How utterly disappointing.
These antidepressants and antipsychotic meds doesn't work, they just make me drowsy. Not that I needed the antipsychotic one to begin with but I couldn't be bothered to argue.
This second homeless run lasted one full day longer than the previous one. It has the passive, limited cash, no preparation, and no direction modifiers. And thus, I was able to test the limits of my body even more and increase my tolerance for discomfort. Unsurprisingly, sleeping in complete darkness, complete coldness, on top of rocks, waiting sheds, benches, and sleeping while sitting doesn't pose enough problems for me. This further confirms my theory that I was some sort of wanderer in my past life.
There was no charger, but I'm surprised that I was able to ask countless stores for charging assistance. It seems that this body can ask for help after all when it really matters. Yet it is way too prideful and arrogant to ask anyone for help when the task is theoretically possible with pure grit and endurance alone.
I've observed that most adults are cynical of weird people, yet the children remains curious and interested. It fascinates me that the children are so much more generous than adults are, even though this can simply be explained with basic economics. Only one person actually dared to ask to invite me to their house, it was a kid named Igor. However, they didn't push through with it, most likely an impulsive decision. If I was a kid, I bet the adults would be more interested and proactive in taking me in, yet no adults asked to take me in. I'm willing to bet that this is because despite knowing that I'm homeless, they do not want to take me away from my family or take away my possiblity of returning home. Include the fact that I'm living in a conservative, religious, country, and it's no surprise that no one offered me a place to stay.
It's still disappointing though. I've read the Odyssey and in Ancient Greece, there was the generous and wholesome practice of actively inviting wanderers to your home to feed them and shelter them, thinking that they might be actually a god in disguise. The one who invented and propagated this myth must be genius, or it could be that they're a wanderer too. So it's really sad that this practice has been lost.. or maybe the traditions of ancient greece didn't reach our southeastern nation to begin with. While I'm definitely going to recreate and propagate this tradition someday with my future students, children, and people; it remains an unfortunate fact that I'm currently living in a low-trust, low-generosity society. Why does a stray animal deserves affection, but a stray human does not?
Truly, neglect is the mother of all cruelty.
Still, I bet that if I actually actively approached people and asked them to take me in, 1 in 10 would consider it, 1 in 20 would agree to let me stay for the night, and 1 in 50 will let me stay indefinitely. After all, life is, and will always be, a numbers game to the unskilled and ignorant. I could have done that, and yet that's not what I wanted to test. Not that this cowardly body would be able to do it anyway.
Although the ending was too anticlimactic and annoying, there was a bountiful harvest this time. I gained a lot of new experiences. Time to show off my achievements!!
Have more than 5 people give important stuff to you at around the same time.
I already expected that the kids would share my story. But I didn't expect that almost all of them would give me so much food. There was only three bread and one ice candy given to each person. Yet the kids took even more, and they gave almost all of what they got to me. And so I had dozens of bread and three ice candies. There were so many bread that it lasted long enough for to be also my breakfast on the next day.
Enter through the barbed wire fence in a jungle-like environment.
I thought there'll be something interesting on the other side of the wire. After all, I entered a natural arc made of tree branches before that. Turns out, it's only full of spiky trees and tall grasses. Interestingly, there's a kid's toy near the barbed wire. How is that possible when you can only reach this place by climbing the cliff? There's a lot of animal droppings too, as if there was livestock in there before. Someone must have lived there, they might still be living inside the barbed wire fence, past the tall grasses. Or perhaps the tall grasses and spiked trees near the fence are just an illusion array made to hide the house inside.
Sleep in public on a place of extreme cold.
On the quiet waiting shed in front of the farm, there was cold winds blowing in every direction. It was so chillingly cold that I felt like I was going to freeze. Everytime the cold hits, I wake up from my uncomfortable sleep where I couldn't completely lie down due to the short space of waiting shed. I thought I would freeze to death right then and there, only for me to suddenly have strange dreams or hallucinations where some blurry characters were cheering me up and saying wholesome things to me. These cheers made me feel warm enough to endure the unrelenting cold through several hours of the night. I felt like my cold resistance increased a lot after that.
Witness a parade of animals walking down the river.
There were a lot of cows and goats. There was a lot of kid cows and kid goats. There were horses too. There were so many of them that it took 30 minutes for all of them to pass. At the end of the line is a horse rider. He must be the one guiding all that livestock. It was a spectacular sight.
Climb a tall, grassy cliff for the first time without using any equipment.
I think it was at least 50 meters tall. It was a fun challenge, the trick is to hold on to the branches and grasses, and use them to pull yourself forward once you have confirmed their safety. If the cliff is made out of soft soil, it's climbable as long as there's enough slope. Your feet may drift a few inches below everytime you climb, but you can stick your feet inside the soil and there's only enough soil gravity can displace and compress before they tighten on your feet. However, just because you can climb something doesn't mean you can go back in the same direction you climbed from. Oftentimes, the path for climbing cannot be used for descending.
&nsb;;
Get interrogated unfairly by the authorities.
I got interrogated in public by multiple people. They spilled all contents of my bag to check it. In order to have access to my phone, they claimed that the phone isn't mine and shifted the burden of proof to me. They told me to unlock my phone without telling me that they'll snatch and search through it. They searched through pictures, messages, and contacts; only asking for permission later when it's done. They threatened indefinite imprisonment and endless bureaucratic procedures if I don't comply. If I happened to be a rich young master, I could have all those people arrested by my million dollar lawyer firm. But if I was a young master, I wouldn't be walking to begin with, I'd be chilling inside my limousine.
Sleep in 3 different places in public 3 days in a row.
I slept at the quiet waiting shed near the mountains, on top of the rocks on the river, and on a loud waiting shed directly in front of a highway intersection. It was fun.
Get caught by the police.
I've been to places with curfew before. There was a lot of curfew warnings posted everywhere. This town doesn't have it. They claimed that I didn't see it, yet that claim itself is evidence that the curfew warnings weren't visible enough, and they're using it as an excuse to catch outsiders in a blatant act of xenophobia, using safety as an excuse.
Get completely naked at night in public.
There was no people around. It was completely dark except for my flashlight. So I suddenly decided to get completely naked and take a bath on the river, not knowing that the river was actually dominated by livestock. It felt refreshing though, 10/10 would do it again.
Follow the river for several hours.
The walkable places in the river switches from left to right and vice-versa. Maybe it has something to do with the turns of the river and inertia.
Get deported by the authorities.
I never expected that my second homeless run would end so abruptly by getting deported back home. Literally one of the worst moments of my life. The authorities were so much dumber than I thought. Their leader was so high on their own moral ground that they kept asking questions without accepting my answers. They think that if they keep asking the same question ten thousand times, they'll receive a different answer. And what am I except being consistent? Even the kids who asked me questions were smarter than them, they realized immediately that asking the same question over and over wouldn't give them a different answer.
Explore a cave for the first time.
It was the most boring and lamest cave I've ever seen. Instead of bats, there were birds inside resting on the top, upside down as if they're bats. There was a deep pit after the entrance for some reason. Maybe it was used to trap someone? Now it's just a garbage can full of trash. The birds keep coming and going, you have to crouch while moving if you don't want to hit the birds. You have to lower your flashlight too so you don't blind them, they'll become hyper if you point a flashlight at them. There wasn't much to see inside, not even graffitis or cave drawings. There's only the occasional pack of cigarettes and some bottle of alcohol at the end. The cave split into two shortly before it ended, but both paths are a dead end. I could have pressed my hand on the dead ends to see if there's a mechanism, but I'd rather not disturb the birds who's resting at the end. I've noticed a weird small tunnel on the wall that looks like it's made by an animal, it's about the size of a fist and moves in an ascending right direction. There wasn't enough ventilation in the cave so it was really hot. I don't know what I expected.
Explore what's under the highway bridge for the first time.
There wasn't much to see. But there's a lot of livestock and horses. The place was too muddy, maybe that's why there's no homeless person living there.
The final reunion at the end was cringe as always. I've never been one to care about life and relationships. The only thing that interests me are new experiences and honoring the past by turning them into systems and facilities for the future. On that note, I tasted a double cheeseburger for the first time. It's a shame that it came from McDonald's, coz the cheese felt like and tasted like plastic. I should have gotten a big mac instead.
The most annoying thing about the entire experience, aside from the lame ending, was the fact that I couldn't find any place to manually take a bath, and that I couldn't get any new clothes. I wore the same clothes for 5 days straight that it felt disgusting. Was it really too hard for them to offer me a bath and some spare clothes they don't use? How come restoration of human dignity isn't on the priority list of other people? Probably because they can't be bothered to explain it to their families, I'm the same too. But if I owned a house, regardless of how many people lives in it or who lives in it, I would offer homeless wanderers a chance to take a bath without asking anyone for permission. I would let them stay for at least a night too. There's no way I'm ignoring someone who could actually be a god in disguise lol.
After wearing the same dirty clothes for so many days, I realized something. That no matter how dirty my clothes and body is, I'm still me. My thought patterns are still the same. My personality is still the same. It didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.
Maybe the sins and regrets we carry everyday are just like dirty clothes. They're annoying and oftentimes disgusting, but they do not change who we are. They do not change our hopes and dreams. I went outside to escape, then my purpose changed to taking a bath and getting clean clothes. I could ask others, but there's a volcano and lake nearby less than 100km away. So why ask others when I could do it myself?
In the end, I got stopped before reaching the volcano. Poetically, I was only able to take a bath after I returned home. I didn't want to live with my sins. But I suppose living with dirty clothes isn't so bad. After all, that's what I've always done. My clothes weren't clean to begin with. They were dirty from the very beginning. Adding a new stain doesn't change much. Although pretending to be sad and affected is the right course of action, unlike the protagonist of The Stranger by Camus, I shouldn't pretend too deeply into it. As long as causality appears to be followed, everything should be fine.
Those kids.. they really asked me when I'll return. I wonder if they miss me. I'll definitely return there someday and repay those kids. That volcano too, I'll definitely climb it someday. I shall tie every loose end in this story if I want to give it a proper ending.
Pro tip:
When others ask you about why you left your previous party to explore this new area, don't reply something like:
(Because they'll think you're still connected to your previous party and you might return, the topic would be too focused on ur leaving)
Instead reply: