January 26
“Some of you can already feel it on your skin, how sensations come and go, never lingering…” It was the end of the sixth day and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I didn’t want to listen to him anymore, and another day of memories and thoughts would send me over the edge.
I stood up and walked out. That may have been the first time they looked at me.
I went to get my bag from the room and headed for reception.
“Hi, can I have my phone please,” I asked smiling Mia.
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to do this anymore. Where’s my phone?”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s really important that you stay to the end because…”
“I don’t care. I want out of here. Give me my phone!”
“Maybe talk to the monk first?”
I looked at her. Her calm voice grated on me and I ran.
She called out to try and stop me. I got to the bamboo gate and tried to open it, but it was locked.
It wasn’t very high, so I jumped over it and ran away from there as fast as I could.
After a while I stopped to sit on a rock by the ocean to catch my breath.
It was already dark, and I had no idea how to find a place to sleep.
I had no phone, no map, and no hope of a taxi passing by – there weren’t many of those in Koh Phangan.
Despite my predicament, watching the waves soothed me – for the first time in ages.
I wasn’t aware of how much time had passed, when a voice said:
“I think you forgot this?” It was the bald, orange-robed monk. He handed me my phone.
“How did you find me?” I was startled.
“You’re not the first one to run.” He laughed in an unthreatening way.
“I’m not going to force you to come back, don’t worry.
I say that to everyone who runs. It’s not a prison, but we are responsible for you and want the best for you.
The process you’ve been through is one of the hardest that a person can experience.
It makes sense that you’d want to escape.
But now that I’ve told you what I tell everyone – you must tell me. ”
“Tell you what?”
“Who or what are you attached to? Who or what can’t you break free of?”
I told him. Everything. He listened for half an hour, maybe an hour. I was hoarse from not having spoken for so long, but when I started to talk I couldn’t stop.
When I finished there were a few minutes where the only sound was the breaking of the waves, as if he was waiting to see if there was more I needed to get off my chest, “We were all nomads as children. We didn’t have to leave the room to wander.
All we needed was the knowledge that there was somewhere we could come back to.
Do you have a safe place you can return to?
Do you have someone who will embrace you and tell you everything is alright even when you have fallen? ”
“No. Because if I go back to the safe place, I may not be able to leave again.”
“It’s not physical movement that makes a nomad. It’s a state of mind. You can even go to places that aren’t on the planet. All you have to do is use your imagination.”
“But I’m a digital nomad. My essence, my work, is to move from place to place.”
“I don’t know how much you listened to me over the week, but change is constant.
Our cells are replaced all the time; people, animals, and plants all die and are reborn.
The child grows into an adult, the neurons in the brain change, energy is always moving.
I know that you were once certain of being a digital nomad.
Do you know who you are now? Don’t block your consciousness from the constant change that is happening in you.
Every single day, ask yourself: Who am I?
And expect a different answer every time.
Who are you right now? Let the answer come to you on its own. ”
In complete silence we both looked out at the ocean for a long while, and then the answer flew into my head.
“I am pointless love. I’m full of love that has nowhere to go, wasted energy, lost in the wilderness with no direction or purpose.”
“There’s no such thing as wasted energy. When there’s no reason for it to be yours, it doesn’t die – it just moves on. If it’s yours, it must be there for a reason, one you haven’t given up on. But it’s time for you to decide: quit or push ahead?”
“I’m not a quitter.” It was my mantra – I didn’t even think before I said it.
“Sometimes people think quitting is easier, so we perceive it as laziness and weakness. But giving up is only easy with things that we never grew attached to. When we are attached, quitting is actually the harder option. There’s nothing more difficult than picking apart a knot that we ourselves have worked too hard to tighten.
If you stayed on, you’d experience that truth for yourself – that you’re constantly changing, there is no permanent self, and then you’d understand how terrible it is for your soul to get attached to a definition, a label you adopted a long time ago. ”
I pondered his words for long minutes, maybe hours – hard to keep track in Koh Phangan. But the monk kept sitting with me as if I were the most important thing in the world. And then I remembered – because that’s what silence can do.
“A last question, Mr. Monk”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever sold a Ferrari?”
He looked at me and I was afraid he was annoyed. But then he laughed, long and loud. I joined him, relieved.