The Detour Diaries

I buried my best friend at the age of twenty. 

It was a time in my life when I really felt alive. I felt a purpose and real passion in the things that I did and the things that I wrote. I was discovering a side of myself that I had only just met, a part of me that had shed the darkness of my youth and had flooded my veins with new life.

It has been years since I watched him die, and the older I get the clearer it has become that the part of me that was so new, the part of me I was barely able to taste, died within me all those years ago. I buried that part of me the day that I buried my best friend.

My life has always been a freight train pushing forward so fast that sometimes I lose track of where I am or where I am going. The tracks buckled and I watched the train bend and break as it crashed and burned.

I guess what I am trying to say is, I’m still here among the wreckage. I’m still pulling parts of me out of the chaos in an effort salvage what is left of my soul.

I haven’t given up yet, and I hope that you haven’t given up either.

Life was too long, and far too short. I both tasted freedom and let it fall through my fingers like sand. I’ve been a slave, and a prisoner too. Days behind bars and drowning in blue. Years spent under the stars and the wind at my back. I tasted the oceans, from the Atlantic to the Indian. The stones felt beneath my feet in mountain peaks and along shady streets. I explored the earth for all its worth and found that misery did love me. A pessimistic view of life, optimism a burning coal I named desire. The violence made me, at times the hate saved me, but I loved so deeply with all of my heart. Let sleep carry me to the land of my dreams and if I wake then it all was a hoax. But if the sleep is eternal, and it’s all been for nothing, then at least you all know that I felt.

Life doesn’t offer you any rehearsals for watching your best friend die. There are no test runs to let you get a feel for the panic that sets in after the initial moment of absolute shock hits your chest like a bullet fired at close range. There are no second takes to help you react the way you think you should have when given that retrospective view that your mind likes to haunt you with. No, life can’t prepare you for the worst moment of your life. It doesn’t let the final moments linger, you don’t get a strange feeling in your gut seconds beforehand. All those warning signs from the movies are just a dramatic charade to make it seem like something could’ve been done to save that tragic moment.

In real life, it just happens. No warning. No feeling. Just a split second moment of complete and utter confusion, followed by disbelief, followed by denial, and then after all of these things have taken place in just seconds, the panic sets in, and it is the panic and the utter helplessness that will haunt me for the rest of my days on this earth.

I have lost people I care about in the past, but no matter how tragic and heartbreaking the loss was, none of it compares to the feeling of watching someone you love slip away, to be a part of that moment, to share those finals seconds of life with them, their last laugh, their last words, their last breath, and to then watch them disappear from the earth through your own eyes, it is something I cannot word or even dwell on in my mind.

Two words will plague me and push me towards tears whenever I bring them to mind – ‘What if?’

Those two words are a curse I’ll have to live with, but I’m not going to sit here and write about how terrible the death of my friend was, I could, and the part of me that dwells on it and haunts me wants to get it off my chest, to word every single moment of hell in hopes of finding some kind of peace, but that’s not what he would have wanted, and I can’t bring myself to be that selfish.

Instead, I will write about Dylan Kane Etherington and the ways in which he touched my soul and lives in my heart; how he is forever young, how he died doing what he loved, and how we shared the best time of our lives together, because that is his legacy, and that is how he will be remembered.

I was in Nepal over two years ago, I had just arrived in Kathmandu after finishing a trek to Mt. Everest. I was both mentally and physically exhausted so I decided to spend a week in the city regrouping my thoughts and letting my body recover. I had a lot of emails to get through after my lengthy absence from the internet; as I scrolled down the page, I was surprised to see a message from an old friend, we had drifted apart over the last year and had lost contact, but right here was a message from him, and the weird thing is that for the duration of the trek, he had been on my mind and I didn’t know why.

I read the message, it gave me a strange feeling in my stomach.

“I have been dreaming about you, we are in a desert, somewhere in the Middle East or Central Asia I think, and we are always smiling, I know it’s weird, but I thought you might know what I’m talking about.”

I don’t know about everyone else in the world, but sometimes I get this weird feeling inside of me, it’s warm, and I somehow know that something is good, that something is meant to be happening. That is the feeling I had from that day onward. It started out as a few emails here and there, and turned into an obsession, an obsession with the idea that the two of us could throw away technology, let go of absolutely everything except a camera between us, and see the world together, in a new way, in a way neither of us had experienced before. It was like our minds had connected and everything either of us said was exactly what the other was thinking, and together we formulated a plan, he was in Denmark, I was in India at this stage, and we would meet in the middle. Every single day we would meet online and talk for hours about ideas, theories, and our endless plans. I would say that month of my life was the happiest and most mentally fulfilling month of my life to date, and it was all thanks to a friend I had known since I was twelve, living in Denmark, and who shared a dream with me. It was all thanks to Dylan Kane Etherington.

Like all good things, this came to an end, just like most people, we let the realisation that we might fail corrupt our dreams, and this seed of doubt and lack of finances brought our plan to a stand still. Again, I am haunted by those two little words that send me down hundreds of mental pathways all leading back the the same reality that is the present, – ‘What if?’

Dylan had ignited a fire in me, a fire I hadn’t let burn any brighter out of my own fear that I was alone, and that no one else would understand me. He came to me unexpectedly that day in Kathmandu and he put out his hand and he had said “It’s ok, I’m here, I can see what you see, it’s an incredible thing, and we can share it, we have a purpose, let’s do it together.”

It is that ‘we’ that I miss the most.

Over a year passed and we had both gone our separate ways, occasionally sending off an email or two to flirt with the idea of meeting up and starting up an adventure here or there, but we both had our own lives to tackle and the idea was constantly pushed behind other priorities.

I was in Australia, which by this point was a rarity, and the warm feeling came rushing over me again. I had to call Dylan. He answered.

“How did you know I was in the country? I just got in yesterday?”.

Again it seems fate was playing it’s part in our friendship, perhaps there really was something we needed to accomplish together. I was flying to Japan the following day.

“I am back in Australia for a few days between Japan and America, we have to see each other face to face and talk.”

We both had our own plans, we were both heading in different directions, and all it took was ten minutes together before rationality was thrown out the window and an hour later ‘The Detour Diaries’ was born. Weeks of planning turned into months, I was all over the place, America, UK, Europe, Africa, but it didn’t matter, we were constantly planning our new documentary series, and before I knew it we were in Italy, we had the funding we needed, the equipment, sponsorships, and endless possibilities ahead of us.

This was our dream becoming reality. This was what we were meant to be doing. As winter came to an end, we set forth towards Central Asia, our original meeting place, it was really happening, and we were smiling.

“And the last time I saw your face, you smiled. We were in Uzbekistan, and our hair had grown far longer than we had planned. You turned to me and we laughed. “We look the same.” People can go ahead and tell me that this was all just a dream, but us dreamers, well, let’s just say reality is what you make it, and I am happy to have had just one last moment with you my friend..” – William Jiraiya 23/02/10

We never made it past Bosnia.

One of the countries that epitomises the Orwellian style social structure is Turkmenistan. Closed borders to foreigners is just the beginning. Just getting a transit visa through the country was a headache and involved all kinds of documentation and a large sum of cash!

The visa itself was so restrictive it limited the entry and exit points I was allowed to use, which blew the majority of my plans throughout the country and limited me to checking out Ashghabat, followed by an overnight train to the border town of Turkmenabat.

Nevertheless, Turkmenistan still managed to blow me away.

It wasn’t its beauty, or its architecture. It wasn’t the landscapes, and it most certainly wasn’t the city life in Ashgabat. It was the sense of experiencing something so foreign to me; something I’d never experienced before – the absolute bizarre feeling of being watched and listened to the entire time. This, combined with the desolate emptiness of the city streets made it the eeriest place I’ve ever witnessed.

The train journey was the highlight of my short exploration of Turkmenistan. I was in a sleeper compartment of an old Russian train with two local guys. They were both over the moon to have hit the jackpot – having a foreigner in their carriage!

They were all smiles from the moment I walked in and were eager to share their food and tea with me. I felt welcome and my nerves finally settled.  I broke bread with them and we drank tea. No common language was spoken, which was just fine with me as I suspected recording devices to be placed everywhere anyway.

Our conversations were limited to hand movements and smiles. I pulled my iPod out and was immediately bombarded with masturbation impersonations from one of my new buddies. It seems he was hoping I would have some porn to share with him, and considering I knew that Internet was limited or banned across the country, I was not surprised by this at all. I just had a good laugh and shook my head.

We all lay down and tried to fall asleep as the train rattled along the tracks toward Uzbekistan. I was so lost in thought, I can’t even remember falling asleep.

I’d like to end this chapter on that note – three strangers in a train carriage in the middle of one of the most oppressed and disconnected countries on earth. Without words, without any sort of cultural similarities, we managed to connect and prove that no matter where you are from or what life you have lead, we are all essentially the same.

When you break it all down, we are all human beings and we can adapt to any situation. We broke our bread, enjoyed some warm tea, and found humour in our situation, which we could all share through our laughter. I hope that I left those Turkmen guys with the same impression that they left with me.

I hate that I gave myself to you, I hate that you didn’t care. I hate that I hung myself from the roof over you, and our relationship was never fair. I hate that you betrayed me, when you knew I was so fragile, and I hate that I just needed you to hold me, if only for a while. I hate that I never knew you, because you knew me oh so well, and I hate that I was left with nothing but this bitter taste of hell. I hate that you broke my heart, that you had that power over me, and I hate the fact that you could never see, just exactly how deeply, you destroyed me.

It is fitting that this chapter began in the Azeri city of Baku. 

‘Baku’ in Japanese mythology is a nightmare devouring spirit that consumes your bad dreams and protects people from evil in the night. 

My dreams and heart were haunted in the days preceding my arrival in Iran, and as the days ran thin, my mind grew; sleep grew deeper. It was almost as if a Baku was looking out for me in those final days.

There was a lot of hype around the ‘revolution’ in Iran in the weeks building up to our arrival. Government advisories were labeling it a ‘no go’ zone and all the online forums advised against any travel to the country. Considering the fact that it was all that stood between where I was in Azerbaijan, and where I needed to be in Central Asia, they were going to have to give me a better excuse to not go to Iran if they wanted to stop me.

Regardless of my own common sense, upon my arrival in a small town named Astara, just across the Iranian border, I started to feel a bit nervous. Having been told for so many years that the Middle East was a dangerous place filled with savages, and with the media portraying Muslims as these aggressive Western-hating sociopaths, one can’t just block all those images out, no matter how absurd they really were.

After taking an overnight train and working my way through the insane Azeri/Iranian border with the celebrity status I was starting to get used to in this part of the world as a rare white man from the West, I was faced with the usual reality of the nightmare that is public transport. I managed to grab a couple of oranges, bananas, and some nuts before jumping on the only bus that was heading to Esfahan. I do not recall how long the bus took, but it was overnight, and I did not sleep a wink.

Esfahan was one of the jewels in the crown of this trip. It had drawn me to Iran before any other city or sight in the country, and as the bus stumbled it’s way down the main street as the sun rose I started to feel an excitement rush over me.

There were scheduled protests in Esfahan in the days before I arrived, and Western journalists and some of the more passionate locals had been detained, so there was an element of danger in the air. I wasn’t going to let any of it stand in my way..

You know what? Fuck it. 

I can barely remember my time in Iran. I was detached almost the entire time because my girlfriend back in Australia was slowly tearing my soul apart. My mind was so lost in thoughts of her that I can barely remember anything. I have sworn to write honestly and from my heart and I can’t just sit here and write a recount based on what I can piece together in my head. I can’t even remember the order of how things happened!

I read the initial paragraphs of this post and I am bored. How fucking boring. 

Time to throw some life into this blog again. I’ll just blast through the sights and sounds.

Esfahan was beautiful. I would even go as far as using the word stunning. There’s something magical about Persia, the architecture, the people, the lifestyle. It was one of the greatest nations on earth at one point and I could definitely see why as I walked the streets of Esfahan. Internet is border line banned in Iran, so getting in touch with my girlfriend was proving difficult, and considering we weren’t exactly on good terms, it made life frustrating. I just hoped that she had it in her to wait for me.

Brown. That’s the word I would use to describe Yazd, another beautiful town in Iran I spent some time in. Everything was made from a mud like substance called adobe. There were hundreds of little alleyways running between dome shaped buildings, minarets, and mosques covered in incredible mosaics. I ate many a delicious felafel while in Yazd, as you can never go wrong with a good felafel pocket.

Shiraz was next, honestly it was kind of a let down. I had been looking forward to it but nothing really blew me away. I spent a lot of time walking the streets alone, which was something we weren’t really supposed to do at such a fragile time. I was playing with fire really, I was feeling down and I couldn’t have cared less if I’d been arrested. Perhaps I was looking for something to take my mind off my mind! 

Persepolis was very cool. It was in better condition than I thought it would be. I love the history behind it as well. Xerxes ruled Persepolis in his prime, and for those of you who don’t know who Xerxes is, watch the movie 300 and you will figure it out. Come to think of it, if you have to watch the movie 300 to know who Xerxes is, it’s time to start reading books, and find something in your life that you see as unproductive in the grand scheme of things and stop doing it.

Last was Mashhad, and only just now am I remembering that Mashhad was actually before Shiraz. See what is happening here? I’m forcing myself to write about something that I don’t even care about and here we are. I am literally just tapping keys for the sake of tapping keys and you are probably reading this thinking ‘Why the fuck did I think following this guy’s blog was a good idea?’

The most probable reason that I forgot Mashhad was before Shiraz is because of the reason that it was. I had to catch an overnight bus from Yazd to Mashhad to drop my passport into the embassy of Turkmenistan, then jump straight back on a twenty hour bus to Shiraz, then jump back on another twenty hour bus to Mashhad to pick up my passport with a Turkmenistan transit visa inside. It was awful. I do not suggest this option to anyone thinking of following in my footsteps. Do Shiraz first and just deal with the seven to ten day wait for your visa in Mashhad. Mashhad itself is boring as bat shit aside from the extravagant mosque, but as I found out upon arrival, it’s too sacred for non Muslims to enter anyway. 

Which leads me to the end of this god awful post about nothing in particular. 

I was going to write about how women in Iran are amazing, how they’re so generous and friendly, how they are nothing like the west portrays them to be. I was going to then go onto a rant on how equality and freedom are ambiguous, and how I really can’t say for sure if women in our culture are better or worse off than the women in Iran. There are strong arguments for both sides really. But instead of writing all of this, since I am really only writing for the sake of writing, I will leave you with this picture that I really think says it all anyway. 

Have a long hard think about this one girls, and I will be sure to tackle this subject once I get my brain back into gear.

I once met a wise man who never knew if he was asleep or awake. He could not tell me for sure if I was a part of his reality. He told me that when he lay down to rest, he would wake up in his bed – one day would be one bed, the other would be the bed, which I was now sitting on.

   He lead two lives, perfectly and simultaneously. He would wake up feeling refreshed every time, because one of these realities was a dream and therefore meant he was getting a good night’s rest every night. I watched him fall asleep and I watched him wake; seven days I watched him. Every day he’d tell me about what he’d done in his other reality and I would sit attentively, taking in everything he said.

   As the days passed I started to question him.

    “I watch you fall asleep every night, and wake up every morning, and I am telling you that this is reality, and the other world is a dream. So why don’t you believe me?”

   He smiled and replied “That is exactly what you told me the other day.”

I had never mentioned it before so I enquired further,

    ”I have never said that before, what are you saying?”

   His reply changed everything I ever thought I knew. His words will echo throughout the rest of my life.

   “Every single morning this week I have woken up to you sitting by my bed, every single morning, in this reality, and the other. You have already asked this question, and you have already exclaimed that this is reality, so how do you expect me to believe that you are the one who is real, and the other you is a dream?”

   How did I know? I guess I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. Our glasses are not full, they are empty. Our knowledge is not vast, it is limited.

   Our very existence could just be the dream of an old man and all of us, just characters created within his subconscious, playing out our lives.

There is a rabbit hole Alice,

and I think that it is time for you to tumble down it..

It’s not patriotic to go to another country and get paid to kill foreign men you have no real quarrel with. Patriotism is having love for your country. If any of the soldiers who blindly follow the orders of a few evil men were really patriots, they would turn on their government and use their numbers and their strength to bring about a much needed change in their own country. The only patriotic soldier is the one who fights to protect his country and his friends and family, not the soldier who kills without reason, just because he is told to. 

If you have to leave your country to fight your enemy, you’re not being patriotic. If you fight an enemy that poses absolutely no threat to your country, then you’re not a hero, you’re just a slave obeying a master.

I believe in the power of violence, it’s one of my more controversial beliefs, but along with that belief comes a very deep seeded hatred for senseless and unnecessary uses of violence.

War without reason is just a massacre. Wake the fuck up.

I only know violence.

The only truth is pain.

I tried to wash away this misery.

But help, it never came.

Oh sweet apathy, please wash over me. 

Feed me your warmth and then consume me.

Tasteless taste buds, taste this bitterness.

Swallow me whole.

Drown my soul.

Cold.

“When I look back at it, my life was full of failures.

My accomplishments have all been petty and insignificant.

The tale of one’s life is decided by how it ends.

I lived believing that my failures would build character, and that they were trials that honed my skills.

And in return I would accomplish a deed so great that it would obliterate all of my failures, and I’d die a death worthy of a true shinobi.”

- Jiraiya

Honesty it seems, is a lost concept.

Everyone is always trying to save face, trying to manipulate, or trying to gain for themselves somehow. Selfishness has replaced sincerity. It’s now to the point that dropping your guard and letting the world look inside your mind is merely a trait of the mentally insane. While conforming has become a trait of the sane.

Well I can tell you now, I am out of my god damn mind if you ask any modern psychologist, because honesty is what separates me from the rest of the sane.

I write from my heart, I share my soul with the world without fear of consequence. Because I genuinely believe that if everyone else did the same, the entire structure of our time would collapse and give birth to a new era. An era of honesty, honour, and loyalty. Three traits I find in fewer and fewer people I meet around the world.

Those of you reading this are relating to my words, inside you are agreeing, you may even applaud my words. But here’s my question for you;

Are you going to applaud me and then drop back in line?

Or are you going to step out of line and make a stand. Make a stand for honesty, for change, stand up for what you believe and deal with the consequences?

I doubt it.

You want honesty?

I have been fighting depression my whole life. I have felt out of place and alone from as far back as I can remember. I have been lost in the darkness without a safety line and still managed to drag myself back to the light.

I have travelled the world high and low and the most substantial thing I have learnt is that I am not alone. There are people in this world who suffer my fate. These people are the most interesting people I have had the privilege of sharing my time with. There’s a special bond us mentally insane share, and I truly believe it is us who see the truth of this world. Us who feel so deeply, deeply enough to let the sorrow consume us, and push us to the edge, from this point we have all seen the world for what it really is.

If you have been to hell and back then you can relate to me. If life has beaten you to the ground so many times that you wake up feeling battered and bruised, you’re not alone.

This post is a call to all of you who feel alone, know that you aren’t, and I am living proof that there’s still hope.

There are so many terrible things going on in the world. How about we all get together and do something about it? We can’t sit around waiting for someone else to do it. I can tell you now, if we can amass a small army, I’ll be on the front line.

 It’s time we collapse the banks, overthrow corrupt governments and change the world before it’s too late for us. We are the future, our generation can’t just be another generation lost to silence and conformity.

The internet, video games, television, drugs and alcohol, these things are just meaningless distractions. The entire work all week and party all weekend culture in itself. These are political tools used to control and subdue the masses.

Haven’t you noticed how in this day and age the majority of people only see their friends when they’re intoxiated and won’t even remember the time they spent together. The general public no longer get together and discuss things of substance, nobody speaks of change or what they agree or disagree with. These days it’s just who can take the most pills or drink the most shots and having ‘wild’ nights because that’s what you do when you’re young right?

Wrong.

We have the biggest uphill battle ahead of us because of these things, but the internet has also given birth to an opportunity for a worldwide revolution. I probably sound insane and radical to most who read this, but I’m glad of it, because you’re just the reason our society has reached this point, you’re lying to yourself and that’s the saddest for you.

Anyone who is reading this and feeling inspired, do something about it. Spread word of my blog, reblog this, post your own words, talk with your friends. If you aren’t a part of the solution, you’re just another part of the problem. I’m drawing the line.

Wake up world. Fuck the system.