Lost the Plot Yet?

[Bpuumike]

Go 'home' and do what? And who with?

[FolkGuitar]

Go 'home' and do what? And who with?

If a person isn't content within themselves, the problem isn't going to be solved by going to the bar and sitting with strangers. It's only going to get covered up for a short while. At some point one has to go home and be alone. We need to be content and comfortable with that before we can begin to really live. The question really is; how does one become content within themselves? It's a different answer for everyone.

[northernjohn]

It's not 'where' you live.

It's 'how' you live.

How cliche.

Living in prison isn't the problem, it's how you use your time. ...or, It isn't about living in a slum in Manila, it's how you live in a Manila slum.

Thailand give you the tools to slide into bad habits much easier than in your home country. The only limits on your behavior here are the ones you set for yourself.

People make achievements, both personal and acknowledged in situations as dire as slums and prisons, so cliche or not, it's true.

Besides, I think most of us can understand that we're talking about situations where people have made choices of their own free will. People don't choose to live in slums and few people choose to go to prison, even though there's a valid argument that they chose to commit a crime that could be punishable with jail time. I don't agree that using situations so extreme and not related to the original topic and intention is fair or valid.

Right on. I had reason to be doing a workshop in a Burmese refuge camp. I asked for a brief look around and the NGO I was doing it for got one of the residents who could speak Enlish to show me around.

Not a place one would choose to live in. Yet he was happy he was in his early 20s and going to school to learn English and what ever else he would need to know to fulfil his hope of going to America. He was very happy to have a roof over his head and a chance to learn things.

[PoodMaiDai]

If you have self destructive tendencies, you will lose the plot no matter where you are. SE Asia just speeds up the process a little.

[PoodMaiDai]

It's not 'where' you live.

It's 'how' you live.

How cliche.

Living in prison isn't the problem, it's how you use your time. ...or, It isn't about living in a slum in Manila, it's how you live in a Manila slum.

Thailand give you the tools to slide into bad habits much easier than in your home country. The only limits on your behavior here are the ones you set for yourself.

Well said.

Usually in your home country someone will tell you no, you've had enough, or that you're losing it. Here... not going to happen. Everyone around you will usually let you take it to the limit, and do so with a smile.

[junglechef]

I live a less destructive and healthier life here than I did in the USA. Perhaps age and having a child has lots to do with it by filling some of the emptiness in my life. People change or have the ability to wherever they.

[NCC1701A]

sex is healthy. drugs and drinking is not.

[junglechef]

I live a less destructive and healthier life here than I did in the USA. Perhaps age and having a child has lots to do with it by filling some of the emptiness in my life. People can change or have the ability to wherever they are.

[Ulysses G.]

sex is healthy. drugs and drinking is not.

Agreed - as long as your wrap your willy.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Ulysses G.

[Ron19]

sex is healthy. drugs and drinking is not.

Agreed - as long as your wrap your willy.

I don't know whether that is such a good idea because

[Berkshire]

Asia has a long history of chewing up aging expats and spitting them out. Unlimited booze, sex and sun too often turn into isolation, alienation and despair, the old be careful what you wish for.

I'm not sure if the unlimited booze and sex is the problem. It's when the aging (or young for that matter) expat runs out of money and can no longer partake in the unlimited booze and sex. That's when the bitterness sets in.

[AnotherOneAmerican]

Not sure I ever knew what the plot was.

But if I had ever possessed it, I would have lost it by now.

[narkeddiver]

Lost - 1 Plot

If found please return to narked diver, c/o thaivisa.com

[Trujillo]

"Go home"?

I have spent more time in Asia than my birth country. What "home" should I go to? My passport only shows where I was born.

One might concentrate on the "<deleted> will I do in my retirement years?" syndrome.

Sure, some thrive here (and I mean men; how many Western women do you see coming here to retire? There's a lot to be gleaned from that...), but quite a few settle into the living with a younger woman from a culture you don't fully understand, with whom you can't fully communicate (certainly not the full range and depth one would have in one's home country) and taking care of her kid(s) or sprogging one yourself (new daddy at 65, woo-hoo!), living in a house on land you don't actually own with relatives you don't understand at all pecking at you while you contemplate raising chickens....or, you have a bird of some sort (seems like most do, although there are lone wolves out there), but you generally hang out (at home, on the porch?) getting kaylied all the time and not giving a flying fig.

And then there is, like the Google ad I keep getting on Thaivisa (an NSA trick?) for "5 signs you'll get Alzheimer's," is, well....dementia....I think that's, well...uh...what were we talking about?

[mesquite]

"Go home"?

I have spent more time in Asia than my birth country. What "home" should I go to? My passport only shows where I was born.

One might concentrate on the "<deleted> will I do in my retirement years?" syndrome.

Sure, some thrive here (and I mean men; how many Western women do you see coming here to retire? There's a lot to be gleaned from that...), but quite a few settle into the living with a younger woman from a culture you don't fully understand, with whom you can't fully communicate (certainly not the full range and depth one would have in one's home country) and taking care of her kid(s) or sprogging one yourself (new daddy at 65, woo-hoo!), living in a house on land you don't actually own with relatives you don't understand at all pecking at you while you contemplate raising chickens....or, you have a bird of some sort (seems like most do, although there are lone wolves out there), but you generally hang out (at home, on the porch?) getting kaylied all the time and not giving a flying fig.

And then there is, like the Google ad I keep getting on Thaivisa (an NSA trick?) for "5 signs you'll get Alzheimer's," is, well....dementia....I think that's, well...uh...what were we talking about?

Yep, that's what we're talking about.

[canuckamuck]

Certainly when I return to my home country I am astonished at what people consider important or interesting.

This probably a sign that some will say I lost the plot when I leave.

I prefer my own plot because the one they sell you in your youth is pointless and makes you blind to finding satisfaction.