I'm the sort of person who is rather on Sartre's side when it comes to...other people. Hell is other people, he amicably claimed. I just as readily admit that hell can very often also be the fire of my own mind. And furthermore I'd concede that, occasionally at least, other people can most certainly be heaven. The deception of falling in love eh? For me, one of my biggest hindrances and hurdles while travelling, but of course also, the biggest gateway, delight and learning curve, can be other people. I have quite a plethora of inner challenges and problems created within myself; but I do also find a fair few without. When I check into the Airbnb and quietly notice my whole body tensing as I realise my room is by the kitchen in an echoey apartment shared with 3 of them (other people); or as I walk briskly down the street and incessantly am hindered by a couple of dawwwwwdling other people, oblivious to the world around them; and as I settle into my nice cold little beer and freshly prepared Portuguese pastry after a long day's travelling to notice the two other people beside me light up (why do some bars in some parts of Europe find themselves blind to the empathetic-to-clean-smelling-clothes-lovers law that is the ban of smoking indoors?) and realise my hair, my jacket, my top, probably my bra and most certainly my jeans are all going to smell of that not-so-sweet perfume that is eu de cigarette on just the first day of my trip, I find myself silently enraged by other people. I suppose it's a matter of being acquainted. Before you've met someone personally, in whatever scenario you encounter them, they're one of them. Once you've had a chat or two, whether or not you walk at the same pace and share the same eating habits, they gain individual status. Well what's the solution? As with most problems, we reluctantly find that Sartre yet again is right. There is No Way Out. To go through them is the only way. I'm not ever going to be able to fully embrace the detestable ashen scent of my wardrobe after an hour in a bar, but I might at least learn to observe myself and my reactions on a subtler level when things I don't exactly like start to happen around me; try to see some positive, or at least attempt to empathise with whatever is making that the other person's reality in this moment (nicotine addiction anyone?). No, really. None of us can live in the world alone and even those who might wish it, don't really, for who would there be to blame then? There'd be noone to complain about and blame our misery on. And suddenly we'd have to contemplate the despairing reality that hell in fact might be ourself. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
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