The Chameleon

The excitement of traveling with others is to watch the way that the bend and mold to their surroundings.

You get to know a certain aspect of a person and then when you travel with them..... it is a whole new ball game!
As fun as it is too watch this it is a huge head trip!  You think you know a person, then you travel with them and visit their friends and your friends and all the sudden they are no one you are used to seeing! 

...But is that not the fun of traveling?  
To be able to shift and mold to a new person. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an essay called Self Reliance.  In it he speaks about how the mind is constantly changing, shifting, and re-directing.  Imagine a life that you could shift with it, freer from the binds of those you know well. 

It is not like those people that you know and love and have community with mean to hold you to a certain type of person... but it happens.  We call up memories of situations and we use those to judge the reactions of another person. 



Then... shit.... before you know it you are defined as a certain type of person that does a certain type of thing and reacts a certain type of way.  I personally love this (insert sarcasm) :)  I do not love this.  In fact it drives me crazy.  An expectation to always be the same way.  And an expectation that another person should always remain the same!  Bah! 

To sound like a complete hippie "why can't we just be free" man!?  Free to wander and create fail and re create! 
Fuck ya! 
So the next time you travel with someone you love, or shit maybe you do not even like them, take a minute to observe the way that they react differently and then laugh about it! 

I always think of Emerson, highly regard him, in fact as an incredible and wise man that spoke a wisdom that is hard to tap when you the standards of society are playing in your head and in your habits.  If you get a chance search out the essay, especially if you are a wanderer!