My personality is growing hair in strange places…

Assalamualaikum waramatullahi wabarakatuh!

I’ve been ruminating over the past week or so about how I’ve been changing recently, and what exactly it means. That really sounds like something you’d read in the puberty section of a junior high health text, but it remains applicable nonetheless. Before coming to Indonesia, there were a few words that could accurately describe me. Gamer, nerd, techie, media…dude, and so on, could have understandably been applied to me and I would have offered no protest. In all honesty, I still would offer no protest, as I still think those things are interesting, but there is the slight speedbump of access in my current location.

One of the basic questions that students here learn when studying introductions is “What is your hobby?” In the United States, my hobbies mostly consisted of things that required a technological tool of some sort. I enjoyed gaming, putzing about on the internet, watching films and television shows via Netflix, and adding more and more music to my digital collection. Here, I can do some of those things to some extent, but not nearly at the volume that they occurred in the States. I simply don’t have access to reliable interwebs or gaming apparati to satisfy those hobbies. Therefore, I needed other things to occupy my time and energy (you don’t expect me to actually do my job, do you?). My enjoyment for running and its related information has really rocketed here. I would not hesitate to say that it is one of my primary activities (and stress-relievers). This actually shifted my whole focus to things of a more physical persuasion. I’ve come to find that I’m a big fan of hiking and trailing. I do at least a short workout every day. I’ve even made more of an effort to watch the food I eat, although if you were familiar with my eating habits in the States you’d know that this is not really much of an achievement. It definitely seems to me that with a significant reduction in my ability to indulge in more digital forms of entertainment comes a proportional increase in my devotion to healthy pursuits.

That’s good, right? Right.

It brings to my mind, though, a question of environment. Since coming to this place, I’ve witnessed all these changes. I’m probably stronger and healthier than I’ve ever been in my life, which is pretty great. However, it took a massive shift in…everything in order to bring about those changes. Have I taken these new activities on as a crutch against the lack of access to older, more familiar pursuits? When I return to the United States will these habits remain or will I fall back into the routines I had before leaving? If I had never left, would this part of my personality have ever come to the fore? I’d like to think that the progression would have been similar, at the very least. In the months leading up to my departure, I had really gotten into the minimalist running movement and that provided much of the impetus to keep at it. It was “new” and exciting. As my dad has said so many times, most of the effort in running comes from just showing up. It may have been a fad interest, or whatever you want to call it, at the beginning, but it’s a movement I actually believe can make people healthier runners and it encouraged me to continue. Running was really what branched me out into other areas of not being a big ol’ fatty, so I’d like to think it would’ve happened anywhere. There is that nagging suspicion, however, that with greater access to more couch potato-y activities my interest in all these new things would have been curtailed.

I have been thinking, which is dangerous to begin with, about where I would like to live after I am finished here in Indonesia (an even more dangerous activity given that I still have 17 months left here). Returning from this place would give me a chance to start fresh, and the temptation to go somewhere new is large. I have lived around the east coast my entire life, save the 10 months spent in Hawaii, so I’ve been looking at places in the west that might be appealing. This is applicable to this post because one of the criteria that I searched for in places to live was access to mountains and/or trails. I could theoretically knock out two birds with one stone. I would be able to live somewhere new and surprising, and I would try to situate myself around something tall to climb. I found a couple places that could be appealing and will research them further.

The bottom line is that these changes have infected everything, even places I would consider living and working. On the other hand, it is very nice to have an activity I can reliably and consistently do here. We’ll see what happens.

Utinni!