It's late at night, raining hard and I have a nice cup of coffee in my hand. Perfect mix of ingredients for an entry. No sections this time around, I'm just setting down my thoughts in writing.

Work hasn't been the most exciting with the COVID19 pandemic still raging in India. I've not been outside my house for the last 90ish days now and it's starting to get me. The daily routine is starting to get tiring and I miss open places.

The pandemic has put a temporary halt on my hiking plans ever since last year, but I'm hopeful this time around. I first had the urge to hike back in 2018. I was in a bad place mentally and I watched a little too many nomad videos on YouTube (Kraig Adams, Foresty Forest, Morten Hilmer etc, and some standalone documentaries/videos). I've lived all my life in a city and never been to forests/wildlife which made me all the more keen to experience nature myself. There's also a sense of self-discovery associated with these activities in stories, the traversal of the Hero outside the Known threshold into the the Unknown in the Monomyth. I did not know about the Monomyth at the time I became interested in exploring the wild and could never clearly pin my finger down on the reaon why I felt so strongly about it. The pattern is that I'll usually find something interesting browsing the internet, become invested in it for some days and then all but forget about it. This urge, broke pattern. I recenlty feel like I've been able to figure out why. Dave Chappelle on the Joe Roegan Podcast mentioned something that stuck. It's that the experiences and events you read about in books/movies are all second hand. It's not until you go out there and see, hear, feel and touch things until you understand what it means, and that's true. As hard as I try, I can't empathize with Viktor Frankenstein as he's climbing the peaks of Mont Blanc, because I've never been to a mountain in my life. These experiences shape people and I'm desperate to have them. There's so much to do with life outside of sitting and staring at a screen for 10 hours a day, which is frustrating.