Hello, Sawadeeka, Bonjour, and Goedemorgen fellow learn-it-alls ๐
Greetings from my grassy hut holiday in Pai, Thailand ๐น๐ญ ๐
This is my first time opening my computer since I last wrote you, so itโs been over a week since I looked at my โbigโ screen, and let me tell you, Iโve had a glorious time away. Iโve made so many international friends. I find myself speaking all of the languages that Iโve learned in my lifetime to my new friends becauseโฆ
I feel confident speaking, even if I look or sound stupid. And where did this confidence come from, you might ask?
Because I am SO freaking happy. The type of happiness where you start crying because the bliss blooms out of you from your eyes, noticing how everything in life is beautiful, even the cow shit you step on in the field while noticing the spiderโs web and the weird snorts from your nose. I am so grateful to feel alive and happy. Iโve smiled more in these first four days of the year since my first day teaching at my Thai school on October 31st. The lows from my holiday blues away from those I love are gone and are making the highs even higher.
Before I lived in Hawaii, I used to feel bad about admitting my happiness because I felt like it was boastful to admit Iโve arrived at a state that so many strive for. I didnโt want to create envy. But there I said it, I am beaming and recognize it is special to feel this way, so I want to acknowledge this while itโs here.
As my zen teacher Michael tells me, โFeelings are meant to be felt. You canโt hold onto them. Feel it and let it go.โ
Life in this sleepy little hippie town in Pai has sparked me and brought my senses alive, and I feel like I am in Hawaii again. It feels like my spirit has danced these mountains, floated in these waters, smelled the air through these skies, and stared at the specks of dusty stars before, and for that, I am truly grateful. No wonder the accommodation I am staying in suits me: Pai Homey. It's much calmer than the party hostel I was originally in.
Anywho, I woke this morning and watched the sunrise while cuddled in the softest sheets ever in the bed of my grassy hut bungalow.
Something on my mind lately:
In 2019, I took an online class to build my life resume from this guy who lives a fascinating life called Jesse Itzler. He says that โpressure is a privilege.โ And sure, it is, but I also went to a sober festival on New Yearโs Eve alone and have some other thoughts now. I befriended a girl named Sabrina from Argentina who reminds me of my Argentinean best friend Pilar when I was in third grade, and we wrote on a slip of paper that I was releasing the self-imposed pressure from 2024. I burned that slip of paper in the fire, and it it felt amazing.
So yes, that nostalgic, creative part of myself will be seen during January as I partake in my ritual of a reflection on my year like I first shared in 2020, but I donโt feel like it right now. Instead, Iโve been present, having a freaking fun time with myself and noticing life around me by writing poems.
Now, letโs dive into letter 243 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!
~~~
If you are reading this for the first time, Iโd love you to sign up below to join the other learn-it-alls:
~~~
โQuestion to think about
What are the six poems I have written in the past week?
๐๐ Poetry Corner
12/30/24
๐ต๐ปOn my Future Self
I feel tension, Not just in my hamstrings and neck
But for my future self.
I know she has no pensionโ No certainty of how to live.
And I know she knows That any answers she finds to these grand questions on life Is a mere delusion.
There are not finite answers Only quests and moments of clarity.
All she can do is notice And think, And feel, And love, And serve, And share joy, And connect, And create.
And sometimes play the game that the world of parents and employers and curious students Ask of her for what she will do tomorrow and beyond.
I give her permission to See these answers in this game of planning As a draftโ A mere idea for how to fill the time and how to live.
Life, after all, is impermanent and turbulent, So it does not make her lack integrity to shift, Nay evolve, her actions from her past words.
Life is not a rigid CAPM formula, There is no such thing as a risk-free rate of life. The factors that affect health and happiness are variable.
All I can do is keep searching for my purpose and place In this grand thing we call life, Living as a creature who creates, On this blue and green spinning dot For a handful more decades.
My last day of the year Something I usually hold so dear. But in actuality, itโs just a mere day. And I donโt need a lot of pressure Of something profound to say, Or some big party to go pay, It is only a mere day.
Ahead of me I see time to integrate And notice what was great And what to say too da loo to.
And wherever I feel too late. I am not too late. I am just on time, Just like this rhyme.
a fun five miler for my last run of the year.
1/1/25
On Boredom
I once read a book that Thereโs bliss to find in my boredomโ Magic in the mundane. But where is it? Iโm struggling to find it.
My phone villainizes this experience, And loves to enrapture my attention, For an illusion of love and attention with buzzes, lights and hearts But itโs not love. Itโs distraction.
This mere notion Of seeing magic is Besides the point.
Boredom is after all implicitly Aimless, Wideopen, Nothingness.
1/2/25
๐ฅถ A Fifteen-Minute Icy Bath
Inhale left foot Right foot Splish Splash Exhale Kerplunk Down sunk my toosh.
My heiney isnโt happy. Ice cubes are bouncing off my epidermis. Panic is nearing.
Inhale 1 2 3 4. Exhale 1 2 3 4 5.
Okay I got this. Itโs cold but not too cold.
Ahh thereโs the sun, Kissing my cheeks. God bless her. The tingling scorpions walking up my body are going away.
When I rub my feet, I imagine this is what a white walker might feelโ nothingness.
Six minutes pass, and Iโm totally numb, Ha haaa being numb is nice, Itโs better than pain I felt in the first two minutes.
Ten minutes in and Clotta the Brazilian next to me leaves. The Russian Igor, Israeli Bart and German Anna watch me. I put my arms in for more challenge. Fifteen minutes hits and I decide Iโm done.
Wow talk about refreshed, My skin is red all over,
This is what it means to be awake. No coffee needed.
1/3/25
๐๏ธ On sounds, listening, and hearing
Is it not beautiful That every sound from a bird sounds like a song?
A joyous noise, whose vibrations pleasantly enter and tap on the drums in my ears? And hums its melody That shifts my mood.
A passage in a meditation talk at a stoner hostel I stumbled into reading aloud was I AM THAT: Dialogues of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj chapter 11 on Awareness and Consciousness:
โConsciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm, and silent. And it is the common matrix of every experience.โ
๐งListening
Truly Madly Deeply by Yoke Lore
I'll be your dream, I'll be your wish, I'll be your fantasy I'll be your hope, I'll be your love, be everything that you need I'll love you more with every breath Truly, madly, deeply do I will be strong, I will be faithful 'Cause I'm counting on a new beginning A reason for living, a deeper meaning
I wanna stand with you on a mountain I wanna bathe with you in the sea I wanna lay like this forever Until the sky falls down over me
Mark my words, I will learn to play the banjo someday in my lifetime, for the pure satisfaction of playing this song. The beats of this song hum to each of the pulses in my heart.
(adjective) Favored by hap, luck, or fortune; lucky; fortunate; successful; prosperous; satisfying desire; as, a happy expedient; a happy effort; a happy venture; a happy omen.
Example: Chymists have been more happy in finding experiments than the causes of them. โRobert Boyle (1627-1691),the greatest landlord in Ireland in the early 17th century, known as the "Great Earl of Corkโ (lol can I die with a title to something similar?)
Definiton two: Experiencing the effect of favorable fortune; having the feeling arising from the consciousness of well- being or of enjoyment; enjoying good of any kind, as peace, tranquillity, comfort; contented; joyous; as, happy hours, happy thoughts.
late 14c., "lucky, favored by fortune, being in advantageous circumstances, prosperous;" of events, "turning out well," from hap (n.) "chance, fortune" + -y (2). Sense of "very glad" first recorded late 14c. Meaning "greatly pleased and content" is from 1520s. Old English had eadig (from ead "wealth, riches") and gesรฆlig, which has become silly. Old English bliรฐe "happy" survives as blithe. From Greek to Irish, a great majority of the European words for "happy" at first meant "lucky." An exception is Welsh, where the word used first meant "wise."
cock-a-hoop, in good spirits, in high spirits, in a good mood, lighthearted, good-humored; thrilled, exuberant, elated, exhilarated, ecstatic, blissful, euphoric, overjoyed, exultant, rapturous, rapt, enraptured, in seventh heaven, on cloud nine, over the moon, walking on air, beside oneself with joy, jumping for joy
informal: chirpy, on top of the world, as happy as a sandboy, tickled pink, tickled to death, gassed, like a dog with two tails, as pleased as Punch, on a high, blissed out, sent;
British English informal chuffed, as happy as Larry
Northern England informal made up
North American English informal as happy as a clam
Australian English informal wrapped; dated gay; rare blithesome, jocose, jocund. ANTONYMS sad.
๐Quote to inspire
โA day without laughter is a day wasted.โ โ Charlie Chaplin
๐ธPhoto of the Week
crying happy tears thinking about all the years I still have yet to live
As an aside, I am **stoked** to develop my film somewhere in Chiang Mai. There is so much happiness and beauty captured on that film roll waiting to be processed.
๐Shoutouts
To Pai, this place and its people. I love you.
I appreciate you reading this!
If ideas resonated, Iโd love you to press the heart button, leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetjl@gmail.com.
Ahhh! I live in Pai ๐ reading this brought me so much joy, to see this little town through new eyes.
Love the celebration of this time of happiness.