The nomad souls

Have you ever think to exchange your life with others, at times when you think your life is so painful to bear?

I’m sure most of you have done that. I’ve done it too. And I think it is fine, as it is natural to have jealousy over others’ on what we don’t have during bad times. We are just human, can’t help it.

OK, now it is time to go back to reality check. Well, obviously such life exchange is never easy, if not impossible. The reason is simple. We do have control over our life, but only to let more things beyond our control. We try to control things, and by doing so, a lot more of other things go beyond our control. What we want is not always what we get. At certain points, we are stripped of choices, and swallowing the reality seems as the only thing provided.

Even so, reality is not always cornering us when we want to move; it is also often times push us to move when we really want to stand still. It may seem that life is floating on the ocean of destiny, where waves and tide we can never really sure of nor we have power over it. Sounds pessimistic, perhaps, and yet, it elaborates what I have learned from my life so far, and not in the easy way for sure. A learning that tells me that instead of all wanderers, some of us are nomads.

Yes, some of us are nomads.

I think it is fair to say that many of us are adventurers, who like to entertain curiosity on new things. Some of us are wanderer, or perhaps even pilgrims. Those who are live in open mind and listen to the call of new places to visit, new culture to explore and new ideas to exploits; are wanderer. Wanderers are driven by their passion to know better about the world and all the things life has to offer. Pilgrims, in many ways are alike, but usually driven by more spiritual passion about the world.

Some others, driven by a hollow in the soul, restlessness in mind, urges in muscles, and stream in veins; becoming nomads. While wanderers finds home in some of the places they have visited in their journey, and pilgrims set on one place as home to return to after the pilgrimage; the nomad has no such thing as home. They live on the move, and for the move. Unlike the wanderers who were driven by their awe to the world, nomads were fueled by anxiety about it and urge to overpower it.

It seems that it is not entirely up to the nomad to become a nomad or not. While I wish I can share Hamlet’s ‘to be or not to be’, I find that the nomad sometimes have no choice but become a nomad. Some of us who tends to be the advocate of civilization often portray nomads from the perspective of atrocities and destruction. This I find quite unfair, as those are not the only things they have done. They have done things that paint the colorful world as we know now.

A nomad soul is a restless soul that must move to live. For a nomad, a sense of place is not about sticking in a particular place, but rather on the feeling of moving from one place to another. They build houses indeed, but a home is where your soul is settled in it, and the nomad soul settle in no houses but their moving life.  The nomad are likely have a house to come home to, and it often times only for certain periods, but not a home for the soul to dwell into.

Some of us, at some point in life, find ourselves feel at home in family, house, workplace or a community. Some others find solace not in any house to live in, not in any work to devote into, not in any community to be part of. It may be that these souls have not yet find their place of peace yet. It could also be that they are destined not to find one, as they have yet to find and accept their nomad nature. For these souls, a destiny to live on the move may turn up to be as good as it gets.

I still wonder whether I’m one of those nomad souls. May be I am. May be I’m not.

You?