Hell is Other People (but so is Heaven)

I'm sitting on a broken, plastic stool under a massive freeway interchange in the center of Bangkok. This is my third waiting location for a bus to Koh Chang, an island off the southeastern coast of Thailand. Every ten minutes or so, a new woman in a SARS-style face mask comes over, motions for us to follow, and leads us through rush-hour traffic to a new, unlikely waiting area.

Morning traffic flows all around us like a river around a sandbar. Huge, concrete pillars wall us in on all sides, trapping and amplifying the chaos--motorbike horns honking, police whistles blowing, street vendors hawking at passers-by to sample their mystery meats. A semi-dead dog lies on the concrete about ten feet away, blinking at me through heavy lids. My stomach churns out a loud and cavernous growl, a reminder that I haven't eaten in almost 15 hours.

But I'm laughing. I'm laughing because my sister, Karen, just spilled coconut yogurt down her front side in a hilarious imitation of an outrageous sneeze heard earlier on our connecting bus from Ayutthaya. And I'm singing--some Top-40 pop song that Heather, my other traveling companion, and I are trying to remember the name of. The sun is shining down and we hold it here, in this little space between us, generating an invisible force field the chaos can't permeate. An hour passes. Our bus arrives.

...

I'm terrified by the prospect of going through moments like these--little travel hells--alone. I experience them through two sets of eyes: my own in real-time and those of future Anna, sitting on broken, plastic stools under massive freeway interchanges alone starting January 30th.

I came here in the conscious pursuit of loneliness--that productive kind of loneliness that forces us out of our comfort zone and into the unruly present moment, with all of its limitless possibilities. I still want it. But this intro month of traveling with Karen and Heather is teaching me to see my time with others for what it truly is: a gift.

I ripped the title of this post from a popular psychology book called The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt (who in turn, partly ripped it from Sartre). Haidt uses it to close a chapter on our human need for love and attachment, two things I like to challenge myself to need less.

I expect a lot from myself and others when it comes to being OK alone. But I still need other people. And sometimes, it feels good to say it out loud.