Like Gambling
I’m not sure what will happen in the course of the next few weeks, or months, but whatever happens I am resolute that I will make this time significant, somehow. I want to do things, see places, meet people; I want to produce, and absorb, and develop; I want to be me, still, but squared, or cubed: a self-similar fractal grown from the current spline, heightened and enhanced. I’m not sure what will happen next, but that is why we live.
I wrote that passage, that declaration of intent, a couple of weeks ago. At the time I was still in Xi’an, thinking about travelling, but not actually on the move. Now that I have begun travelling, I do feel as though I am growing. Hong Kong has definitely opened up new lines of thought, created new imaginative possibilites. I may not be able to wander for as long as I had originally planned as money is becoming tighter, visas trickier; but we will see what can be done: I am still concocting ideas, plotting plots.
Earlier today I spoke to a Japanese man who said that travelling, moving from place to place, was like gambling: you can sometimes win, and sometimes lose, but whatever happens it is always exciting. The man told me that he had been living in Vietnam for several years, learning Vietnamese and doing business, but had come to Hong Kong for a while, his first visit since 1994. He is always smiling.