Life Reflections in SaPa

SaPa is in Northwestern Vietnam, close to the boarder with China. It is a mountainous region, SaPa Town is up on the mountain, while small rice farms spread across the hillsides. Of all the places I've visited in Vietnam, it is the most rural, the most poverty stricken. It feels a bit like going back in time 50 years, but with WiFi. Because pretty much everywhere has WiFi these days. Amazing really. When I first flew to Barcelona on my study abroad I had a cell phone that worked in the US (it was not a smart phone) and I had to buy a burner phone in Spain when I arrived. My plane was a few hours late and my parents had called the hotel by the time I arrived, paranoid that something was wrong.

If this had happened today, they would have been able to check flight tracker when I didn't text them with free WiFi at the airport at the time I was supposed to, see that my plane was late and stop worrying. OK, well maybe they wouldn't actually stop worrying... This is my biggest deterrent for becoming a parent. Do you ever really, truly have piece of mind again one you are one? (that's a real question to you parents out there!).

As I've traveled I'm starting to appreciate the things that unify our human experience. And yes, worrying is one. We all do it, the question is what do we worry about? One of the books I've come back to a few times called 'The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck' (great title although a bit misleading, it's really about internal prioritization, not checking out from everything), discusses the idea that we never escape our problems. To paraphrase his point, you have money problems you worry about. Warren Buffet also has money problems he worries about, his problems are just better than yours. Vietnamese people in SaPa have money problems they worry about, theirs are likely more difficult than yours. The author puts forward the idea that life is about choosing which problems we want to solve for the rest of our lives and (hopefully) upgrading them was we go along. The key is to be intentional about choosing your own problems (not letting others or society) choose them for you.

My first reaction to this concept was to be pissed off. I don't like life to be phrased in a 'negative' way (my use of the word negative is a whole different conversation, we'll see if I get around to sharing it without this becoming the longest tangent that has ever existed). Life isn't supposed to be about problems! Life is supposed to be about happiness! (shouted internal Kelsey's naivety). I had a similar reaction to the first noble truth of Buddhism, life is suffering. My life won't be about suffering! My life will be about happiness! (shouted 9th grade Kelsey after her social studies class on world religion). But I think now I see both of these things as mostly true.

If we are lucky, we get to choose our problems. If we have our basic security needs met, then we are free to choose which problems to solve. Do we spend our lives figuring out how to get more people buy our brand of ice cream, deciding what Netflix series to watch next, how to responsibly save for retirement, who to date, who to invest our time in, what to have for dinner, where to go for a run on the weekend, what to buy to make our physical environment more comfortable? These are all problems I've solved in the last couple of years. But did I chose them? I answered them all, satisfactorily for myself at the time. But did I ever stop to think if these were the problems I should be solving? Being out of my patterns, my daily routines, my normal (and default) problems has given me a different perspective on this. As has my experience in Vietnam, which has showed me just how privileged my 'first world' problems are.

I'm not saying that my life was bad, or that the problems I was choosing to solve were all meaningless (although some were). Just that they were more unconscious than conscious, more autopilot than intentional, more guided by others than myself. We're all indoctrinated into our problems when we are young, by our families, our countries, our societies. That's okay, that's how culture works. All human beings are raised believing something. The issue comes if we do not ever question our framing of life, if we do not give adequate space for the differences of others realities, the nuances of our complicated world, the messiness of the human experience. Yes I just used the phrase 'the human experience', have I become too Yogi for you? ;)

But that where I think the role of suffering comes into the discussion of life. We may not always be connected by our thoughts. But we are connected by our emotions. What causes you pain, disappointment, shame, guilt, fear, and anger may be different than what causes these feelings in me. After all we learned different rules when we were growing up. But we both still feel them. What brings you joy, contentment, surprise, excitement, and awe may be different than what causes these feelings in me. But we both still feel them. We all feel them, in Chile, New Zealand, Bali, Vietnam, and the US. People living now and people who lived a thousand years ago. And we BARELY understand how this is even possible. How crazy is that?

I don't really know how to bring this back to my couple of days in SaPa at this point. But maybe I don't have to. These thoughts are what I experienced in SaPa, and now I've shared them with you. We can at least say this is an accurate representation of my visit. I also hiked through rice paddies, wandered up dirt roads with cows and buffalo, walked with hundreds of huge orange butterflies, discussed life with my cousin Jeremy, won (and lost at crib), ate fried noodles and delicious pork, put on a jacket (it was cold!), experienced my first 'sleeping bus' in Asia, rode on my first motorbike, drove (ish) my first motorbike, and figured out I know pretty much nothing.