08-21-2021, 03:08 PM
(08-21-2021, 01:53 PM)Steppingfeet Wrote: Hey Nomadic Mike,
I was wondering who the hell is this guy, so thank you for clarifying. : )
Rare is it that the spiritual wanderer is also the geographical wanderer. (Or maybe it's just rarer to hear from the latter type.)
Conversation and small talk - aka: relating to other humans at whatever level they operate - is often a challenge to those who consider themselves wanderers. Probably a challenge for most in our atomized society, but wanderers in particular are drawn less to small talk and more to substance and depth. It is in the deeper waters that I am most comfortable.
To answer your question: What brought me to the Law of One was a series of synchronicities, likely supported by unseen guidance, as is true for most (all?) paths. I was 18 years old, I was in a local bookstore (this is 1998), and I stumbled on a book about Earth's forgotten civilization. That blew the top off for me. My inner light activated and my inner need to quest for truth began. Though it would involve subsequent years through dark nights as one identity died to make way for a new.
Within roughly 1.5 years, a series of links lead me to Book 1 of the Law of One online. My eyes were tears. Since then, the ageless philosophy has been been guiding, informing, illuminating, and inspiring me, deepening my path, calling me into the unknown, and meeting me at each new layer of self-revelation as the illusions peel back.
I had to look up ags17. A grenade launcher? Jesus. I'm sorry to hear. Quite the trajectory change from nurse to soldier. And then to a life of tramping across the States. (My wife's former 20yr old Ford truck she named "Supertramp" because, like me, she feels resonance with the spirit of those like McCandless, though we embody it only in our hearts and in our occasional treks to national parks. Nothing like your experience.) I don't know how you feel about events over in Afghanistan right now, but we've watched with horror and sorrow.
Very few know the road you've walked. Most of us are squarely rooted in place, contacting others outside our circle of friends and family often only superficially, or not as deeply as we might prefer, whether digitally or through touristic travel. But you come into contact with different communities of shared values and worldviews. I'd love to hear more about the harvest of your experience along the road. I'm sure you've gained insight, or just funny anecdotes.
I'd be interested too in hearing what it is you're seeking out there on the road, if it's identifiable and able to be articulated.
Welcome to this community, Mike. May it be one gem among the others in your long travels.
Thank you for the response, and thank you for the kind and warm welcome. I am glad to read that you discovered the material far earlier than I, thank you for sharing your first encounter! It's been refreshing first to pour through the material and now to discover similar other-selves. Quite wonderful.
Traveling has allowed me to learn that America is like a beautiful fondue pot of 10 or 11 cheeses (New Orleans, 11, is an outlier...smells bad but tastes great). Depending on the blend and your personal taste, you may enjoy or loathe some more than others. It has taught me to not trust the media whatsoever, and that there is far more good than bad in this nation when it comes to the people. I'm somewhat broad with the statements as it's a lot to consolidate into a few statements, but I try to relay that the nation of America is full of beauty and wonder. You enjoy travel as well, do you have a favorite state or national park? I'm overly fond of Teuton and Rocky Mountain NP.
Afghanistan is what it is. I wasn't fighting Taliban, my unit took the jobs from local lumberjacks (and took the lumber mill) and put them all out of work. Those men put together a militia and really gave us an ass whopping over a couple of years.
Once again thank you for the kind words, it's a good feeling to communicate on this platform with similar other-selves.