Drawing board

Aww man. My trip has been affected by female company.

I have spent the last few days with my head all over the place. A few things have since become clear.

Firstly - Gili, despite being gorgeous and spunky and full of life is also a rather mixed up monkey. Her head is flying, she is surrounded by an overbearing Israeli posse and I first met her about three days after she had just finished Verpasana which is an intensive ten day meditation course where you can't speak to anyone, you can't leave the building and you can't make eye contact with anyone. For ten days.

Anyway, whatever happened, she went a bit weird on me a couple of days into being in Rishikesh and when I eventually saw her again, she told me the score.

So the bizarre situation is that we continue to share a room and a bed, and yet there is a definite cap to the duration of this affair. Friday or saturday, when she leaves. Definitely without me.

Hmm.

She hasn't done wonders for my confidence (well she did initially) but it has made me question my relationship with strange women in general. I spent weeks chasing after all the beautiful women here - and when I properly got one and she rejected me, it made me wonder what exactly I was looking for. Sex? Well, fair enough. Yes. But I'm starting to realise it is a craving for a comfort zone, or a stability. Perhaps this is understandable when alone in a foreign country. Ok understandable, but unacceptable!

Josh, my guitaring partner avoids women. When I asked him about this he explained that women complicate things. He is very wise this fellow. Twenty years old, full meditation and has no interest in women - unless he finds a 'pure' and 'suitable' one.

Because female attention is addictive. It massages your ego. I had a look in a bookshop today and most of the books were proclaiming meditation as the answer. "Be free from attachments!" they say. Easier said than done - though I guess that's the whole point. It's not easy. It takes a lifetime. But perhaps the first step is to accept your oneness. Your self. You must find peace when alone - feel able to be without company and examine yourself deeply so that you can honestly and truly interact with others.

Hmm. I kinda see this. I always surround myself with people. I make myself popular. I play the guitar for everyone, draw attention to myself and then enjoy walking the streets while everyone says 'hi' to me. Do I actually know these people? No. I was too busy playing the fucking guitar to properly speak to anyone and yet I enjoy the glow of feeling that I know everyone - making connections and little attachments with friendly strangers. I need to develop off-stage Danny.

Female attention huh. It provides drama! It provides some highs and lows. And in the case of this whistlestop affair, it happens far too quickly. When travelling, you don't want to make attachments - you are too busy pleasing yourself, drifting, speaking to randoms. Why should you commit to anything with anyone - especially on a romantic level?

And yet all the fucking books I look at - the wisdom of the ages, religion et al, they all suggest that this kind of arrangement will lead to becoming lost in life. If you constantly seek small but powerful attachments with women, what can you achieve? You will never find peace. And they all suggest meditation.

So meditation it is. I need to do some meditation. I cave in. Maybe I'm not quite ready to incarcerate myself for ten days in a prison-style Verpasana. But I think I need to do something. The idea being that once you know yourself, you can begin to relate to others as yourself.

So I thank Gili for providing some excitement in my trip, albeit far too briefly. She has taught me something about myself that perhaps I needed to know.

And yet I can't help feeling (I fucking know) that if I met a similarly interesting creature whose eyes lit up at mine, I would probably do exactly the same. This is it.