Reflections

Looking back on our summer journey, it doesn't quite seem real. Many of the experiences that I had in Mongolia were so unique and different, that they do not really have a place in my normal memory. They are disjointed and strange, and never the less incredible. And I wonder how I will think on them a year, five years, fifty years (provided I am still alive) from now. I can describe aspects of our trip to friends, but no description can do justice to the actual experience.

Why did I decide to go to Mongolia? This question has been a major theme of the past six months of my life. I am asked by my friends, my family, strangers (who have no business knowing), and frequently by Mongolians and other people during our travels. I think my response is a little different every time. Though this question has been so important to everyone I've talked to, at no point have I thought it necessary to justify this decision in my own mind. Why does anyone do anything? Because they are trying to make the best of their time, aiming at what each considers to be good, and working toward it.

One thing that the trip has reinforced in my mind, is the idea that human life is so variable, so contingent upon the situation and circumstance into which one is born, ant yet humans, as far as I have witnessed, share similar experiences through their emotions. The beggar and the king spend their time quite differently, and yet at the end of the day, each has his own regrets, longings, and fears, neither one's more or less real than the other's. As a new school-year beggins, I have my own apprehensions. I wonder what are those of the people I shared time with in Mongolia.