Many people asked me why I went back to Cape Town. I could have written that in September 2018, before I went there for a 3rd time. More asked it when I just went two weeks ago, going for a 4th time. Sometimes I try to defend this - saying from a longitudinal distance, and time zone perspective, this isn't so different than going to Europe. But as that is normally parried away as it should, I'm left to wonder why I keep going back - to this place a good 7,900 miles away, and one theme keeps repeating: familiarity.
Familiarity is something I strive for, it has defined a lot of my life. It's the reason my closest friends are those I made in High School. It's why I have a routine I like to follow each Saturday, with a run followed by a visit to my local Barnes & Noble. It's why I take a 9pm flight back from Toronto - hours after the other people on my team - so I can go to Bellwoods Brewery. It's why I've watched things enough to have a series like 'The Nostalgia Diaries.' And of course, it is why I keep going back to Cape Town.
I love traveling to new places. I've crossed 50 countries visited - a good 15-20 of those in my time as an adult ever since my Round the World Trip in 2013. That said, I love going back to Cape Town, going back to familiarity as much. Going back to The Waterfront. Staring at the beautiful Table Mountain. Taking the same hikes, visiting the same restaurants, and going to the same bar drinking the same pint of Milk & Honey beer. There's a safety in that, a safety in going to a place that while not 'everybody knows (my) name', it may as well be that way.
I don't know if resting on familiarity is an inherently bad thing. There's a lot of joy in experiencing the same things that give you little doses of pleasure over and over again, be it going to a local restuarant I've been to dozens of times, to Cape Town, or Count the Dings live shows. There's safe hapiness in knowing that you will get good joy and benefit out of an experience, instead of risking the dice-roll that is something new.
I say this as I get very close to embarking on the biggest 'new', non-familiar decision of my life, in buying a condo in Hoboken. I know the area, and know people who live in it, and it is still in striking distance of either my old house in Plainsboro and my work and social life in New York. It is still new, however, a momentous change, one that brings with it adult responsibilities that I should have taken on many years ago.
Familiarity won't leave me, however. You can replace that term with safety or cowardice if you want, and there is reason to do so. But being a 'safe' person is not a black mark I shy away from. I love the fact that part of my 'familiar' world is going to a picturesque, magnificent city half a world away, full of surprises and passion. There are new aspects to each trip, a few times I've ventured out of the norm, be it to EDM clubs, or new restaurants, or cocktail bars. But doing what I've done and what I love to do is part of it.
As I take a most unfamiliar step in my personal life, having to pick furniture, budget my salary into paying bills, and being a homeowner, a term that has as much caution as joy, I try not to lose my love of familiarity. There is a yearning for more familiarity as well, be it short trips to Mumbai (something I've done twice now - each more ludicrous than my last trip to Cape Town), or hopeful trips back to Salt Lake City. When I found something I like, a beat the ever-living s**t out of it, wringing that experience for all I could.
Maybe this has kept me from experiencing a lot of things I otherwise could have. This passion for the familiar definitely combines with a self-actualized introvertedness that has plagued my life for eons. That all said, there is beauty in the familiar, and nothing presents itself so strongly as when I go to Cape Town. I know there's irony in saying visiting what is to most objective outside viewers a 'dangerous' city is indeed safe, but it is. It is the sheer certainty of goodness - be it the weather, the people, the experience - that I go back. And when I take this step of moving into a place I own, the certainty of Cape Town will only become more pronounced.
In the end, my life has been battling familiarity, but I am approaching a point where I can expand my sights beyond that. Not around Cape Town, but on how it dominates my day to day, my weekends, my weekday evenings. There is a sense of missing out during these periods that I need to grow out of, go away from, and the house is a step in that direction. The presence and everlasting lust of Cape Town is my connection back, one I will not give up.
Familiarity is something I strive for, it has defined a lot of my life. It's the reason my closest friends are those I made in High School. It's why I have a routine I like to follow each Saturday, with a run followed by a visit to my local Barnes & Noble. It's why I take a 9pm flight back from Toronto - hours after the other people on my team - so I can go to Bellwoods Brewery. It's why I've watched things enough to have a series like 'The Nostalgia Diaries.' And of course, it is why I keep going back to Cape Town.
I love traveling to new places. I've crossed 50 countries visited - a good 15-20 of those in my time as an adult ever since my Round the World Trip in 2013. That said, I love going back to Cape Town, going back to familiarity as much. Going back to The Waterfront. Staring at the beautiful Table Mountain. Taking the same hikes, visiting the same restaurants, and going to the same bar drinking the same pint of Milk & Honey beer. There's a safety in that, a safety in going to a place that while not 'everybody knows (my) name', it may as well be that way.
I don't know if resting on familiarity is an inherently bad thing. There's a lot of joy in experiencing the same things that give you little doses of pleasure over and over again, be it going to a local restuarant I've been to dozens of times, to Cape Town, or Count the Dings live shows. There's safe hapiness in knowing that you will get good joy and benefit out of an experience, instead of risking the dice-roll that is something new.
I say this as I get very close to embarking on the biggest 'new', non-familiar decision of my life, in buying a condo in Hoboken. I know the area, and know people who live in it, and it is still in striking distance of either my old house in Plainsboro and my work and social life in New York. It is still new, however, a momentous change, one that brings with it adult responsibilities that I should have taken on many years ago.
Familiarity won't leave me, however. You can replace that term with safety or cowardice if you want, and there is reason to do so. But being a 'safe' person is not a black mark I shy away from. I love the fact that part of my 'familiar' world is going to a picturesque, magnificent city half a world away, full of surprises and passion. There are new aspects to each trip, a few times I've ventured out of the norm, be it to EDM clubs, or new restaurants, or cocktail bars. But doing what I've done and what I love to do is part of it.
As I take a most unfamiliar step in my personal life, having to pick furniture, budget my salary into paying bills, and being a homeowner, a term that has as much caution as joy, I try not to lose my love of familiarity. There is a yearning for more familiarity as well, be it short trips to Mumbai (something I've done twice now - each more ludicrous than my last trip to Cape Town), or hopeful trips back to Salt Lake City. When I found something I like, a beat the ever-living s**t out of it, wringing that experience for all I could.
Maybe this has kept me from experiencing a lot of things I otherwise could have. This passion for the familiar definitely combines with a self-actualized introvertedness that has plagued my life for eons. That all said, there is beauty in the familiar, and nothing presents itself so strongly as when I go to Cape Town. I know there's irony in saying visiting what is to most objective outside viewers a 'dangerous' city is indeed safe, but it is. It is the sheer certainty of goodness - be it the weather, the people, the experience - that I go back. And when I take this step of moving into a place I own, the certainty of Cape Town will only become more pronounced.
In the end, my life has been battling familiarity, but I am approaching a point where I can expand my sights beyond that. Not around Cape Town, but on how it dominates my day to day, my weekends, my weekday evenings. There is a sense of missing out during these periods that I need to grow out of, go away from, and the house is a step in that direction. The presence and everlasting lust of Cape Town is my connection back, one I will not give up.
