like I’d lose my identity as “the knower” if I put myself on the other side of the table.
I flunked in college because I was utterly terrified to ask for help. Admitting I was lost and needed help was, for me, like stepping out of a plane without a parachute. Even if I wanted to do it, my body wouldn’t budge. Believe it or not, through twelve years of grade school I did not once say, “I don’t know how to do this. Please show me.”
I would do anything else instead. Skip class to study it on my own, work backwards from the solution in the back of the text, or most often, simply avoid it for the rest of my life.
Naturally, this strategy caused some problems. Read More
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David on August 20, 2009
If I told you to sit in the corner of the room, and get up whenever you want, how long do you think you’d stay?
Chances are, not long. From my meditation experiments I’ve learned that it takes about ten seconds of sitting still before one feels an impulse to do or change something. Wants begin to appear, and start barking orders. Stand up. Get a glass of water. Stop wasting your time trying to meditate. Go eat some grapes. Get something done, jeez.
It’s amazing how quickly and ferociously these wants arrive on the scene. The brain is constantly generating them, and they become especially apparent when you attempt to sit still and do nothing. It becomes almost unbearable, and relief happens almost instantly when you act. Doing anything at all keeps the mind busy so it has less time to come up with suggestions and demands about what you ‘need.’
This is why it’s easier to watch television than sit and do nothing, even though watching television doesn’t really get us anywhere better. Merely distracting oneself from the incessant mental shouting of wants is probably the most common strategy of responding to them, and it does work to some degree.
Multi-billion dollar industries are built on exactly this impulse. Television, video games, smartphones, iPods. Distraction is easily one of the most profitable commodities of the 21st century. Read More
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David on July 27, 2009
To recap for new readers, nine weeks ago I declared I would school myself in the art of the Russian
kettlebell. I resolved to work with the antique freeweight, Soviet commando-style, in accordance with Pavel Tsatsouline’s
Enter the Kettlebell.
Being somewhat a novice, I did the first of two programs, humbly named the Program Minimum. It consists of two exercises you’ve probably never heard of, both of which I described in the original post. Kettlebells have a steep learning curve, and are about as forgiving as concrete, but I did okay. Read More
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David on July 23, 2009
I do not intend to make recipes a regular topic on Raptitude, but if quality of life is the theme, these are just too good to leave out.
Making chocolate chip cookies is something I do very well. Because I live alone, I don’t make them often, but I receive many compliments every time I do make a batch and share them.
The chocolate chip cookie is definitely the most frequently encountered cookie in North America. They are commonly used by grandmothers to spoil children, and by children to bait Santa Claus. It is the official state cookie of both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
I don’t know how impartial I can be, but honestly I have never encountered a better chocolate chip cookie than the ones I make. It could just be my own taste. They are so addictive I have to distribute them to friends and family as quickly as possible, before I’m taken captive by their seductive, brown-sugary fragrance and their irresistible satin glow. Sometimes I overindulge and start eating them for breakfast and lunch. If there is a superior cookie out there, then God help us all. Read More
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David on June 22, 2009
When I sit down to write an article for Raptitude, I always try to pick a topic that I can resonate with at that particular time. I’ve got a folder full of great ideas for posts. At any given time, I’m only in the right headspace to write something decent about maybe ten percent of them. The topic has to match how I feel or else it’s just talk.
I write about gratitude when I’m feeling grateful, I write about reverence when I’m feeling reverent, and I write about misery when I’m feeling miserable.
I’m in a difficult place at the moment, and so most of my thoughts are about a particular type of difficulty. My lease is up at the end of this month so I have to be out, and I’m having trouble finding a new place to live. I can’t sign a new lease because I’ll be gone traveling this fall. I’m scrambling to find a decent home within my budget in a decent neighborhood. I don’t know what will happen, where I will go, only that I can’t remain where I am.
Things will work out I’m sure, but there is an ever-present sense of uncertainty, all night and all day. Read More
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David on June 11, 2009
Rich man crying ‘cause his money is time / Poor man smiling ‘cause he knows he ain’t blind
~ Sam Roberts, “Brother Down”
I can remember more than one night I spent wide awake as a child, frightened from a scary movie or some other show I wasn’t supposed to watch. As scared as I was, I knew from experience that the night would eventually be over, and I would be fine, but that wouldn’t dispel the fear. No matter what kind of reasoning I could summon, the fear wouldn’t budge, and I’d be trapped in that awful situation until the sun came up.
Waking my parents to tell them I was scared would do no good. They could only comfort me for a few moments, then turn out the light and leave me again, vulnerable to any and all zombies or giant reptiles that happened to invade my room.
Once they’d left I’d have no choice but to hide completely under the covers, the edges tucked under my body, so that if a wandering bedroom carnivore did happen to eat me, it would just bite cleanly through this neatly packaged child without my having to ever see it happening. I figured that ensuring a sudden and speedy demise was the best I could do in those hopeless situations.
This was not a frequent occurrence but it did happen from time to time, and each time I ached so badly for nighttime to be over. It always came so slowly. I yearned for the sun. It didn’t really matter what the next day would contain, as long as it was light out and there were other people around. I would take anything: unloading the dishwasher, helping my dad organize the garage, standing in line at the 7-11… anything but to be here, alone in the dark. Read More
I'm David and Raptitude is a street-level look at the human experience -- what makes human beings do what they do, and what that means in real life.
I write about how to make sense of the earth's most ridiculous animal, how to get better at being one of them, and how only those two things can save the world. 
Hi Julie, good to hear from you. I'm still determined to take a road trip across the south, then out to LA, but I don't know where it is in my always-growing sequence of upcoming trips. :)