Morocco

It never occurred to me that I would spend so much of my time in a car, driving in the world’s out of the way places. Nor did I plan it, at least not precisely. But I do see life as a complex construction. Each and every experience becomes a block on which something, anything, can be built.

The conventional wisdom says that it’s best to know your path before you embark on it. From this perspective, you should have a life plan. And you should follow it step by step to its long-announced, well-known, carefully planned conclusion. This is couch potato philosophy, espoused by people who have never met a circumstance they hadn’t scheduled, for whom tap dancing around an unforeseen circumstance would cause conniptions.

I believe the opposite: the best way to go about living life is to take each option as it comes, regardless, or perhaps especially, if you don’t know where the outcome will lead you. In fact, in my view, the less predictable the outcome, the better. The key is to choose those things that, by their very nature, offer the widest possible range of endings. Tap that first step and see what sort of dance you can do.

I have never gone wrong with this approach. Plenty of times I’ve had an experience that was not all fun and happiness. But I’ve never felt regret for any of the decisions I’ve made, even when my hair was gummed with dust and doing laundry was a dream from another life.

Take, for example, our first driving trip, in which we wandered for five days through Morocco.

My dispatches from the road are full of interesting details. To sign up for my Dispatches Newsletter click HERE. If you have questions about where we went and where we stayed, post below and I will reply.