A realization being 82 and back from 5 weeks travel adventure in Asia…
As much as I love ‘adventure’, I believe I’ve reached the st(age) of life where I prefer to remain at home. Being away showed me that I have learned to love my routines; treating each daily unchanging task — each ‘chore’ — as a ‘craft’ to be learned; skillfully improved and refined. How ironic to be sent on excursion while on coastal Sri Lanka — as in dry Rajasthan India — to watch another village potter work his clay. Always the same routine, performed without tedium or boredom; always calmly displaying a subliminal pride. An alternate neural network had come into play, giving the potter an identical sense of forward movement and surprise as found in any adventure. I longed to be back in my potter-like routines…
Travel promotes new experience; not new neurogenesis.
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ChatGPT: Turn the above text into a standard 14 line sonnet.
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<Thought about travel, routines, and change for 25 seconds>
A Sonnet on the Love of Home and Routine
At eighty-two, I find my longing's changed;
Though once I roamed in far and distant lands,
Now by my quiet hearth I feel arranged,
To savor daily tasks in humble hands.
I watch the potter shape his sacred clay,
Revealing calm that never yearns to roam.
Unhurried ritual sees no dull day,
And beckons me again to claim my home.
For even chores reveal a hidden glow,
Where mind expands in rhythms newly mined.
Surprise in each repeated motion slow,
A gentle dance where skill meets soul refined.
Thus travel grants but fleeting novelty,
While home ensures my calm tranquility.