Thursday. Feeling slightly better but still not great. Over the entire thing.
Haven’t gone to yoga in two days because of the congestion issue. Instead I’ve been sitting in front of a screen planning an impromptu trip to Goa, India to take a 200hr Yoga Teacher Training course. The math is mathing, ya’ll. The stars are weirdly aligning on this one for me. It feels like an absolutely insane thing to do, but it’s actually highly plausible and totally possible. It’s actually the perfect time to go because Monsoon season starts in June so right now is the lower end of the season, meaning significantly less tourists and thus way better prices. Also deals, deals, deals, right and left. The trick is finding the best one.
A visa is cheap and easy to get, but I haven’t started calling around to inquire about the yellow fever vaxx situation. Can I get one of those without health insurance? It’s going to cost a zillion dollars anyway because the US Healthcare System is one giant unregulated scam no matter how you slice it, so whatever. Just let the bill go to collections and hope they write it off, I guess? My credit score got fucked when I paid off my credit card in full (because paying off the debt that was already tanking your score is BAD!!! That’s why we will punish you for being responsible and paying it off by making your score even worse for doing so! Whatever you do is wrong! You lose either way! LOGIC!), so CLEARLY this shit is all a giant scam and no matter what I do, the system will not let me get ahead, so why even bother playing by their rules anymore? Fuck you, America. Give me my yellow fever vaxx and Imma head the fuck out.
I’ve never been anti-vaxx (because I have a History degree and understand how serious plagues were before vaccines came along), but I especially don’t fuck around with things like Yellow Fever. Yellow Fever is literally something out of a horror movie. When I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras 2020 (the irony), the tour guides were all telling the most horrifying stories about Yellow Fever outbreaks taking the city’s population OUT! Terrifying. And guess what? It gets worse! Ever read about the Revolution in Haiti? Yellow Fever was there, fucking everybody’s shit up. Yellow Fever is present in quite a few major historical conflicts in tropical regions. Sometimes they have to stop fighting because there’s an outbreak and it takes out the armies on both sides. You can’t fight each other if disease already killed everyone on both sides! It’s crazy. So, yeah, I don’t care what anyone says, I’m getting the damn vaccine. I don’t play around with Yellow Fever. No way, no how. Besides, I need this vaxx in order to travel to most of the places on this list, so it’s better to just get it out of the way right now.
Otherwise, it’s the flight that’s holding me back. I can’t imagine spending 15 hours on an airplane. Talk about my literal worst NIGHTMARE! I spent a few hours on Kayak yesterday and figured out I can split said flight into two 8 hour flights with a 24hr layover in Paris in between, then take a 4 hr flight from the second city and the cost will come out about the same. It’s really a question of travel time and comfort. Do it all in one go, be humble, and suffer, or take it a little bit slower and enjoy the ride? I don’t know. Am I really passing up to opportunity to spend a random night in Paris right now? What is wrong with me? See what I mean when I say the math is mathing? I checked other European cities, sure, but the one that was most cost effective to fly direct to from my closest major international airport just so happened to be Paris. Hmm. I wonder…
Meanwhile, the cost for this whole escapade so far (including the random Paris excursion) has yet to exceed $3000, which, like I said, is only $500 more than it costs to do a 200-hour YTT course locally. Doing it here would also require me to add in the cost of gas and commute an hour each way, so it would all add up to the same amount anyway. Plus, the course would likely be all Westernized and Midwestified (meaning the spiritual aspects are less emphasized on because some types of conservative Christians think it’s “witchcraft” or “devil worship” or whatever craziness they need to label other religions and spiritual traditions with to scare people into submission to Jesus & the Patriarchy), so I personally think the better investment is to go to India (the birthplace of yoga) and live in a basic-ass hut on the beach and commune with the spiritual energies.
It’s not like it’s *that* big of a commitment, really. We’re talking 30 days here. One month. One month training to be a yoga teacher and I’ll be coming back with a certification I can use to make money. Even I don’t use it, I will have the confidence I need to do literally ANYTHING because it is absolutely insane to just jump on a plane and travel halfway across the world on a whim. That takes some Big Pussy Energy, ya’ll. That is not something for the faint of heart. Literally, if I do this, it will mean that I will be in motherfucking India in two weeks. INDIA. I showed my brother Goa and SD on a map and it is literally on the exact opposite side of the world! Crazy.
Yes, I am actually asking myself if I am going insane right now. Who does this? Who just wakes up one day and says, “My life is a total shitshow. I’m going to go to yoga on a beach somewhere in India and hope it fixes everything. See you in a month.” Seems like a pretty manic thing to do, but apparently people do it all the time! On the other hand, my life is actually a shitshow. Is going to India to get a 200hr YTT certification really any less insane than following Mad Dog around, or banging some random married man I picked up in a dingy bar, or getting wasted at 10am in a gas station casino? Look at my life, look at my choices. Is this really *that* insane when you hold it up to what I was doing before that led me here? Well, when you put it that way…
I don’t know. I need to resolve the question about the vaccine before I move forward. That’s the last piece of my puzzle. Gotta start making some phone calls, I guess. If it works out, there’s a pretty significant chance I might literally just go to India. I have to move some money around to make it happen, but it regenerates on its own over time, and it’s specifically intended for education and personal enrichment, and I think Yoga Teacher Training in India counts as that. It’s definitely making an investment in myself for the future.
I don’t know. This is so crazy. I can’t believe this. I feel like a crazy person. I made an off-hand comment to one of my yoga teachers that I was thinking about doing the YTT, she encouraged me to do it even though I didn’t feel “qualified,” I started doing research, and now… I am seriously thinking about going to India. For real. Why not? Life is short. What else am I gonna do with all my free time? Mosey on down to the local pub and binge eat/drink my feelings away? Bang another old married guy? Get shitfaced and wake up feeling terrible because I can’t remember what I said or did or posted? Fuck that. Yeah, why NOT go to India? Seriously.
Why not?
Seriously?
Why not????