"What is a journey.
A journey is not a trip. It’s not a vacation.
It’s a process. A discovery. It’s a process of self-discovery.
A journey brings us face to face with ourselves.
A journey shows us not only the world, but how we fit in it.
Does the person create the journey?
Or does the journey create the person?
The journey is life itself. Where will life take you?"
- Louis Vuitton
Huh! (sound made similar to the post-pump up speech after any halftime in a football movie). I’m a marketing sucker despite my finance path currently, and this ad makes me respect Louis Vuitton enough to strut around in their best pair of size 42 peep toe pumps. Even if that will never happen. Yes, I'm admitting it everyone - I've got boats. Quite frankly, in Asia my shoe size is more of a spectacle than Chinese New Year. Adorable fun-sized sales ladies in 9 countries have laughed at me once I asked for my size, pointed, giggled, took pictures and a video, yes, a video. But I’ve learned that this is one of those aspects that defines who I’ve become, and I’m learning to accept it. Isn't that part of the journey, Louis? Showing us not only the world, but also how we fit in it?
Honestly, the world shows you even more so of how you don't fit in it. But what are you going to do? You’re already in the world! Solution: As Project Runway’s Tim Gun says, “Make it work!”
Fact: I will never be able to buy a pair of (women’s) shoes in Asia.
After 7 months of searching for shoes, 100% failure, yet if my luck in the shoe department defined how I fit in the world, the rest of my days would be full of rejection, humiliation, hopelessness, and failure. The key is harnessing the creativity that you have to wake up with and say, Hey, I don’t fit in - what now? How do I make this work? Do you think that my mammoth shoe size stopped me from navigating a continent where I'm essentially illiterate? No. I just have bigger footsteps. The fact that Asia has more or less proven that I do not fit in makes me search for what really makes me me, since the sales ladies kindly point out who I am not.
The differences are clear – and clearer than trying to figure out who you are in a world where everything is easy: reading, writing, talking, eating, driving, working out, socializing, wearing gym clothes in public, finding shoes at any price in any size. If shoes make a girl happy, then you have to be a lot more creative when you are in Asia with a size 42! And that's the splendid thing. The joys that you attain in circumstances where you are sometimes not welcome, not approached, not answered, not considered a customer are insanely more telling and less superficial than happiness in an easy life.
Immersing yourself in a world of who you are not really kills the typical self-discovery path by process of elimination. If I eliminated everything I am not from what is in Asia, I’d be nothing. Okay, so I like spicy food and contemporary architecture. But you have to learn who you ARE not just who you are not. In Asia, I don't have to struggle with figuring out who I am by how I fit in but how the world fits into who I am.
Unlike in America or in any more similar culture, I cannot follow the common trend, which a culture’s homogeneity absentmindedly encourages people to follow. For instance, learning the fashion styles in America - you look for the cutest girl, you copy her style maybe add your flair if you have any (most don't). In Asia, I copy their style and I end up leaving the store with a nice crop top instead of a floor length dress, completely missing the fad an ending up on the worst dressed list. If I followed a culturally sensitive lifestyle (don’t work out, eat rice, slurp noodles, and nosh on bakery desserts 24/7 while wearing heels and whitening cream) I don’t become one with Asia, I get fat! (A quality both Asia and America fear, single out, and negatively look upon; No wonder the Renaissance was the life, no judgments against curves as long as you indulged in everything, you were hip). What this has taught me is that I know now when to be the coffee, when to be a potato, and when to an egg. (the fantastic tale of egg hardens in boiling water, potato softens, but coffee flavors!) Instead of being in a world of copies or redundancy, it’s not a matter of eliminating the noise in order to find yourself. It’s the fact that you have to make the beat to your own drum and make noise to be yourself. Philosophical stuff here on a Sunday, eh? Why not!
So you're 21 and you are having a real chat with yourself evaluating who you are, who you’ve become, how you’ve gotten here, and what’s ahead. Seriously thinking I’m the minority on this one… add that to the list of quirks.
But this Louis Vuitton commercial really hit me and this is the sign that that I'm beginning to question myself even further (despite the shallowness that this is a luxury brand’s attempt at forcing people to buy more leather goods simply because it hits to the core.) Essentially, my motto for a while has been in line with “Can’t stop, won’t stop.” A pinball in life’s arcade. A go-getter. An up-for-anything, you say “Adventure” I say “I’m there!” Having placed Albus Dumbledore's quote on my Facebook page last August, I'm starting to rethink its value in my life.
The quote reads: "And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure." Fantastic words here - flighty temptress – yes, indeed, that is the essence of adventure. The elusive person I’ve been known to be. Changing my plan of action based on evaluating the adventure value in the options. (So, if I bailed on you previously, it’s because you weren’t adventure enough… sorry). Yet what I’ve realized, is that adventure is more about selfish risk taking than it is profiting from the journey. Adventure means expectations have not been set and that is why adventures are thrilling – you usually surprise yourself with how much of a rush you get jumping off a suspending rope bridge into the rushing River Kwai in Thailand, three times. But can you really grow from adrenaline? Does it cumulate to produce something that makes you better for taking on that flighty temptress? Spontaneity fuels adventure, whereas self-discovery accumulates through the journey. A journey being an adventure with expected growth once you reach the finish (but what journey really has an end?) Am I outgrowing cheap thrills and expecting more out of the final product? My Goodness, am I growing up!?!?!
Has this journey I’ve been on since August forced me to grow up to fast? Maybe or is it just about time that the little four-year-old took the brick off her head and straightened up her posture.
I may be ready to accept growing up, but not ready to return to an easy world with Barbie dolls in the flesh, where the Walmart people in my emails actually come to life, where the value of a person is rarely weighted corrected, and the time people take to listen is far less than the time people take to judge. I'm sitting in Kowloon Park right now, as the only person in the sun. I don't have my umbrella out because it's beautiful today and I need the vitamin D. I'm soaking up the sun as Sheryl Crow once wrote. I've got my 45 on (assuming she's talking SPF) and I'm gonna rock on.
