February 19th 2025, Paksong, Laos

Time to reflect. This will be a hardcore flow of consciousness. Today I chopped wood for a solid hour. It was interesting doing something so primal and so repetitive. I reflected how people used to do this for thousands of years to make fire and thousands of people still do this today. Is chopping wood about accuracy or precision? Chopping one piece takes a while. You miss the mark many times but eventually you create a singular crease which goes deeper and deeper. Is there a metaphor in here for life? Probably. You have to keep shooting shots around a targeted goal, and eventually you will succeed. The past 5 days I have been living in the 3rd world, maybe 3.5 world fully. I appreciate the 1st world more than ever. I thought farm life would be relaxing and liberating. It has those aspects but I still crave more. I like seeing different places and meeting different people on a day to day basis. On the farm you walk around the same 200 square meters all day. I like places with a nice river, clean air, and more walkability. I have never missed a nice mall more than now. Maybe I am not a farm guy, or this is just not my conception of farm life. The days are slow but they somehow have passed by quickly. I think it was because I worked on the website for a good portion. By the way sharedhappyfarm.com is live now. It was nice giving a small Lao business immediate value with my technical skills. It is so much more than what I could have given in the kitchen or the farm. I really needed to be hand held in the kitchen and farm aspects unfortunately. I think with technology and AI we are really becoming a different species which is sad but also exciting. I used AI to help make the website for them. I am not even kidding it accomplished a task in a couple hours it would take me weeks to do without it. It is really scary and exciting how powerful this AI stuff will be. Why was I born into this body at this time? Why were you not born into the body of a rural Lao child? These are kind of silly questions to ask but it makes you wonder… What is my purpose here? I have slept terribly since being here. Last night I was a little sick and I think I was tossing and turning all night. I might have even been hallucinating I am not sure if I was truly asleep. I think I sweat out my fever though and feeling better. I have been dreaming about death recently. I got shot by a Joker-esque character in my dream a couple nights ago. Whenever I die in a dream a warm sensation covers my body and I wake up. I am an intellectual at heart. I should devote more focused time to intellectual activities. I used this time on the farm to slow down from moving so much. I am not sure if the farm actually rejuvenated me. Am I getting travel fatigue? I am almost 5 months in. I might be getting tired from moving place to place, following some route. I should do more crazy things. This was a crazy thing too. I said I was going to be radically present. I think I am improving but still not there yet. We are less than two months out from my 25th birthday. Wow! I drove a semi-automatic motorbike on the Thakhek loop and I thought about shifting into different gears. These next 2 months I will be shifting up to gear 4. But everyone knows you cannot drive in gear 4 always. You have to dance between gear 3,2,1, and even neutral. It is designed into the cosmic blueprint that the winter is for lower gears, slower life. I can feel my engine rumbling. It has been rumbling for a while. I might leave the farm tomorrow. I might not. It depends how I sleep. My body is in shambles from these beds. I might hitchhike back to Pakse. I might not. I have never hitchhiked but think it would complete my Lao experience. If you are reading this I appreciate you. Thank you for being alive, thank you for caring about me. I care about you.