Originally, I was going to title this post ‘How to Self-Destruct’ but then cautioned against it for it may very well be construed in another manner if someone didn’t bother to read the article in its entirety. To be clear, how to completely start over is not about self-annihilation of your entire physical (and therefore, emotional and spiritual) being, as if I’m advocating you find the nearest bridge and walk off it.

It’s the piercing freedom that simply comes when you start over and erase your past.

I have reoccurring daydreams where I Thoreau it out, modern-day 21st-century style. I leave all of society behind, everything, and venture off into the woods to finally come face-to-face with the inner trappings of the bracingly honest dynamic that is life in all its glorious wonders and majesties.

It’s beautiful. And it’s tragic.

Like Christopher Johnson McCandless (aka Alexander Supertramp), life and death story captured in the pages of a book called Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and movie of the same title, extricating oneself from all of humanity can be the utter demise or happiness of a complex human being.

One may not need to go to such extreme lengths to find one’s own magic bus, but one can begin on completely starting over in ways which I shall describe.

Just to ease your inner critic, do realize that I do not write what I do not advocate, practice, and fully live and breathe. I write this right now in a guesthouse in Hoi An, Vietnam, after having left my entire life as I have known it to be in all my 26 years of physical life.

I left the innocuous comforts of a Chicagoland suburban upbringing, as well as my Chicago roots. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss all the wonders of what my charming and bustling city offers. Yes, Barnaby’s Pizza, I’m talking to you and your delicious thin-crust pizza. And Ipsento and The Wormhole coffee? How can I possibly leave you out? You helped me get through the craziest of times in my life in 2010. Thousands of streaming, heart-wrenching and soul-baring conversations were held in these unique and artsy joints. Many of which were a continuous inner dialogue, one in which if I wrote it all out, would surely land me a secure spot in society’s rendering of what ‘crazy’ people think, say and do.

I left the supposed redemptive corporate career that is one with medical benefits, 401 (k), predictable paycheck, bonuses promised but never coming, like a lover who says he won’t cheat but is caught yet again with his pants down, and watered-down, fake conversations with people I don’t care about nor do they. Be true to yourself. You honestly care about your coworker’s cat’s erratic bowel movements that kept her up until 3 in the morning? I don’t think so.

I left all my physical possessions, not simply by leaving them in a storage facility or someone’s home as I traverse the world, for if I did that, I really do not leave the possessions. I left it all behind, someway, somehow, so that what I have on me is what I can subsist on. This leaves room, intangible room in the faculty of one’s mind and heart, for such life experiences to manifest themselves and weave them in the intricate fabrics of my life story as I write it out, one line, one paragraph, one chapter at a time.

I left for my journeys throughout Southeast Asia on February 13, 2011, thinking I’d be gone for 2 weeks. As of today, I have no return ticket to Taipei, but it will probably be sometime in May. Two weeks can easily turn into 3 months or more, especially when one’s eyes and heart have been exposed to such swirling truths that is the curiously extraordinary world when one steps outside his/her own safe place.

You have a safe place. I have a safe place. This is where we run to whenever we feel scared, rejected, unhappy, distressed, anxious and down-trodden.

Some will run to their local library or bookstore. Submerge themselves brain-deep in the vast explorations which books often provide. I know this because I do this.

Some will run to their computer and turn on the Internet. Submerge themselves digital-deep in the vast comforts which getting lost within countless tabs and pages of information, entertainment, news and readings often provide. I know this because I used to do this.

Some will run away. Submerge themselves physically-spiritually-mentally-deep in the vast freedom which ambiguous continuity of a life unknown often provide. I know this because I do this.

It is not physical and emotional comfort we ought to seek. It is the discomfort that comes when you extricate yourself from a society that has promised false security, love and freedom so long as you give them your entire being. One which cannot be given back to you, let alone in one complete and untattered piece.

The following is how you completely start over. It is up to you, and you alone, whether or not you actually do it.

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How to Completely Start Over

1. Erase everything.

All files, all pictures, all mp3s, all emails, everything. Drag them into your recycle bin, then permanently clear it all away. While you’re at it, clear your desktop too. All those little icons you have, short-cuts, documents, etc. You know what I mean. Digital clutter is a form of burdening clutter as well. Do not forget that.

Is this hard to do? To the average folk, yes. But it isn’t impossible.

I do this from time to time. I did this back in September. I did this again in December. Then, I did it again in January.

I do keep certain files, like my published digital books, but many, many things I have erased.

So many people look at me bewildered, almost appalled, when they find out I do this.

‘You’re going to regret it, you know!’
‘Don’t you want to see old pictures?’
‘Why? Why would you do this?’

Eyes incredulous, as if I just killed their precious baby with my bare hands.

People will never understand. But I don’t need them to understand. Nor do you.

You just need to do it. You don’t realize the immense freedom that comes when you erase everything you’ve ever held onto.

2. Move away.

Move away from the place you’ve always stayed at. And I’m not just talking about moving down the street, which people actually do. I don’t understand this logic because if you create your own opportunity to move, why wouldn’t you want to choose a place that’s different? A place where you can learn so much more about yourself, about the world, about the community than the one you permanently place yourself in?

I moved 6 times in the past 18 months. 6 different addresses, 6 different zip codes, 2 different countries. And currently, I’m an itinerant, with no place for people to find me, lest they travel across the world and locate me somewhere along the sea, mountains, dirt roads or jungles of Vietnam, the beautiful country which I am spending more than a month in for the time being. I’m continually moving, but when I’m not, I’m just there. This is just this.

You’re scared of moving away but what you should be scared of is staying in one spot all your entire life and then dying there with hopes and wishes still remaining on your lips as you breathe your last breath on Earth. A life and death of a bold and spectacular life. Or, at least, what could’ve been.

This Australian girl I met at a guesthouse in Nga Trang, she was celebrating her 18th birthday in her favorite country in the world, amongst many other places she has traveled to. Her boyfriend back home, however, has never left Australia, never mind having a passport.

They may end up staying together, they may not. I do not know this and only wish them both happiness. But what I can say, with some certainty, that two souls of separate spirits, one of a wanderlust and one of a homebody, sooner or later, will become disenchanted and grow distant. But of course, they may also fall madly in love with one another, get married and live happily ever after. A fairy tale story come true for some, a living nightmare for others. Perspective.

3. Re-creation through re-education.

When you travel across your own country or the world, you are slowly re-creating yourself through a serious process of re-education. Sometimes, it is a gradual change unnoticeable to the naked eye. Other times, it’s a hard slap to the face that leaves a red handprint on your swollen cheek as you grasp at the stinging air in front of you, eyes tearing up as you realized you’ve just been bitch-slapped by life.

I booked my ticket from Taipei to Bangkok at the last minute. I had an idea I would be traveling to SE Asia but I didn’t know when or for how long. Next thing I knew, I was on a plane to BKK, landing in a place I’ve never been to yet somehow familiar to me. Everywhere I go, it’s as if I’ve already been there. Chicago, Seattle, Santiago, Valparaiso, Vina del Mar, Miami, New York, Hong Kong, Taipei, Tainan, Bangkok, Siem Reap, Battambang, Sihanoukville, Phnom Penh, Kep, Ho Chi Minh City, Mui Ne, Phan Thiet, Dalat, Nga Trang, My Son, Hoi An. I don’t know if you can ever understand this, but it’s a feeling I cannot explain in finite words on the screen as you read this.

One day, you may understand what I mean. With not only your eyes but with your heart.

4. Removal of approval through the lost art of solitude.

Lao Tzu has once said, “Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.”

Man will always judge. Wage wars, killing not only our bodies, but our minds, our hearts, our spirits and our hopes.

We are social creatures; yes, this is true. But we are also creatures of comfort, creatures that are influenced easily by others, creatures who also need solitude, a time to rest and a time to think.

Whether you are an introvert or extrovert is irrelevant. This applies to everyone.

Let me tell you something. Back when I first started Castles in the Air, with a simple wordpress account in April 2010, I was obsessed with tracking my statistics. I was a new blogger, I was eager to please, and I was also completely addicted, like a crack addict that needs her next line immediately, to keep that high going for as long as physically possible.

I erased all my writings from April to August 2010, which is 5 months’ worth of articles, along with 2 eBooks no longer available, and as a result, countless hours poured into it. Erased. Not archived. No back-up. No secret compartment online or on my computer that has them stored away safely. As if I’m going to say one thing and hide my true self by doing another.

Why did I do this? Why not just keep it up there for the world to see?

I don’t want other people’s approval for what I want to do in my life and what I am doing with my life. And that includes my past writing. For during this time, I was heavily entrenched in a life which was not making me happy. I was in a job I disliked heavily. I was not making good decisions. I was in a back-and-forth fight between my family over my life decisions.

Finally, a day came in late Fall 2010, when I stayed up all night long, drinking cups and cups of fresh-brewed coffee and erased everything on my computer as well as the aforementioned 5 months’ worth of writing. I stood in my cramped Chicago apartment closet for 8 hours straight, literally, standing inside the closet, blasting Dido, Jewel and Nickelback as I gulped black liquid goodness and clicked the Delete button, one article after another, one file after another. Like hard, impenetrable scales being lifted from my heavy, foggy eyes, I now saw with great clarity what I couldn’t see before.

Releasing myself from not only others’ approval, but my own self-condemning, self-judging, harsh and unforgiving dictator in a blocked and gated land that is not free from my own conniving and manipulative ways, I was in many ways imagineable, free.

Like I mentioned before, comparison will get you nowhere.

Approval from society, approval from your spouse or partner, approval from your best friend, approval from your mother/father/sister/brother, approval from your boss, approval from your peers, approval. Erase all that.

Write what you feel. Write what’s important.

Even George Washington, a man held in high regard, would rather be alone than in bad company. Remove yourself from the world and what you will find instead is that you are now more a part of the world than when you first begun.

When you completely start over is left up to you to decide.

Showing you how is just the beginning.