When I Grow Up

(from Sunday)

I’m a working photographer this week. And I’ll be one for the next couple of weeks, and perhaps for the remainder of my six week trip here in Indonesia. It’s exciting to get paid for doing something one loves, and I’m quite stunned that I may make more money while traveling in a far off place than I do at home. But I also realize that the photography is only a very small part of why I like photography, and is not enough unto itself. Sure, I love seeing a great photograph, and I love even more making a great photograph. But photography is really only a tool for me to learn about my environment and hear cool stories, and without the stories, photography kind of feels empty. Today took me around a small Dayak village on the island of Borneo, one where people were friendly and happy to be photographed, but I don’t feel like I learned anything new. I think that this has a lot to do with the language barrier and not having a true translator, but it made me wonder about what kind of work I could have that would be sure to be chock-full of stories all the time. Something where I would meet interesting people who weren’t too interesting that they became just weird. Something that’s consistently providing new challenges but which I feel like I’m doing well. And, of course, something where I’m my own boss. Trivia master? Restaurateur? General Manager of a professional baseball team? Stand-up comedian? Can I do better than what I’m doing now? These are the questions of a mid-life crisis traveler navigating not only new cultures but also the uncertainty of my present and future.