Rose colored glasses don't make things prettier, just red.

So as it turns out, as many of you assume, but few will experience, zero connectivity to the world is a real downer.  

I think that for many years I have had this romantic vision of seclusion and restfulness going hand in hand and merrily skipping through giant fields of daisies together.  Truth be told, when they met in real life they couldn't have been worse together. Oh sure they played nice in the beginning. One toying with the other and playfully suggesting they should court each other and the opposite wistfully sweeping away her hair as if to say, "I would agree but that would be too forthcoming and I'd hate to be held liable to such accusations down the road". 

Good thinking, Lincoln.  Cause damn you seclusion; you spiteful, sneaky, snake-in-the-grass. You had me fooled all along.  I actually had fantasies of porch swings, some lazy, chubby mutt chewing on a stick, fall leaves covering the un-raked lawn, the smell of the leaves creating that fresh autumn musk in the air.  And the biggest, most attractive part of this fantasy is that feeling of a stress free life. The omnipresent feeling that can so often take over your entire body, mid fantasy, and give you this illusion that all can be well and safe and secure if only you were left alone.  If only you could be in your own world, far away from the monotony of the cycles and systems and structures you have built for yourself.  Completely disregarding that those systems are there mostly to provide convenience and comfort. Remove the comfort and you get less convenience and thus more stress.  But alas, the romantic vision was so bright and the dream so vivid. 

Well my friends, eat up and eat plenty cause your pal Eric is "living the good life"...except I can't really tell anyone about it.  I can't call my beautiful fiancé to talk about her day, or email Mom to say hi and see how the farm is doing, or send a text to my sister to check on her recovery or log into Facebook to send an update.  No Twitter, no LinkedIn, no Skype.  What has this world come to?!?! Or is the real question, what has our (and by "Our" I mean "My" and "Yours" simultaneously)  world come to.  Where despite the painstaking lengths I have gone to to achieve solidarity, I find myself yearning for the connection.  That despite the perfect set up to spend time with myself, in a country amongst hundreds of thousands of people whom I don't know, with a language I don't speak and a complete lack of responsibility, I still find it extremely difficult to slow everything down, let go, relax and disconnect.  If even for a moment.  Is it the old adage, "We crave what we don't have"?  I'll tell you as soon as I figure it out and I can post it on Facebook.