Fiji-Escape TO Reality
South Pacific Field Notes
Foreign Land Fiji Paradise
The Law of Diminishing Returns: what happens when paradise stops feeling rare, the wow factor begins to fade, and Fiji becomes a field test of attention.
Coming home to a place I've never been before.
It's Fee-Gee - Fiji. How did I end up in a place like this? Favoritism.
John Denver visited this island today - Sunshine on My Shoulders.
You can't get any further away before you start coming back. Imagine sailing across the blue waters of the South Pacific, passing idyllic islands teeming with exotic fish and majestic coral reefs. Oh, wait - I don't have to use my imagination because what you see is what you get. Bula.
Field Note - Country Roads
OMG, I'm a Country Boy
A familiar soundtrack lands differently at the far edge of the map.
You can't get any further away before you start coming back. South Pacific field note
The Calibration Problem
The Law of Diminishing Returns
The more you experience something, the less effective the same dose can become.
It is the theory that the more you experience something, the less effective it becomes. Think of the drug addict who needs more and more drugs just to achieve the same high.
Beyond that point, more and more gains in any one particular area add less and less to happiness.
So, in a sense, you can have too much of a good thing. The more you experience the good thing, your overall happiness can decline.
You know, addiction isn't the problem - it's the solution. When all you care about is here, this is a good place to be. Original Fiji caption
EGOnomics 101
Larger Doses of Paradise
Bora Bora. Moorea. Fiji. The destination escalates while the nervous system adapts.
I am needing larger and larger DOSES of paradise - Bora Bora, Moorea, now Fiji - to get the same feeling I had when I simply visited Europe or even Canada.
It's STILL working!
The question underneath the joke is more serious: if the extraordinary becomes the baseline, do you keep increasing the dose, or do you restore the ability to notice?
The 405 Test
Escape to My Reality
When the wow factor weakens, contrast still tells the truth.
Fiji has over 300 islands. I have seen about 25 so far this trip. I'm concerned that "the wow factor" no longer applies.
Yet if I take an imaginary ride down Southern California's Carmageddon - Interstate 405 - breathe in some smog while stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I still want to escape to MY reality: being in the South Pacific.
I love the Free Parking for all boats, ships and anything that floats.
What you see is what you get. Bula. The original signal still survives the repetition
Connections
The Golden Thread
The island is not the lesson. The changing instrument is you.
Country Roads, distance, homecoming, and another view of Fiji as Foreign Land.
Foreign Land is where the inherited map stops working and perception has to become operational again.
The environment changes the observer. The elixir is the ability to bring that changed perception home.