I've Got a Case of the Mondays
Greetings Planet Earth, it's 3:45 PM India time which means it's 6:15 AM in the land of my birth and 10:15 AM in the land of my comrades. It has been ten days since we first met in the backwoods of New Jersey and has been seven days since we arrived in India. There are still roughly one thousand nine hundred and ninety (1990) hours left in this trip. We started out with eleven people not including Tracy and Justin. We lost one before we even left for India, and by tomorrow we will have lost two more, both for reasons which out of respect I will not elaborate upon. That leaves eight out of eleven, that is beyond decimation, which literally means to lose one out of ten. Shit. The frequency might be courage, but right now I'm feeling a whole lot of sadness. It's a selfish sadness, after all I'm still here, again I'm not elaborating out of respect. But, really...shit. Shit. S-h-i-t, would accurately describe my emotional well being, I'm holding back tears as I type this, it might be because there are two beautiful Ladahki girls sitting next to me and I'm too embarrassed to, but believe me I want to cry. I was reading some Kurt Vonnegut today, he talked about how laughter and crying are essentially similar emotional responses because we resort to them when we feel absolutely helpless in a situation. I don't feel like laughing, I might later but I don't now. Laughing is good for your health, crying is too. I guess that means crying from laughter is about as healthy an activity as you can participate in...well I can still make jokes, even if they are not funny. The frequency is courage. There is a humorous back story to that, I suggest you Wikipedia it for a good laugh. Wikipedia is really slow here, it means I can't read about Scientology to cheer myself up. I understand the Marriott hotel in Islamabad no longer exists, I also understand Russia is to play "war games" off the coast of Venezuela...it's nice to know the world really has its priorities in order. Shit. Screw ending poverty, let's blow some shit up, I feel that is an appropriate motto not only for the nation of Russia, but for most other nations. God bless Iceland, they don't have an "armed forces," three cheers for Sweden too, they've given up on this horseshit as well. If there is one lesson to be learned from this blog post, it is that upstanding domestic and foreign policy results in the birth of extremely beautiful human beings, I speak of course of Denmark and Finland and Iceland and Norway and Sweden. Three cheers for Scandinavia! Wow, this is sure related to India. The two beautiful Ladahki girls have left...I can start crying now. Oh well, that's it for now. Don't worry about me too much Mom and Dad, I'll be fine, most everyone here is an absolutely beautiful human being, they tend to respect crying...and laughter.
We'll meet again, don't know where don't know when.
-Doug B.