Who: Anyone who enjoys dramatic cityscapes and mountain views

When: Mon. to Sun. 7 am - Midnight

Where: Peak Tram Terminus on Garden Street

Why: Because sometimes there's a reason for the crowd

How: MTR Red Line to Central Station, follow the signs up 
Garden Street to The Peak Tram Lower Terminus

[Soundtrack by sudafunkaz under Creative Commons Copyright]
[Cover photo with title by TrevPhotos]

In a recent forum post, the question was raised: How can I deal with loneliness when I'm traveling by myself? The original poster had just embarked on her first 9-month adventure drifting solo around the globe, and although she had set out with the intent of traveling alone, after spending the first 2 weeks in South Africa, she was beginning to feel lonely. 

It's true, when you are traveling, there is a difference between being alone and being lonely. But especially at the beginning of the trip, feelings like these can be trying, and all the more so for those of us who are extremely social by nature.  

I do not claim to be an expert on the matter, but the question posed raised a lot of thoughts in my mind. In my small opinion, here are just 3 tips that I've found helpful when dealing with those occasional feelings of loneliness. 

Finding out news of what's going on at home while you're away can either be joyful or shocking, and sometimes both. As travelers, when it comes to staying in touch we may have limited resources at hand, and we usually hear of these big events by unconventional means. But the main thing is not necessarily how we stay in the loop, but whether or not we actually do it.

While I was away in Borneo Malaysia, my sister gave birth in New York. Micah-Kai Brandstrom came into this world at 8 lbs 3 oz in a hospital on Long Island at the same time that I was getting on an AirAsia aircraft departing Kota Kinabalu International Airport, Malaysia. 

I didn't find out about my nephew's birth until after my 10 hour plane-slash-bus ride-transit, which brought me home to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I heard about it on Facebook.

For some of us, the drive to trek across this vast globe is something that cannot be subdued, a desire almost impossible to deny. For others, satisfaction is found in the knowledge that they have a home, a family, a place to call theirs. The latter is the necessary bond that holds our world together, while the former is the necessary drive that expands its boundaries.

A person is like a pixel made up of individual thoughts and experiences. The world is a whole made up of individual pixels. 

But the difference between a person and a pixel is that a pixel doesn’t reason on his part of a picture; whereas a person will ponder, sometimes for decades, on his individual contribution to the whole world.

To think that a single red pixel could even come to the realization that he is a part of a rainbow is impossible. 

On the other hand, to think that a person could never come to the conclusion that he is a smaller part of a bigger whole is equally as preposterous. 

A pixel will never, at some point in it’s minute existence, strive for a sense of place. It’s just there in it’s place. It asks no questions. It’s content just to be. But a person will question his existence.

There comes a time in an individual person’s life when he will ask himself, “Where do I belong?” 

For some the answer is simple. His place may be to stay and be and be satisfied. 

No longer striving for a sense of place, but instead simply finding contentment in his place. 

He asks, answers and he finds his place, a community to care for and nurture as his own. 

But this very person had to ask before finding the answer, and this sets an individual such as this as something far different from a pixel.

And then you have the individual who finds the answer to that question by taking a different route. 

Some say that such a person is making it uneccessarily difficult to come to a conclusion, while others sit back and admire his daring creativity. 

But in any case, such a person asks himself the same question as his fixed-person counterpart, "Where do I belong?" 

But this time, this individual realizes that he cannot be like a fixed-person, but rather he knows that he'll find the answer to that question somewhere else other than in his current place. 

So he removes himself from his relative station and searches for a new place, a place where he can feel like he finally belongs. He'll take his time in tasting the rainbow, feeling every color and sensing every shade until he finds something that fits. 

This is in no way any better or worse than the person who has decided to remain fixed. It's just another way for a person to find his individual sense of place.

But to think that a red pixel could possibly uproot itself from it’s designated spot on the rainbow and rearrange himself in among the yellow’s is amusing, and at the same time disturbing. Because then the red pixel alongside a fellow yellow pixel would throw off the rainbow as a whole. 

Technically, the rainbow would no longer be true to itself because it’s yellow part would have something that seemed like an orange smudge due to the misplaced red pixel, and as we all know, a rainbow with an orange smudge is no longer a true rainbow. 

If a red pixel were to even think of pulling something like that off, than the whole picture would be an unreality, and the world as we know it would at best need to be revamped, and at worst, fall apart. 

But I guess that's why a pixel cannot reason on it’s part of a picture to begin with. But persons can.

A person can ponder and decide to remain fixed, become a part of the firm foundation that supports the world. 

Or a person could find himself pushing the boundaries of the known, discovering that he's better fit among the ‘yellows’ rather than the ‘reds’. 

And if not, he can move on into the ‘blues’ and the ‘greens‘. Sooner or later, he will have found something that fits, for at least a bit. He’ll call that home and build a place and be content with his individual answer to the question, “Where do I belong?” 

He will have ultimately found his place, a place to make his mark, a way to contribute in his small way his individual part to the whole picture. 

His place will inevitably be different from where he first began, but the world will still be whole. It will be changed in very subtle ways, because where he is now is not exactly where he was before, and this will have inadvertently affected the other parts of the whole around him. 

But it will all still make up an ever changing yet constant reality.

And so, as far as pixels and persons are concerned, they both serve a common purpose. Their purpose is to play individual parts of an ultimate whole. 

A person is like a pixel held together by unique thoughts and experiences. The world is like a picture composed of individual pixels. 

But the difference between a person and a pixel is that a pixel's place is fixed in it's predetermined position, while an person’s place is yet to be determined by the individual’s personal thoughts and experiences.

And now we ask you: Which do you identify with?