Per Angusta, Ad Augusta

The clouds move very fast over Bangkok, but the red on the inside of my eyes is nicer to look at.

I've spent the day recovering from a hangover after the big sendoff we gave my friend Mike last night on the Khao San Road. (He's on his way to Australia.) Most of the day was done lying in bed or sitting in the bottom of the pool, with a fair share of it on this computer typing about what I've thought.

Maybe it's just the effects of too many buckets of Thai whiskey, but most of these thoughts have been pretty dismal. I've been away for a month and I've seen a lot of amazing things. I've met great people and I've had great times, but I have't found the kind of happiness I want.

"This must be Heaven," is a phrase I've heard out of a lot of people on this trip, but I didn't come here for crazy cities or for prostitutes or for drug-trips and partying. My Heaven involves being myself, living the simple pleasures, being surrounded by beauty, and having people to love. I guess that isn't here, maybe it's in the next place.

I spent a lot of time today looking at my own tattoos and doubting whether I really felt the sentiments behind them.

My wrists say, "Per Angusta, Ad Augusta," which is Latin for, "Through Anguish, To Honor." The idea here is that a person has to go through pain, through hell, and through fire before being able to enjoy peace, to abide in heaven, and to have a spirit as strong as steel. When I got these tattoos, I thought that the hell and the fire was all around me, that the world was throwing it at me, and that I needed to persevere and survive, and that this struggle would end one day in well-earned happiness. At other times, I thought these tattoos meant that adversity builds character, and that strong character leads you to create the happiness you want to see in your world. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Today I think maybe spending too much time with the fire makes you used to it, makes you comfortable with it, and makes the heaven seem unalluring or even impossible. Maybe the pain doesn't lead to peace, maybe it just keeps you in hell.

I have another one, on my shoulder, that says, "Smile Now, Cry Later." That's supposed to signify perseverance as well. I've had to tell a lot of people what this means, and usually I say something like, "Tommorrow I could end up in prison, or I could win the lottery." Either way, I'm at the mercy of a system, of aristocrats, of someone else's laws and someone else's power. "And the only things they can't give you or take away from you are your smiles and your cries." All we have that is no one else's are our emotions and our attitudes. But I don't really know if that is true either. Everyone tries to stake claims on your emotions. They do things to make you happy or to upset you, they judge you when you don't feel the same way they do, and they tell you something's wrong when you aren't happy or you aren't sad and you should be.

There's another on on my right arm that say, "Crazy, but Not Insane." That comes from a Warzone song, and the chorus says, 'I might be crazy, but it's kept me from going insane." For some people (like Raybeez and myself), making your own rules, following your heart and straying from the pack are the only ways to keep yourself sane. I'm questioning that as well. Maybe the way I am, the way I think, the way I live will make me insane. Maybe my thoughts and behaviors and lifestyle are already indications of insanity.

If there's one thing I'm learning while I travel that I didn't expect to learn, it's that no matter how far away you go, how amazing or wild or different the things that you're doing are, you will still have regrets, you will still question yourself: morality is still gray (maybe even grayer). There are so many people in the world that it must be nearly impossible to be alone anywhere, but it's incredibly easy to feel lonely (especially when none of them really know you and most of them don't care to), and the only things you can never be alone from are your own thoughts. So adventure and excitement and a change of setting aren't really the magic bullets that make life beautiful.

I guess life is beautiful when you see it as beautiful, and when you do and say and create that beauty, and when you are that beauty. And I suppose I still have some more fire to go through.

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