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Thanks for your post, it literally gave me goosebumps.

> Ordered society will succumb to chaos and nothing will be done. There will be no roads for you to travel, no places for you to tour, no joy for you to find.

I'm a guy in his early 30s, recently separated, living in a rented studio, with only a laptop, a few books and a plasma TV (for watching sports from time to time). That's it, but I don't care, as long as I can earn my living, earning a salary, getting me through life.

Yes, I'm happy because I can afford paying bills with money earned through my work (I still hate the bills per se, though :) ). My model is my peasant grand-mother, now almost aged 85, who has worked for each day of her adult life (she got married at 17). She only once went on a trip/tourism thingie to the mountains that she can see from her backyard. She hated the whole thing :) because that meant that while she was on the trip with my grand-father work would not get done back at home. When I last spoke with her she was upset that her body was feeling more and more weak, and that prevented her from working (feeding the cows, doing stuff around the home etc.).

Whatever works for you. Other people do intrinsically like to travel, seeing new things, or travel for other reasons (challenge, status, whatever).

I think you're assuming a little too much here. I didn't read his journey, I admit; but what I saw him as doing was making a single trip to try and clear and focus his head to something that's more than the blank routine. He said nothing of what he's doing now, just of what he did once. There, I think, is the big difference. A lot of young college students in Europe, from what I understand, go backpacking over much of the continent for a year, to do something similar.

And your 'everything is vanity' stance? While to some extent, it is true, everything is vanity, only the superficial changes, there will still be wars, there will still be famine, there will still be droughts, there will still be power struggles, there will still be times that seem good, and so on, at least in the long view of things, you can still effort to be useful and to make a positive difference, and to grow as a person, and maybe, just maybe, to find that way in which you can make that part of your world, at least for the time you are alive, a little bit better; and if you're lucky, a bigger part of your little world a lot better.

In all, I don't think he was running. Or rather, I don't think he was only running. I think he was escaping to clear his mind and work to decide what was really important so he could then do that when his journey was over.

> so he could then do that when his journey was over.

So what's he doing now? I don't think the wiki is paying rent... I could be wrong.

It's not, unfortunately :) I'll keep working on it.

I'm back working in an office. I'm really enjoying the routine, having a place to live, go to the gym, cook good food etc.

I have no idea what the future holds, but that's how I like it :)

Thanks for the great insight. I agree on the whole with what you are saying, though I'm wondering why you choose to describe what I'm doing with my life as "running"? I'm not running at all, I'm just looking around for the purpose of learning and adventure. I have nothing to run from.

> What did you find at the end? Was it nothing? Because that's what I found.

I wasn't "looking" for anything, other than to enjoy my life. I enjoyed those 2 years immensely, and without a doubt in my mind, more than I would have if I stayed at work "on autopilot". That's why I did it - because I wanted to. It's the same reason you (or anyone) has ever done anything in their life above bare survival. Because you want to.

>You're not better than them

I've never once thought that for even a second. Actually, I learned on the drive to look at life (mine and others) from a whole bunch of different perspectives. Never do I think in terms of "better or worse", always "different". Just because people are doing something I don't want to, that doesn't make my way "better", not by a long shot. It just means my choices are different than theirs.

> If everyone was going out to do and chase whatever it is they want there will be no room for you. Ordered society will succumb to chaos and nothing will be done

Interesting you should say that. This was one of the greatest lessons I learned on the whole drive: At the start of Latin America (Mexico) I wondered why people were so "lazy" and relaxed all day with friends and family while the roof on their house leaked. I continually thought of ways to try and make stuff better (in the western sense of the development, etc.) After 18 months, and many hours pondering and discussing, my Spanish was finally good enough to have a great conversation about it. A guy in Argentina described it to me brilliantly. The difference is credit. In the first world, when we want for example and iPhone, we go and put it on our credit card (or monthly payments) then work for the next couple of years to pay it back. The connection between how much you have to work for the iPhone and the joy of owning the iPhone is very fuzzy. Our society doesn't want us to make that connection, because it needs us to keep buying stuff, and keep going to work. In the second and third world, nobody can get credit, so if you want an iPhone, you have to go to work for a year, save like mad, then buy it outright. Let's be honest, after a week of full time work any sane person is going to seriously question if they want a stupid iPhone, realize it's not worth it, so they'll go back to working the bare minimum and relaxing with friends and family. The end result is that people in second and third world countries have way less stuff, but have way more time with friends and family. Also it's worth noting that society doesn't "collapse". People still have a roof, food, clothes and happiness. I think about this every day.

> you might find that the steady ones, the one that did everything they were told, might end up being the ones that have the most.

The most what?

As an aside, do you live in Alaska as your username suggests? I live in Whitehorse, Yukon these days.

So the third world are the otters to our ants? Working just as much as necessary and enjoying the rest of their time; where as US First Worldians are in a continual work cycle? (I admit I'm not familiar with an animal that works (or seems to work) very hard for long periods of time only to go crazy at night or on the weekends --- if there is such an animal)

I don't think the Puritan work ethic came out of debt; it came from the sanctification of work.

Could be. I have no idea where it came from or why.

I'm very interested in what it means today, and how I choose to incorporate it into my life. That's why I really enjoy learning from people that follow it to a large extent, and those that don't.

>I have no idea where it came from or why.

It was very likely a product of the Reformation, and almost certainly had nothing to do with debt. Specifically, the ethic arose from the philosophies of Luther and Calvin in the 16th century. Prior to L&C, the dominant Catholic line held that hard work was a means to achieve salvation. Work was punishment. If you weren't performing good works you would go to hell. Working hard to serve your god? Good: perhaps you will be saved. But don't work too hard, because hoarding wealth is a sin. Pay your excess forward to the Church and it will help your cause in the end.

Luther didn't exactly turn this conception on its head but altered it, which opened the doors for later change. He believed that work was good because it served not only the individual but also the social whole. The main expression of this was a dissolution of occupation-based social hierarchies. For example Luther rejected that something like agricultural work was inherently less valuable than a monastic calling. All work had value, and all work had equal value in the eyes of God. The main thing is that each person was called to work by God, and to work was to exercise your noble calling. This is basically an inversion of the concept of work as punishment.

Calvin both carried Luther further and branched out. His was probably the first interpretation of Christianity to state that maximizing profit from one's work was not only good but also required. This wasn't a call to maximize profit in pursuit of an easy life, since even rich folk had a duty to perform hard work. Rather the duty was to improve the Kingdom of God (and one's society) through investment. This doesn't mean philanthropy or giving to the poor, rather something like modern capitalism where an individual's investment (sometimes, often) produces positive effects for those around him. Devoted, hard workers help to maintain a cohesive social whole, which in turn mitigates the chaos and disorder that might stem from idleness.

Underlying Luther's and to a greater extent Calvin's philosophies is the notion of predestination. Dominant Catholic thought posited that people were born sinners but could earn salvation over a lifetime. Predestination rejected this, stating instead that God chooses the saved at birth. That is, you're either saved or you're not out of the womb, and there's nothing you can do about it. During your life, you can't know whether or not you are one of the elect. However you sure as heck want to be, so you do your best to live in the way you think the elect would live. If you succeeded, this could be perceived as evidence of your having been chosen to be saved. Hence the social drive to work extremely hard and produce as much as possible.

The above is probably a bit rambling and somewhat of a bastardization, but it's generally correct. Given that, I'm not surprised that in a historically Catholic region you came across a very Catholic take on work, which is at odds with the conception of work you're used to in historically Protestant America.

This is a fairly correct summation of the theology & attitudes of the Puritan ethic. Far better than I could have written.

One could trace it back to monastic traditions born during the early middle ages. James Burke makes that point in one of the later Connections episodes in the first series.

> What did you find at the end?

The journey is the reward.