October 29, 2013
Preface
When I left for New Zealand last month, I left with the intention that when I got back I would start a “blog”. I have always felt very uncomfortable understanding just what that word meant. It seemed to me to be more of a wishful scheme to make money, or a public journal of someone’s life- neither of which have I ever had much faith or interest in respectively. However, what I do have an interest in is writing. Perhaps, the best periods of my life have been when I have written regularly for an audience of some kind, even if no one read it. Even if I only thought they did. I don’t know what I will write here. I don’t know who will read it. I only know why: to entertain and inspire myself in the modest hope that I will know myself better as a result. Hopefully, I can entertain, inspire, and help you to know yourself better as well. And so with encouragement, I venture into this endeavor. Welcome to my playground.
Counting Sheep to Dream
New Zealand was a dream.
It was barely a plan. I did not book travel arrangements until two weeks before I left, despite having scheduled the time off with work in January. I did not know if New Zealand would be my destination, or if anyone would be accompanying me if it was, until days before that. I did not decide I would like to go there or invite anyone else along more than a week previous to that. And I don’t remember giving the country any real thought more than another week before then. I planned the trip in less than 2 weeks (all in my very limited spare time.) The only things I knew about New Zealand were, they speak English, Lord of Rings was filmed there, they have lots of sheep, and a random list of highlights a drunken man named Esteban rambled off to me in Mexico. (He was American, and although I don’t know his real name, I know it was not Esteban.) So if I had such a short lived anticipation of traveling to New Zealand, and barely any notion of what I might do there, why was it a dream?
After the bum-numbing 23 hour day of flying, that took us from Friday morning to Sunday at 6 am, my father, who I conned into this fiasco, and I got into our little rental car. We proceeded to navigate the country driving on the wrong side of the road, in the wrong side of the car, with the constant pestilence of round-a-bouts. Although we had lodging booked everywhere we were going, and some activities scheduled, we researched most of the day-to-day adventuring at the hotel, if at all, and figured out on the fly. I was often stressed about where we would be going next, when we would get there, what we would be doing there, all in some neurotic desire for the vacation to be “perfect.” We took wrong turns. We got lost, sometimes for hours. Particular destinations literally stunk of sulfur, which made my nose congestion all the more bothersome and sleeping in hotels all the more unpleasant. We disagreed on hikes to do and the time allotted to do them, and on one day it rained on us until we were sopping wet, forcing us to make other plans. All in all it was no day at the beach, despite the beaches we visited, which were usually cold. So if the trip involved so much stress, why was it a dream?
Dreams are not the things we imagine in our minds, contemplating and perfecting, in the hopes that someday, as if more by luck and wishing than planning, we might happen upon. Dreams are not the things we wait our whole lives to have and experience. Dreams are not the stuff of fantasies and lazy day-dreaming. Dreams are the product of thoughtful action. Dreams that remain in our heads are not dreams at all, they are fantasies. Real dreams are the things we do, achieve, and obtain. Nothing done, achieved, or obtained comes without action.
Furthermore, dreams are not easy. They require work, stress, and strain. Even a day relaxing on the beach takes the planning to get there, and the resources to obtain it. However, contrary to the conventional belief, these struggles do not diminish the experience, they strengthen it. It is the sense of achieving some goal that lights up the human experience. “Easy” and “hard” work together to give us our perspective of them. Sometimes it is only through contrast to action that we can appreciate the lulls, and sometimes it is only because of the action that an experience seems worth experiencing.
Why was New Zealand a dream? Because, in less than 1 month I envisioned a spectacular outcome and brought it into my existence. I convinced my father to join me on a whim and in less than 2 weeks I accomplished the work needed to realize a goal that other people discount from their lives as “not an option.” While we were 8000 miles from home, in a foreign country, we navigated unfamiliar driving conditions without the help of GPS or always detailed maps. We took in the world from the tops of countless volcanoes. We abseiled into, rafted through, and climbed out of blackened caves filled with glow worms that looked like the starscape of a clear night sky. We rafted over the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world with a 23 foot drop, and didn’t flip. (The morning group did.) We watched geysers burst from the earth, reveled in the warmth of natural hot springs, and trekked into the smoke and smoldering crust of one of the most extensive and beautiful geothermal areas in the world. We hiked on snow-covered volcanoes and beach side sand dunes. We ferried across the Cook Straight, and boated alongside dolphins in the majestic Marlborough Sounds. Not to mention seeing more sheep in a day than I’ve seen in my entire life. It was the chance to experience a beautiful adventure with my father in a way I haven’t since I was a kid. New Zealand wasn’t a dream because it was some lifelong anticipation that went perfectly. Quite the opposite: New Zealand was a dream because it existed. It was hard at times, and it was magical, but it existed because I wanted it to.
I went to New Zealand to count sheep -not to fall asleep- but so that I could wake up and dream.
Venture to Dream mates.
-Michael Speck
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