I love rain!

Hanka brought up an intriguing question today. Am I adventurous or not? Obviously, it's always about the extent to which people are or are not adventurous but I've been strongly under the impression that I definitely am adventurous and that it is one of the inherent values of my personality. The nick 'Truly Bohemian' after all suggests that art, freedom and adventure is what I believe in.


I don't hide that I struggle with myself. A few days ago I light-heartedly suggested that I need someone to put me right and a friend of mine texted me back: “let me pray first.. plz mrs. jiri faster show up 2 make him be right!” That's something I was definitely thinking of as well but come to think of it, if I can't do it myself no one else possibly can.

Undoubtedly, adventurous people fear very little as they feel secure in this world. They're trusting and full of faith (faithful?). However, adventure is all too often perceived as simply travelling. How about the unseen and intangible mental adventures that we undertake? A shy student who signs up for English classes with a foreign teacher may not be called adventurous but it is a great adventure for them. My cousin, who passed away, wouldn't be perceived as adventurous either but she had to take on more adventures than most at her age. As they put it in The Motorcycle Diaries sometimes you have to fight for every breath. For some people a single breath is an adventure... Not the number of stamps in your passport or photos you take but struggling and overcoming obstacles, be it our fears, disabilities, injustice or anything else.

Coming back to the question mark, I certainly don't have to climb Mt. Everest (and probably die) to prove I'm adventurous. I ought to, however, become more trusting and fight back my fears. For that I need faith. I need to be full of faith. And maybe I need to be faithful too? Faithful to God?

I definitely miss someone like Alastair, who could as my spiritual leader help strengthen my faith. It would be so much easier. I wish it could be. I was given a lot and now I feel I am expected to stand on my own feet and start giving back. Being in a leadership position here, I'm exposed to great pressure. I've been criticized several times so far from other trainees for doing too much or too little but I've never heard a single word of gratitude from them (Hanka being the only exception). Hadn't I worked my ass off at the beginning, hadn't I been willing to put up with all the struggle, there would've been no work for them in the first place. No Malaysia, no adventure at all. I heard of a phenomenon called something like 'solitude of leaders' and I heard of Jesus being crucified. That works somewhat to console me.

And yes, as I stressed in my letter to myself:

There are these three things that remain: Faith, Hope, and Love. And the greatest of these is Love. -- Corinthians 13:13