Freedom in One's Mode of Living

Marked the 5 month anniversary of the departure from the office two days ago with a dive off Gili Trawangan, the largest of the Gili islands near Lombok. The Indonesians are extraordinarily friendly folk, and I have really been enjoying a fun-filled week in Bali (Kuta) followed by the Gilis with Homi, a traveling buddy from D.C. first met last month in Yangshuo, China. Local Bintang brew, sunsets, hilariously absurd pubs and clubbing, and lots of laughs all the way through - great we ended up coordinating a subsequent meeting point. Some of the photographic evidence of the good times posted here. We will always have kareoke in Sengiggi, which has to be experienced to be understood.

Also have finally posted the Angkor pictures - link here. Difficult narrowing it down and finding the time and internet connection for the upload, but happy to be able to do so while on the road. After 150 days (has it been that long?), getting such stuff done while the memories are still fresh is a nice feeling in between the motorbike rides, hiking up mountain summits, the beach swimming/wandering and general reading and relaxation that occupies these days.

Headed back to Kuta on Bali momentarily by the slow ferry. Going to see about possibly one more dive and how to get to Java in time to do the ancient Hindu temple at Borobudur justice. The destinations for the next monht of T.F.I. Fridays - Singapore on the 4th, Riga in Latvia on the 11th, Edinburgh on the 18th, and Strasbourg on the 25th - strikes me as pretty random and funny, in keeping with the overall trip. One month left, and so to make the most of it...

Also, finished War and Peace, finally, and it was and is a fantastic read. Have already found myself muttering "Tolstoy " under my breath when confronted with various free will/necessity (i.e. determinism) moments, or the shocking recent history of places like Cambodia. Massive, in the truest sense. The title of this post is from one part in which Bezukhov discovers for himself that all he needs for happiness is a lack of suffering, satisfaction of elementary needs, and freedom so defined. One other quote of many (from the Epilogue) helps to sum up T.'s main theme: "The higher the human intellect soars in the discovery of possible purposes, the more obvious it becomes that the ultimate purpose is beyond our comprehension."

Amen brother. And onward.