A nomad’s life can seem romantic. All that traveling, to foreign, distant, far-away places capable of unleashing your imagination, of a life elsewhere. Where you could go and live a life in full anonymity, a chance to rebuild and restart a life anew. Or perhaps if not to live there, then to be a tourist – to visit magnificent places, try out new dishes, soak up fresh experiences and meet new people – but to be assured that it is temporary and that the comfort and security of home awaits if things ever tread out of bounds too far.

But a nomad’s life is really best characterized by disjunctures and discontinuities. When travel becomes constant and sometimes no longer a choice. It’s a choice as long as you have a home to go back to – opting out is effectively that, returning to the normal. But if a constant journey is the norm – what is there to go back to? Airports, train stations? No, ” home” slowly loses its meaning – it’s a loss of control of direction. Forward, forward, ever forward. A relentless going forward.

The realization that this comes at a price. The impossibility of any continuation. The infeasibility of the long-term. The harm it does to any relationship you have, friendships, kindred souls, even family. Constantly rebuilding – many eventually leave the journey, with perhaps only a few remaining fellow travelers. People stay, but you come and go.

What most people don’t realize: Every time you start anew, a little bit of you dies inside. Freedom, at a price, sometimes too high a price, and sometimes you don’t find out, until you stop, look around, and it’s gone. And you are too afraid to ask: “Was it worth it?”

I leave you with a song from Wu Bai, called “white dove”.

前方啊 沒有方向 身上啊 沒有了衣裳
Straight ahead, without direction, body unclothed

鮮血啊 滲出了翅膀 我的眼淚濕透了胸膛
Blood oozing from my wing, my tears thoroughly soaking my chest

飛翔著 強忍著傷 逃離了獵人的槍
Soaring in the air, bearing the wound, escaping from the hunter’s gun

我的雙腳沒有了知覺 我的心情下冰冷的雪
My feet have no consciousness; feeling like ice-cold snow is falling in my heart

親愛的母親 摯愛的朋友 我會堅定好好的活
Dearest mother, true friend, I can be strong, I will live well

沉默的大地 沉默的天空 紅色的血繼續的流
Silent earth, silent heaven, red blood continuously flows

縱然帶著永遠的傷口 至少我還擁有自由
Even though I carry everlasting scars, at least I still have freedom

飛翔啊 飛在 天空 用力 吹吧無情的風
Soaring in the air, flying in the sky, against the merciless wind

我不會害怕 也無須懦弱 流浪的路我自己走
I will not be afraid, I don’t have to be a coward, roaming everywhere by myself

那是種驕傲 陽光的灑脫 白雲從我腳下掠 過
That is something to take pride in, carefree sunshine, white clouds sweeping by beneath my feet

乾枯的身影 憔悴的面容 揮著翅膀 不再回頭
Withered figure, thin and pallid face, flapping my wings, never turning to look back

縱然帶著永遠的傷口 至少我還擁有自由
Even though I carry everlasting scars, at least I still have freedom