My name is Johnathan Falk. I am nineteen years old. Who am I? What's my story? How did I come to be here doing what I'm doing the way I'm doing? Well... It's enough to write a book, which I am in process of working on... but I will attempt to give the short and sweet version.
My Childhood
I have always been mature for my age. Everyone has rough childhoods it seems these days, though I can securely say that mine was a little on the extreme side. My parents never married. I lived with my mother until I was eight. We moved around a lot from different places, mostly in California. Many different homes and trailers, sometimes we lived in the car, all over the place. It afforded me the opportunity to meet many people though. In school I was a problem child. I acted out a lot, and had a great deal of anger. I was expelled from public school when I was eight, and moved into a boy's home. There I had to walk in single file, and eat in the cafeteria with everyone else. I wasn't allowed to go outside without permission or supervision. I wasn't allowed to go out in public except on field trips. I was with boys who had emotional problems from molestation, abuse, or other.
After a turbulent year I moved to my grandmother's house temporarily and then found myself in another institutional facility in northern California. Although a less militaristic boys home it was still far from normal. I was reading novels by Stephen King and new age books like Seat for the Soul and Peaceful Warrior. Eventually, after a foster home I transferred to living with my family who I consider to be my father, my stepmother, younger brother and younger sister. That was when I was eleven. This was also the same year that I began writing.
The next five and half years were spent in public school like most normal kids. I developed and adapted quickly to the new atmosphere and lack of scheduled routine. My parents gave me freedom, were tremendously supportive and helped me transition into not only their home, but myself as well. I had a difficult time for the first two years or so, but soon found how to relate with kids my age, while at the same time functioning in an adult manner when in conversation with grown ups. The longest time I ever lived in one place was the five and a half years going to public school.
I was socially successful, academically proficient, athletic, and generally happy. Aside from the typical teenage, adolescent flare-ups between parents and children my home life was better than I could have hoped. I felt blessed and very grateful for the ways things had worked out. I had more appreciation than an average kid because I had experiences of it being much worse.
Why did I leave in the first place?
I considered it an emergency to leave as soon as possible. I had already planned on traveling after I graduated, but I couldn't wait another year and a half. These years are the most formative in my character, ethic, and belief systems. For this reason I couldn't afford to waste that time working or doing something repetitive or too normal. No one could understand the urgency, the imperativeness of me leaving immediately. It wasn't about going. It was about who and therein, when I left. The person not the place determines the experience.
I understand that the younger I am the more impressionable I am. The experiences I am exposed to now will be the foundation for the person I become in later life. For this reason I am consciously undergoing intense and extreme influences in an effort to accelerate my development, and foster diversity and openness in my thinking. The great variety of opinions, perspectives, and experiences are of even greater value the younger I am. For this reason I couldn't wait, or postpone my trip when I was younger, and why I can't be "reasonable or prudent" right now by going to normal school and staying in the same place.
The Start of My Journey
I left when I was sixteen and a half. I disappeared without a word or a note. I didn't tell anyone of my plans even though I had known for over two months. I dropped out of high school because I wasn't satisfied with the education I was receiving, and the direction my life was taking me.
Why didn't I tell anyone I was leaving? Well... on the surface I didn't want them to not approve and then convince me to not follow my inner voice. Beneath that it was easier by keeping it a secret because I didn't have to admit the pain I would feel from leaving home, family, friends, and everything I knew. I left to receive the education that cannot be taught in schools. The truth is that there are many more teachers in the world than in any classroom. I learn something from everyone I meet. Everyone who crosses my path has something of value to offer. With this in mind, I believe that "Experience is the greatest teacher." I don't know who said that first, but it's true.
I left, down to San Diego and Baja California. I really didn't have a plan. I traveled along the coast of mainland Mexico and turned around after a few months to go home. I wanted to visit and make amends, yet was not prepared to do so internally. I was smoking marijuana habitually, and was regarded by my family as a drop out druggie and a danger to myself. They did not want to support me by having me stay at the house and especially since I wasn't planning on staying home. Unfortunately this left me the only option of sleeping at friends' homes who also smoked.
From here I traveled north and hitchhiked across the states for spring and summer of 2000. I made it to Chicago and back again. In total I have seen about 37 states--most except for New England and the East Coast. I hitchhiked through British Colombia and the Yukon Territory of Canada and went through Alaska. In the fall I passed back through California and home for my Uncle's wedding. Though my family had become accustomed to me not being there, and we were communicating by Internet and the occasional phone call we still weren't on the best of terms.
I entered Mexico again in October of 2000 and hitchhiked south along the Pacific Coast living on a few dollars a day. It was then that I finally ceased smoking and in turn rekindled the spirituality of my childhood. I entered Guatemala in mid January 2001 and continued through Central America until Panama. Hitchhiking, writing, reading, learning Spanish and changing drastically, I didn't stop until Ecuador in May.
Why did I stop?
I had gotten terribly sick. Not because of any disease, but because I was stressed. I couldn't stop thinking about going home, how much I wanted to, yet I wouldn't let myself because I thought that it was better for my development to continue exposing myself to the influences of the road. I still had a few hundred dollars and could have made it for another few months or so, but it wasn't right for me to do so. My reasoning was that I would grow more by traveling, yet after having returned and worked out everything with my family, and self, I understand even more how: "Where ever you go there you are."
Often times, most of the time, I feel like some larger hand is guiding me, shaping me, and making me do what I do and go where I go with something in mind down the line which I can't comprehend just yet. I know that everything that I have done, everyone I have been, everywhere I have gone, has helped shape the person that I am. There is nothing that I classify as good or bad about the past because I am happy with who I am, and how I am becoming.
Where does Empathy come into all this?
Well, I had steadily started collecting the email addresses of friends I met on the road, and friends from home. I developed a fairly large list and started to send out block letters to everyone on it. The list kept growing until by the time I came home it had nearly 250 addresses on it. The webiste is designed to be a portal for others to see through me and glimpse what it is like to be a person on the other side of the globe.
In the states I took some college courses at the local J.C. and I got my high school general education diploma. I planned on leaving for this part of the world since I had come home, but Empathy didn't come until November of 2001. It is still in formation, and I am tying strings and adding greater clarity every day.
When I was in Latin America I didn't travel like tourists, or even back packers did. I would hitchhike and stay the night on the floors of families who invited me--or I would sleep outside. It resembled the ways of a pilgrim, or a saddhu more than a traveler. I started reading the bible and when people would see me reading it they would inquire about what I was doing, who I was, and come to understand that I was more of a missionary than a tourist.
It was this mode and way of traveling that gave me the opportunity to learn exponentially--not only about myself, my mind, and life, but the culture and the people of Latin America. I feel like I am Latin from that experience. I speak Spanish fluently, and remember all the families along the way... families who called me their son and brother.
Where did a sixteen year old get money to this?
Well. I had saved up for many years to buy a car. When I turned sixteen my family generously donated and nearly matched the seven thousand dollars I had made by investing my savings in the stock market. I did buy a car, a nice red-hot convertible over the Internet in Alabama. I drove it across country, and within three months of being home had an accident.it I broke my collarbone and was taken away in a ambulance with an I.V. in my arm. Luckily I had taken out full coverage insurance on it, and since I had gotten such a good deal in Alabama ended up making a large profit from the insurance check. That was in early November of 1999. It was while I lay in bed, broken more than just physically, that I began having visions of myself vagabonding the world, mystical and wise. I started planning and carried it out.
I spent most of the money in the first few months, and slowly, began lessening my budget and living more frugally. This process continued until I traveled a thousand miles on the coast of Mexico spending only twenty dollars.
My writing?
Well. Through out the course of my 16-month trip I completed 19 journals, all hand written in spiral bound notebooks. My writing evolved along with myself the entire time. Originally I didn't write any "journal" pieces, it was all streaming poetry and creative depictions meshing the internal with the external into this dreaming code language, which only I could interpret. I eventually incorporated regular sentences about where I was and what was happening. I started writing essay style expositions and explanations of my insights and growth.
Writing has always been my passion and come naturally to me. I now average at least a few thousand words a day of varied genres and types. I also read a lot, as diverse as possible. Send me your number one recommendation for a book that I should read if you have any suggestions...
Well. It has not been an easy road, but like I say: "It's not where you're going, it's how you're going." So here I am and what's next? What kind of person has all this formed?
Who am I now?
I'm another yourself. Same as you: I'm a spiritual being living in a human's body. I'm a 19-year-old youth struggling in a changing world, trying to figure out how things came to be the way they are, where they're going, and what needs to be done in order to make this difficult transition a little easier. I'm trying to be humble while coming from an arrogant society. I'm an optimist. I'm taking a hard look around, and inside myself. I'm learning now so I can later be a teacher to others. I'm just a regular guy. I hope others can derive hope from me. I hope elders can have hope for our youth, and that the youth can have hope for our future.
I recognize that the world is changing very rapidly: society, culture, civilization, technology, and Humanity as we know it. I have passion about the world system my generation is growing up in, and inheriting from its elders. I believe we are living through the most pivotal and extreme points in recorded history. There are many reasons for me to be concerned and worried about global issues and the state of affairs. I wish it were the same for everyone, though I understand that it is futile to try and change the world. Rather, I am changing myself. I am living my life and setting an example, especially to my peers.
At this point in my life I am still very young, and yet in other ways I have been forced to become old. Before I know what I want to do in the world I need to know what the world is. Before I know what the world is I have to comprehend the way I perceive the world. This requires internal reflection and introspective contemplation. Mindfulness. I need to see and witness what exists for myself as first hand experience and understanding. Any other means is insufficient. |
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