email excerpt to R:

You know me well so you enjoy reading about my adventures and understand what I want to say. You even understand what I don't understand. I don't know about other readers. But do I really care about the other readers? As an artist, all you want is to express, and hopefully a few souls will find connection with you through your work. I don't know whom my readers would be. But I know I don't want to become a pop writer. I should start being more serious, or otherwise people will expect you to be popular and you lose your soul.

Maybe this whole trip is just about someone experiencing life in a different environment and among different people, and along the way learning something about life? What have I learned about life? That it should be truthful, be open, be earnest, be passionate? I was always so attracted to the passion of the locals. But I don't know if this theme is not grand enough. Will see how the story goes. I don't even know. And I don't want to gear my writing toward any definite direction.