Mikes Thoughts

taking time to journal

Lately been writing more in my journal it seems. I was able to watch a few YouTube videos of people arriving and living here. It’s like their day to day stories of lives spent in something completely different. One person used to be a truck driver in the US. He came here to live based on his visit in 2019. Some of his commentary is just how different it is to visit. Another person has been here 7 years. His videos are more common sense and lifestyle things instead of the usual stuff. People getting here start wanting to tell people how they find it. The things that are different. How they find basic stuff.

All of this makes its way to my writing. I like to see how different people do their life things here. Some make things seem so easy and fun to find. Others are challenged by the differences. Yet they find happiness in same same.

My daily journal becomes the pointer in wikilinks format to my writing. A thing strikes me, wiggles inside, and sooner or later I have journaled it. The journal is one big file with no rhyme or reason. So all the things become mixed together. Like some recipe of chaos cake. Add a bit of random. Toss in the unknown. Mix well. Add a pinch of a different culture. Let sit until settled. If ever.

I do think these vloggers reach some end point with wanting to find the steps and reasons. Maybe they keep a journal too. I just stop with wanting more of how I will find Siem Reap but I know it takes awhile. Just like blogging perhaps. Some of us want to find our day to day activities. Others write amazing and introspective tours de force. Then there’s me. I figure the blog is a commonplace explainer. A place where I find a voice to things here and before. Nothing is too sacred or profane because life here in this kingdom touches all things.

The journal touches too

It always does. Holds things close or lets them go. Translates inner to outer or it just stops. I searched awhile for atomic and evergreen notes only to find I have none. I’m not planting a garden with the garage door kinda up. I’m just finding words to carry me past all that. I don’t want explanations from wonderful tomes I read. I would rather find things I puzzle over when I walk or write or drink a beer. Perhaps we spend too much time trying to find reasons. Instead we should just go. Forget the searching and just find. Here in Cambodia people are faced with a paradigm shift in life. They cannot be like they were there. It won’t work. They have to change from now to whenever. The beginner vlogger faces this I think and deals with it by creating little things and sharing them.

The journals we create perhaps refute or exemplify this. Inner thoughts become wanting to find. Reason. Maybe there is none. I dunno.

I do know I will continue to listen to their explorations because sooner or later they find a seminal thing. Nothing is the same and nothing is different. And wow. Does it ever play with my words still.

I still rail against things. Want something different. I am not Khmer so happiness is not some given. I have to find it inside first. That’s just me. I am not an expat and I don’t have five reasons Siem reap works. Or not. I don’t need them. Siem Reap and Cambodia merely are. They don’t need reasons. We should just go. Accept the things we can. Find the others. I journal it all and then sometimes it goes to the blog. Perhaps I just carry it along in some day trip to Angkor Wat. See how I snuck in this photo. Yeah!

angkor wat

The journal just takes me. And I ride along. That’s my journaling life. All in one messy file. No organization. Just like what I feel my life is sometimes here. A glorious and random mess. I doubt it could be other.