The poor but beautiful landscape of Sri Lanka
On my continuing adventures, here is an interesting update: I had breakfast with a bonafide billionaire yesterday.
I met him, an unassuming guy in his late 30's, staying happily at my $8 a night home-stay wearing a ratty pair of shorts and a singlet- I won't include his name or image out of respect for privacy. As we talked, this his fierce wit and intelligence became clear, and he shared his life with me- relaying the events and accompanying career that had led to his financial status without pride or arrogance, merely as a point of interest, and was infinitely more interested in my story and how I had arrived to the level of professional-vagabond.
We chatted for a couple of hours, digging deeper into each other's philosophical outlook on life and finding, surprisingly, that our views were in many ways completely identical.
For that matter, so was our story- we had both picked up a bit of money (in his case, perhaps more than a bit) and decided rather than pursue the relentless accumulation of wealth, we abandoned the status quo in favour of a transient, tramp-like existence, which we both found far preferable to the rat race that is the capitalist western society.
Money, of course, is not evil, nor is the pursuit of it, but I found it gratifying that someone with the resources to live in any way imaginable had found my mad decision to embrace the vagabond existence not only worthwhile, but preferable to all the perks mega-wealth could bring.
Please understand, I share this not as a 'discard your lives in favour of asceticism' post, but rather take it as just an encouragement to all my fellow travellers out there, who had the courage to face the sacrifices long term travel exacts upon us. To others’ eyes our way of life can seem egocentric, lazy and purposeless, and many will judge us for it. But we sacrifice time with our family, income, security, and stability in favor of living a life we can one day look back on with pride, knowing that we leapt at every opportunity to see and experience this world in all of its glory.
There is no such thing as privacy in a Sri Lanka bus!
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