Look at that video above. That is a perfect example of a dream come true – which I’m all about. What I did there was a figment in the human imagination at one point. Then, time passed, and it became an idea, that idea became a dream, and that dream a reality for thousands of people, including myself.

I have gone from a quiet, withdrawn, and – let’s be honest, suicidal – person (following the death of my Dad at age 11), to someone that can see the endless beauty in all forms of life. Falling through the sky over Switzerland was the first time I ever cried out of joy. It was the first time I was willing let everything go to embrace the world. It was the first time I realized that anything is possible, that love is everywhere, and that neither death nor life are to be feared.

This may be a simple realization to you’re average person, but I’ve battled displacement and cultural hybridization, homelessness and near-death experiences most of my life. Throughout, I’ve managed to not only survive, but thrive within the consequences of change. And you know how? I gave up. I stopped caring. I slung the bullshit and focused on sharing what I consider the core of human existence: love, freedom, beauty, peace, and bliss at its purest. And I wouldn’t change a minute of it if I could. Without faith in my very own existence and awareness of how I impact the world on a daily basis I wouldn’t be who I am today: a skydiving, joy-crying, creative, and loved vagabond philosophizer!

So next time you get bored, just think of all the ideas, dreams, and images swirling around in your head and make some magic happen. Stop rationalizing them away; stop saying you don’t have time. You do. Beautiful changes are happening all around you. Join in. We’ll shed a tear together.

I have always liked to engage in something my mother often refers to as “thrill seeking behavior.”

In the fifth grade, I ran away for the first time. Equipped with a kitchen knife, lighter, frying pan, the melted down remains of my mother’s old wedding ring, and a pack of Oscar Meyer’s bacon I furiously pedaled my Huffy bike through the backside of our massive suburban neighborhood. My plan, only hours old, was one purely based on a single attribute: survival. My best friend Aaron, who had been riding with me, suddenly stopped his bike. ”This is as far as I can go, Pierre. I have to head back home.” We bid each other farewell at the new part of the subdivision where all the bad kids lived. I was rolling solo now, and started reviewing the plans in my head.

“Find a good spot to camp out in the field behind Winn-Dixie. I have enough food for a couple of days. If I can’t find a way to get enough money to buy food, I can steal it from the grocery store. Winn-Dixie is too close to home, but I can come up with a better plan once I get there. Find a pawn shop so you can get money for the gold.”

Crouched down in the high reeds, I cooked my bacon and kept a look out for the search party that would undoubtedly come looking for me. I spent one long cold night camped out behind our local neighborhood grocery store. Blankets! Why the hell didn’t I think it was going to be cold outside? Suburban kids are stupid y’all. Anyway, I realized that blankets were going to be an essential to my new lifestyle so I headed back to the place that I promised never to return to again, in search of proper supplies.

Between bushes, over fences, and through back yards I forged an off-the-grid path that only a neighborhood kid would be able to follow. Ultimately, I was captured only a short distance from my house, neglecting to take into account one of my pal’s stay-at-home mother. At elementary school graduation, while other kids received awards for their educational prowess and musical abilities, I had been given the “The Fugitive Award” much to my classmates amusement. True story.

But this was only the beginning. Who knew that this was a developing personality trait that would refine itself over the next 17 years. I ran away twice more before the end of high school, making it further and further away from home each time. By the age of 20 I had found like-minded individuals and was packing my bags to go live in Charleston, South Carolina, a place that I had only been to once before. Me and my pals didn’t have jobs, we didn’t really know what the job market was like, all we knew is that we were getting the fuck out of Atlanta and heading towards the beach. By 25, I was en route to New York. Again with no job in place, but extremely determined to make it work.

Going Hobo Chic

My most recent bout of “thrill seeking behavior” started earlier this year. My best friend from high school asked me what I thought about visiting Seoul, South Korea, where he’s been living for the past four years. “Honestly man, if I can make it all the way to South Korea I’ll probably try to stay,” I said at some point. And it was on.

New York had already hardened my survival skills and taught me to how to live broke. Now it was time to put all my skills to the test as I prepared for my trip to South Korea. My plan this time was not that far removed from my first foray in the hobo arts. For the next few months I developed a lifestyle that I referred to as “Hobo Chic.” It required meticulous budgeting and constant planning. Crash on a couch one week, house sit the next, rent a sublet when I couldn’t fill in the gaps. Every expense was retooled to for the purpose of saving money. I ditched the 5 dollar foot longs at lunch and started cooking everything I ate. Weekly grocery shopping trips started to become a game to see how cheaply I could eat. I volunteered at the gym, putting the $100 membership back in my pocket every month. I told the Metropolitan Transit Authority what they could do with their $2.25 subway fare when I bought a bike and started commuting to work again. By the time I was packing my bags for Seoul I had been sleeping in a tent in a Prospect Heights sublet for a month. I know all of this probably sounds ridiculous, but it was one of the best times of my life. I felt so free: corporate cog by day, hobo extraordinaire by night.

It’s almost essential that everyone who went to school at Portfolio Center make a reference to this at some point in time, so here’s mine. A wise woman named Sylvia told us all at least two things that we would think hard about for the duration of our time in school.

#1. The journey is the destination

#2. Enjoy the struggle

It took me a while, but I think I finally hear you now, Sylvia.

Hello! I’m the third cast member to be selected for season 8. Right now I “live” in Seoul, South Korea, but I’ve only really been here for a month. Before I came to Seoul I had been living and working in New York. I’ll get you guys all caught up on who I am and what the hell I’m doing here in Korea a little bit later. Right now things are really busy with Jet Set Zero and trying to make preparations for our journey. I’m just going to leave you this recent adventure of me trying to find a pre-paid cellphone card in South Korea. Later!

As I look ahead to the next season of JS0, I look back on how this wanderlust started – and consider the value of a good story.

How did you catch the travel bug?

Prior to this whole JS0 thing I had never had roommates, lived on campus in a dorm or ever shared a living space with anyone other than a girlfriend or my family ever before. Moving into an apartment in Quito and living with 4 other strangers under one roof was an adventure in and of itself.  I loved the experience and got to meet some pretty amazing people that I will never forget.  Here is a little bit on my friend Laurene. She is an interesting person and I’m sure you will love her just as much as we all do.

(more…)

Jenna

1. Jenna hated Quito until two months ago when, to everyone’s surprise, she declared she was in love with the city and didn’t want to leave. Loving a foreign city doesn’t always come easy but persistence goes a long way. Our hats off to you, Jenna!

2. She excels at being a waitress. She loves the job and is great at befriending guests. There’s no doubt she will be missed at Uncle Ho’s.

3. Jenna bought a can of pepper spray and a whistle within a month after landing in Quito. Fortunately, she hasn’t felt the urge nor the need to use them.

4. An aspiring pastry chef, a funny joke teller, a light-on-her-feet dancer and a silent sleeper, Jenna is the perfect traveling companion.

5. Since we set foot upon Ecuadorian soil, she has been obsessed with Ayahuasca. What is it? Some say it is a sacred beverage usually prepared by and for shamans seeking guidance or wanting to foresee the future. Others say it’s a drug which, despite all the vomiting, gives you the best high. Jenna did A LOT of research on the subject and hopes to set upon an Ayahuasca spiritual journey.

6. Jenna is “looking for the truth.” May Ayahuasca help her fulfill this quest.

7. Another of Jenna’s obsessions since we arrived in Ecuador is Twilight/New Moon/Eclipse. It’s been a big joke all season long and, at some point, we have all joined her to watch RPATZ fighting the werewolves. Unforgettable, especially when Ryan fastfowarded the movie- dubbed in Spanish- to “get to the good parts.” Team Edward or Team Jacob? It’s a hard call…

I don’t quite know what to say.

When the Jet Set Zero team – a team I am now fortuitously part of – first expressed even the slightest interest in me just a couple months ago, I cried. (Fine! I admit it, I’m emo.) As a sensitive, filmmaker, photographer, writer, artist type, I have been known to shed a few tears, but this was different. The usual awkward facial contortions were absent, the smile was not crooked, my brow un-furrowed – the tears just fell. This was fate. This was years of travel, beginning when I moved to Mexico at age 6, and endless revolutions in the evolution of my authentic self all coming to a head. I could just feel it.

Nowhere in the email I received did anything confirm my emotional production as at all valid. It was a feeling. A feeling that proved that my past couple years of trauma, displacement, homelessness, and the delicate balancing act I mustered to keep myself afloat was all paying off.

I’ll sum it up for you:

• In 2007 I volunteered in Kenya…
• Campaigned with a Maasai Member of Parliament candidate…
• Returned home renewed…
• Turned on the news…
• Kenya’s election has turned violent…
• My friends in Kenya, including the MP, are beaten, displaced, and one child I met dies…
• Me: “I need to do something”…
• I create A Chance for Peace – a documentary film to show that Kenyans are capable of peace…
• I lose myself within this process…
• I film back in Kenya for 1 month with one other team member and no plan other than to make some magic happen and to represent the Kenyan voice. Simple enough, right? (Right.)
• I return feeling blessed to finally feel I have a home and not just a place to live…
• My place to live catches fire and burns down 1 week later. After my birthday party. Woot.
• I’m homeless and displaced, myself, for 11 months…
• I find a home…
• Struggle to graduate after they suspend my major and cut off my financial aid…
• I set out to travel California…
• I search for jobs…
• Send Jet Set Zero probably the most unprofessional email of my life…
• And four days later I cry out of bliss for the second time in my whole life.

So now what? I no longer have school to tie me down. No reason to prove my intelligence on issues I have lived off the written page anyway. I have accepted that my home is where my heart is – and my heart just so happens to be too big for social conformism. So now what? Now it’s time to take flight, but this time to find myself and create my own chance for peace, Jet Set Zero-style.

Such is the life for me.

Check out a visual autobiography on my blog, Lessons from a Vagabond

1. He’s an impulse buyer. Knives, llama sweaters, ski masks, you name it. If it catches his eye (or glitters in the sunlight), you can bet his stash of cash is going down. Again. That said, he’s become an expert haggler. $17 technicolor hoodie? He’ll get it for $12.

2. He taught himself to play “Earth Angel” on a $24 mini guitar he bought off the street.  He also scrawled “Save Yourselves” with a permanent marker on the guitar and then wondered about making it through airport security.

3. He constantly threatens to pop his shirt off but has yet to deliver. Speaking of shirtless, he starts every sentence with “So…my brother Derek…you should see his abs..” He draws stick figures of his brother Derek on our apartment’s dry erase board – complete with six-pack abs – just to hammer the point home.

4. He wears his headphones everywhere – and pretends he can’t hear what we’re saying to him.

5. He often walks into the elevator – and forgets to push the button.

6. He decided to give away the skateboards he brought to Quito to two skaters he met in a neighboring town within 15 minutes of meeting them.

7. He planned to get a $35 suit made just so he could order a Whopper while wearing it.