This Is Why I Love Serendipity
This last week I was invited to give a talk in a school known for it’s bad reputation. I felt a bit anxious, even scared at first. I am not used to talk about life and my joy of traveling to kids to whom life has been less than kind. Many of them have police records, consume drugs and live almost on their own.
What bugged me the most was the idea of talking about what many people see as an eccentricity to kids who live on welfare. They could think that I was just a privileged asshole shoving in their faces how awesome my life is.
The unknown makes us fearful and more often than not the fear is unfounded.
Those three hours were totally fun. The kids were cool and not once they had a disrespectful attitude. I felt that by the end of it many of them felt the same excitement that I feel when I share my travel stories. I will never forget their faces when I showed a picture of myself side by side with Noam Chomsky, their confusion was hilarious. After showing them a couple of other pictures, one of them asked: “What about girls, man? Do you meet many hot girls in your trips?”
It goes unsaid that it was more of a guy’s talk at the bar than a talk, or a presentation, really. But among the jokes and cursing in a classroom, one kid came up with a super cool question:
“Dude, but after all, why do you like to travel so much?”
Usually I would say something like: “I don’t know, because I do…” I don’t think that you need a reason to like something, but usually people don’t find my answer satisfying. I looked at the back wall in the smartest way I can look at a blank wall and after a couple of seconds it came to me. I knew why I enjoy hopping in airplanes, trains and buses so much:
Serendipity
It is quite a strange word and one that most people never heard of until hipster stores started popping like mushrooms. With the old hats covered in mold, the grandfather shirts and the long beards also came the boutique stores with fancy names. With those Serendipity was brought to mainstream daylight.
The meaning of the word fascinates me because it exemplifies clearly why I love travel so much: a fortunate happenstance, a pleasant surprise.
The unexpected discovery of new places and new people. To be found by random events that have the power to change one’s life in a deep and powerful way.
I love serendipity because I always saw the immediate familiar and known as something… boring. Maybe this is still a reminiscence of childhood, but I love new things, I love to be in awe by the world around me. Do you remember when you were a kid and very small things had a huge impact on your day? For example, your parents coming home earlier or your elders deciding to go out. You couldn’t predict any of these and when these happened, seemingly out of nowhere, it felt freaking awesome. Right?
As we grow older and gather information of the world around us things become predictable, known and boring. As time goes by serendipity is lost and familiarity takes place.
Nowadays most adults can only be stopped in their tracks when a black swan shows up, only a life changing event will make them hold their breaths. It doesn’t matter if it is a good or bad black swan, because as Joseph Campbell said: “We don’t look for the meaning of life, we want to feel alive”. And a black swan always makes us feel alive. For more info on this book you can check my review of it: here.
Even cool things like plane rides, driving a fast car, meeting a new girl, meeting a friend you don’t see in a long time feels kinda… mundane. Right? It isn’t like you meet a cute girl and you go “Oh my God, am I really talking with her? This is awesome and scary and exciting all at the same time! I am about to pee my pants!”
This abundance of knowledge makes us boring and predictable. Just think about scholars, teachers or people who read a lot of books and don’t like to go out for walks, ice-creams or Ricky Gervais tweets. You know that type, the intellectuals and do you know what they are? They are fucking boring! They might know a lot of cool things but nobody wants to hear them talk. Long rants about super complex information? No thanks!
Right?
I like serendipity, because I like words. Just the sound of it remembers me of far away places, places of unfamiliar faces, spicy smells and exotic languages.
To travel is also the direct loophole to time travel, to trick death. When you travel is like you fold the time-space continuum. When you travel you gain hours and days of life, in just one set of 24 hours life fits more than two weeks of existence back at home.
Congratulations, you are a time traveler!
I guess that serendipity can also be found at home, wherever that is for you, but it highly depends in the city that you live. If you are located in a city such as New York, London or Berlin I am pretty sure that you can be found by surprising events on a constant basis. This is what happens when a great amount of people is found in a confined space: opportunities. On the other end are places not exactly known for their frantic lifestyle like Arkansas, Slovakia or Latvia.
This is why I love big busy cities. I love the noise, the hustling, the speed. I strive in those environments, it balances my natural tendency for tranquility and peace.
Serendipity makes me feel alive, the unspoken feeling that sweeps over me as soon as I get out of bed: “What will happen today? Better get ready!”. Serendipity is change and I’ve been always more fearful of stagnation than change.
Call me weird, if you want, but while most people feel scared about the future, I feel excited about it no matter how gloomy, depressive or tragic it might look.
Now if you ask me if I really described why I like traveling that much with the word SERENDIPITY, then I have to say: Of course not!
When in Rome be Roman, as some really smart person said once. To describe my excitement with such a fancy and hipster word would make me look like a snob to those kids, and they were cool kids. I wanted to be embraced by their cool and indifferent looks, like I was just one of them.
João Fernandes
What bugged me the most was the idea of talking about what many people see as an eccentricity to kids who live on welfare. They could think that I was just a privileged asshole shoving in their faces how awesome my life is.
The unknown makes us fearful and more often than not the fear is unfounded.
Those three hours were totally fun. The kids were cool and not once they had a disrespectful attitude. I felt that by the end of it many of them felt the same excitement that I feel when I share my travel stories. I will never forget their faces when I showed a picture of myself side by side with Noam Chomsky, their confusion was hilarious. After showing them a couple of other pictures, one of them asked: “What about girls, man? Do you meet many hot girls in your trips?”
It goes unsaid that it was more of a guy’s talk at the bar than a talk, or a presentation, really. But among the jokes and cursing in a classroom, one kid came up with a super cool question:
“Dude, but after all, why do you like to travel so much?”
Usually I would say something like: “I don’t know, because I do…” I don’t think that you need a reason to like something, but usually people don’t find my answer satisfying. I looked at the back wall in the smartest way I can look at a blank wall and after a couple of seconds it came to me. I knew why I enjoy hopping in airplanes, trains and buses so much:
Serendipity
It is quite a strange word and one that most people never heard of until hipster stores started popping like mushrooms. With the old hats covered in mold, the grandfather shirts and the long beards also came the boutique stores with fancy names. With those Serendipity was brought to mainstream daylight.
The meaning of the word fascinates me because it exemplifies clearly why I love travel so much: a fortunate happenstance, a pleasant surprise.
The unexpected discovery of new places and new people. To be found by random events that have the power to change one’s life in a deep and powerful way.
I love serendipity because I always saw the immediate familiar and known as something… boring. Maybe this is still a reminiscence of childhood, but I love new things, I love to be in awe by the world around me. Do you remember when you were a kid and very small things had a huge impact on your day? For example, your parents coming home earlier or your elders deciding to go out. You couldn’t predict any of these and when these happened, seemingly out of nowhere, it felt freaking awesome. Right?
As we grow older and gather information of the world around us things become predictable, known and boring. As time goes by serendipity is lost and familiarity takes place.
Nowadays most adults can only be stopped in their tracks when a black swan shows up, only a life changing event will make them hold their breaths. It doesn’t matter if it is a good or bad black swan, because as Joseph Campbell said: “We don’t look for the meaning of life, we want to feel alive”. And a black swan always makes us feel alive. For more info on this book you can check my review of it: here.
Even cool things like plane rides, driving a fast car, meeting a new girl, meeting a friend you don’t see in a long time feels kinda… mundane. Right? It isn’t like you meet a cute girl and you go “Oh my God, am I really talking with her? This is awesome and scary and exciting all at the same time! I am about to pee my pants!”
This abundance of knowledge makes us boring and predictable. Just think about scholars, teachers or people who read a lot of books and don’t like to go out for walks, ice-creams or Ricky Gervais tweets. You know that type, the intellectuals and do you know what they are? They are fucking boring! They might know a lot of cool things but nobody wants to hear them talk. Long rants about super complex information? No thanks!
Right?
I like serendipity, because I like words. Just the sound of it remembers me of far away places, places of unfamiliar faces, spicy smells and exotic languages.
To travel is also the direct loophole to time travel, to trick death. When you travel is like you fold the time-space continuum. When you travel you gain hours and days of life, in just one set of 24 hours life fits more than two weeks of existence back at home.
Congratulations, you are a time traveler!
I guess that serendipity can also be found at home, wherever that is for you, but it highly depends in the city that you live. If you are located in a city such as New York, London or Berlin I am pretty sure that you can be found by surprising events on a constant basis. This is what happens when a great amount of people is found in a confined space: opportunities. On the other end are places not exactly known for their frantic lifestyle like Arkansas, Slovakia or Latvia.
This is why I love big busy cities. I love the noise, the hustling, the speed. I strive in those environments, it balances my natural tendency for tranquility and peace.
Serendipity makes me feel alive, the unspoken feeling that sweeps over me as soon as I get out of bed: “What will happen today? Better get ready!”. Serendipity is change and I’ve been always more fearful of stagnation than change.
Call me weird, if you want, but while most people feel scared about the future, I feel excited about it no matter how gloomy, depressive or tragic it might look.
Now if you ask me if I really described why I like traveling that much with the word SERENDIPITY, then I have to say: Of course not!
When in Rome be Roman, as some really smart person said once. To describe my excitement with such a fancy and hipster word would make me look like a snob to those kids, and they were cool kids. I wanted to be embraced by their cool and indifferent looks, like I was just one of them.
João Fernandes
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