I think the people that inspire us most, are those that live in the moment and are able to bring our own dreams to the surface. I am inspired by my friend David today. He stopped by this morning, so we talked about life while I blended up my super clean green breakfast concoction. I’ve known David for about six years; he is one of my brother’s best friends from the Air Force Academy. David was kind enough to open up his home to me for the first three months after I moved to Hawaii so I could get my feet on the ground.
David is what I consider a TRUE adventurer in life. He is the kind of guy that takes a year sojourn from the Air Force Academy to go teach and traverse through Nepal, who trains to swim nine miles from Lanai to Maui, who plans fun days for his little brother in the Big Brother program, who jumps on a boat in Puerto Rico with new friends and sails to Columbia, who drives right on to the LOST set and asks Matthew Fox if we could be extras for the day (true story).
The other day I ran into him meditating in the park, before going for a run. Dave is on a constant quest of self-improvement and has a voracious appetite to learn more about the world. He is wildly creative and one of the funniest people I know. Whether he’s learning Spanish, or playing ukulele, he approaches it with carefree, yet determined abandon.
He is one of those special people that makes you open your eyes to the infinite possibilities available to you every day. After a conversation with him, I am inspired.
He is a surfer, sailor, climber, swimmer, diver, yogi, handstander, traveler, and above all, a good friend. He makes me think and laugh and want to be a better person.
And he will always offer to play guitar and sing you to sleep at the end of the day.
David’s most recent expedition took him to Chile, which is the subject of his third, most awesome video project:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSvq_BTJKT4]I would never again be the same.
This is the magic of travel. Any travel. You leave your home secure in your own knowledge and identity. But as you travel, the world in all its richness intervenes. You meet people you could not invent; you see scenes you could not imagine. Your own world, which was so large as to consume your whole life, becomes smaller and smaller until it is only one tiny dot in time and space.
You return a different person.
All you need to do is give yourself over to the unknown. It doesn’t have to be on a vast, dreamlike arctic plain. It can be on a gentle stroll through a Wisconsin forest or on a street corner inNairobi. What matters is that you have left the comfort of the familiar and opened yourself to a world that is totally apart from your own.
Slowly the memories of the familiar recede from your mind and you find yourself adrift in the experience of the world around you. Your thoughts and concerns change. Your emotions focus on new people and events. The world makes its claim on your heart and mind, and you are free, at least momentarily, from the concerns of your everyday life.
~Kent Nerburn, Letters to My Son