The Adventure is over; I bought a TV.

In the last seven years I've lived in a half dozen countries. When I would intermittently return to the United States and see friends I was always impressed by the entertainment systems they owned. These wide flat screen TVs far outstripped anything that was available a decade prior and put anything my parents had owned before to horrible shame. Beyond that these televisions were accompanied by game systems that I didn't know existed, spectacular DVD collections, and sound systems that could bombard you from every angle.

They were impressive. I wanted them. They stood in stark contrast to the entertainment centers which I'd had in Taiwan or Mainland China. I didn't have any particular desire to watch TV for hours or own a lot of DVDs, and my interest in video games had seriously waned since I discovered that girls weren't just slightly softer versions of boys. Having the ability to spend that much money on things that were nothing more than luxuries was far beyond my means. My salaries in China and Taiwan paid for my rent, food, Mandarin classes, my train and plane tickets to my destination of the month. Owning expensive things that wouldn't fit into a suitcase and then an overhead compartment made me salivate in spite of myself. In a strange reversal I envied the freedom that their sedentary lifestyles gave them to own such devices.

There was the other side to it as well. I could look at a row of DVDs and picture my two weeks in Thailand during Christmas 2007. That sound system might equal my month of backpacking through southwestern China in 2008. The TV itself was probably worth the entirety of my eighteen months of classes at the Taipei Language Institute (shameless plug.) A TV or Mandarin abilities? I'd like to believe that my answer is obvious, but part of me still wanted the TV. I really don't care about professional sports much but I could be entertained by golf on a screen that wide and clear.

I couldn't fly away from a TV like that. It would be the anchor that kept me in the United States. Eventually I had to flee temptation and not let any of my friends know that I was impressed. I tried instead to engage them in conversation while I was at their apartments or show them picture after picture of my travels. Was I showing them pictures to share my adventures with them or to remind myself of why I couldn't have a flat screen? I dunno.

(The Matsu Archipelago)

So going to the Columbus Day sale at Best Buy with the express purpose of buying a 46 inch flat screen felt like a concession. Picking one out was one part glorious and two parts tragic. I finally had my legitimacy: the ability to purchase a space wasting luxury item. I also was admitting that I wasn't about to strap all my possessions on my back and fly to the Matsu Archipelago or Machu Pichu or some girl I met on facebook in Beijing. (Shout out to you if you're reading this, MB.)

That portion of my adventure is over. I try to tell myself that there will be more excitement to come and it'll be different and appropriate to the stage of life that I'm in. I try to remember that if my entire adult life was about exploring villages on islands off of East Asia that I'd never attain the other things that I want in life. Furthermore the Nick that was doing those things knew that it was a season of his life and that's one of the reasons he did them with great abandon. I have to honor him by going forward and a weird part of that is watching the pros swing their way through the back nine at Pebble Beach.