When Was the Last Time, You Did Something for the First Time?

I opened this book last night.

It deserves (I believe) to be in all the Top 100 best books of our times lists.

I realise if you were forced to read it in High School because you live in the US you might think differently, and hate the darn book.

In the UK we’re forced to read E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, or Charlie Orwell’s 1984.

(Aside: Charlotte’s Web is where childhood ends for us Scots. Cruel book. Cruel. Poor Spider. And I have come to the conclusion all child readers of Charlotte’s Web don’t kill spiders as adults. It always feels wrong, as if we’re murdering a member of Charlotte’s family. No matter how huge and scary it is.)

The Smelly Old Book

My copy of On The Road has an odour of second-hand book shops, it won’t be long before the smell will overpower the words and make it unreadable.

Inside the cover written in pencil, in the usual spot up on the right hand corner where second hand owners obviously are taught to put the price it says $2.00.

If the stinky book were lucky enough to ever get a new owner they will read when they open the front cover a message in blue faded ink:

To Kipper Barclay, calm down a bit. Remember Jim’s knicker parties and tell the story with pride. Kiss. Kiss. Ciao. Matte

A story within a story. One line.

I never tell the story, however my friend Matte does, all the time.

It’s his I know something about Dawn story.

It’s his bonding story to friends of mine he’s meeting for the first time.

That story has crossed oceans.

And it’s grown in the past 17 years, like my love for him.

I let him share it, he loves to tell it.

When he relives the moment, I’m feeling what I felt the months spent on the road with him and my other friend and travel buddy.

I type here. Now. Happy.

Being Open to the Unfamiliar

I read On the Road for the first while travelling in America, what a cliché, huh? A book about exploring self through the highways and cities of America, while exploring myself travelling the highway and cities of America. Commence rolling of eyes…now.

I know the core of that trip was the openness I had to new experiences. It was one big curious awesome experiment.

How open are you to the new?

On that road trip there was no convention, no rules, no familiarity, no permission needing granted, the daily routine was having no routine, we took risks.

There are parts of that trip I wish to always remember:

• The conversation (three swear words, one from each of us) as we walked up to the Grand Canyon for the first time. US 0f A’ers, that is one mighty big hole in the ground you have there.
  
• Running through the The Art Institute in Chicago to sit in front of my favourite painting (which I never thought two years previous I would ever see), for the first time.
  
• The unfortunate incident on the bus from Detroit: personal safety at risk, for the first time.
  
• Almost drowning in the Pacific: a life is precious wake up call, for the first time.

Many little stories within the big story.

In the daily routine new experiences don’t appear to happen that often.

But I think that’s wrong. Is the routine making us to busy to notice?

What if it was part of your daily routine were to have new experiences?

What if you approached everything for the first time? Or last time?

• How would you say goodbye?
• How would you greet loved ones?
• How would you say goodnight to those who matter most?
• How would you hug your loved ones?
• What would you want to say?
• How would you enter your work tomorrow?
• What would you create next?

Isn’t life all one line stories written within the big story? Isn’t life remembered by the events that made you feel?

When I think of that trip, I don’t remember the buses we boarded, the trains we caught, the places where we stayed, I remember the feeling of experiencing something for the first time. I can recall the feelings in a heart beat. Like opening the book last night and reading that line.

Nobody needs to travel somewhere to experience life with no convention, no rules, no permission.

They need to go inwards. Not out.

What would happen if you approached each moment as if it were the first time?

What if you ditched routine (even for a day) and lived each moment for the last time?

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