For some reason, I've been looking at old places I used to live through Google Maps Street View. Like, a long, long trip down memory lane. Blows my mind to think about this - I've lived in three countries and a lot of different towns of all sizes in my time. Recently, I mentally revisited them all.

I find it curious, to realize that I somehow lost something along the way. I've had some wonderful experiences and also some very unpleasant ones, as we all have I imagine. I get the feeling that somehow, I've lost (or maybe just buried?) a sense of adventure, of optimism, of innocence maybe. A healthier (and NON depressed) version of myself is still here, sort of buried under too many learned fears and low expectations. I want him back.

I can't stand the thought that I've become a bit like Scrooge - older, sadder, not apparently any wiser! Too cynical, too fearful, too defensive, not imaginative enough. I think after a while, we might all automate our doubts, so they become mindless habits that just keep us stuck, almost reliving our own worst fears in a sense, rather than pursuing our higher aspirations. A "life of quiet desperation", to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau.

I want the old me back. I want these neuroses or schemas or whatever I have, gone. I listen to them way too much. Another Thoreau quote I like: "Not till we are completely lost or turned around…do we begin to find ourselves." Time to shake things up, isn't it?