TRAVEL
The Journey is the Destination
On my way to everywhere
Vivek - a guru & rabbi in his own right10/13/2023 This year, especially since I finished my last trip of the month of July, I wanted to meet someone in my October trip who would teach me something that would change my life, the way my 1st trip in Rarotonga had been changed. Well, the change wasn't so life-altering or anything this time, but, in came Vivek. Vivek is a vault of knowledge and information. He not only is someone who would "eat your brain" as Roy said it that there is an expression for it in his language (i'm not sure which one, Hebrew or Persian), He also just wouldn't stop sharing information. I just learn so damn much from Vivek. When I listened to Vivek talk, I was in AWE of what he holds in that brain of his, how on earth did he accumulate allllll this information! He must have such an amazing memory, too. Vivek gives himself a life where he travels all year long, and only works a few days every month. The rest he travels. Pretty great way to live. So as a solo traveler, he already is a wealth of information. Because 读万卷书不如行万里路。 I met a solo traveler in Rio in 2017 who worked on a ship and probably spends most of his time on the ship reading things and watching things, he wouldn't stop talking once he started, an absolute brain-eater, filled with things you can learn from. Vivek is a more than that. Vivek literally FEELS like a teacher in the way he acts around me. He would tell me when I'm not doing something right, or, I'd catch him roll his eyes or have this disapproving look of a senior teacher if I made a judgemental comment, which i do a lot. He told me in a Whatsapp message that I could across as sarcastic even if like I told him I didn't have any sarcasm in me. That's what a real friend should do. Vivek is born to be a teacher. With everything he said, and in the way he acted, you could just feel that he was here to teach others. The knowledge and the skills he had garnered in life must be shared and needed to be shared and passed on. So in a way, I see him as a guru-figure. He definitely has earned himself such a title. Sometimes a teacher-figure comes in to your life regardless of their age or title, or status in life They just become the teacher for you. Whether you like it or not. For me, I'm grateful that Vivek offered up his knowledge to us. He offered to show me tricks on how to hold a camera, he gave me tips and told me when to take shots and of what subjects when we were walking around. I sometimes find myself wanting to argue but cannot. He's right. He's really experienced. So very often I find myself saying "Okay Fine."a LOT around him. Because really, there was nothing else I could say in return. I consider him a teacher and he always holds himself as one. There's just no way I could talk back or win an argument in any situation. So I just shut up and "Okay fine." and move on and learn from him. It's amazing when I realised (on my last day, getting to spend the whole day with Vivek) that this was the teacher I had asked for. He was my teacher in every sense of the term. I'm glad and grateful that Vivek became the teacher figure in my life in his own way. After I came home and was talking about Vivek and what he taught me, I felt like I wished he was someone who I could hang out with all the time. Not to pick his brain, but just for the fact that I appreciated him as a person, and as a friend. You'll never run out of good conversations with Vivek. If you've got nothin' to say, Vivek's definitely got something to share with you. I especially love that he makes such a great travel buddy for me that he's the ONLY person I know and hung out with who takes times to take photos as I do. Hed take even more time to set up a shot , too, with his phone, that I'm usually the one hanging around waiting for him to finish setting his shots and taking the shot. I snap away mindlessly without technical skills, whereas Vivek would take a lot of time, stand very still, and go "Shoot!" using voice command, so that his shot is stable. His hands are so trained and stable though that his shots taken on Manual are much sharper than the shots I took on Auto. He probably also only takes 1 photo each time, too, not many like a lot of poeple usually do. Like me, he'd take just one. And one that had taken plenty of time to build and create. 1 take, slowly, and surely the perfect Vivek-style shot. This is an important trait to learn and build a habit on.
To do something right, and do it well. Vivek would take his time to focus on the quality of the image he's capturing rather than taking lots of shots and rely on the quantity of photos to produce 1 good shot like the absolute amateurs would do. This was an eye-opener for Roy and I. To see Vivek at work, taking absolutely beauuuitiful photos with just a mobile phone. This was possibly the MOST important thing I had learnt from Vivek. And I'm super grateful for this. @EmmaRyokouFind me on: Archives
October 2023
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