The husks that protect and muffle

As I was walking home from work on this dark and rainy evening, it occurred to me that I am changing.  The change is so gradual as to be unnoticeable at close range, but of late I've noticed some odd things about myself.  Seeing walnuts lying under trees with their hard outer green husks being gradually softened by the weather prompted this line of thought.

Like them, I carry on, assuming that I will continue on as I am.  Ok, I can't really say that walnuts assume anything.  However, I think I can say that they are passive in this process, being acted upon, rather than proactively changing, which is not the point I was making at all. I may be taking this analogy thing too far.  The point now being lost, here's my point.

I am not who I was just a short time ago.  I am more distilled, less covers the distance between my inner self and the outer world.  This shows up in various ways.  I am more accepting of some things, yet more hostile and unbending as to others. In both cases, I feel I am closer to the truth of who I am. Hence the walnut husk comparison.

A vagabond I shall be

"A vagabond then is primarily a man who travels without any definite utilitarian aim.  He does not go abroad expecting to bring about the millennium by impressing upon the world his own opinions and prejudices, neither does he ramble from Country to Country collecting statistics and accumulating information as a pure matter of mental discipline.  He is content to be a simple observer in the great world of God- studying those things which interest him for no other reason than because they do interest him . . . [A] vagabond seeks to know the world and its people as they are, and in order to acquire that knowledge he is ready to become all things with all men and to make himself equally at home in all places.  In this sense of the word I do not hesitate to avow myself a vagabond of the most pronounced type."  George Kennan

There's a word for people who just travel for the sake of the experience, of seeing what's there.  We look askance at them, wondering aloud how they plan to fund their retirement, or when they will 'grow up'. I guess the trick is to find someone who will pay you to do it.  Or failing that, maybe win the lottery.

Excuse me while I go buy my lottery ticket.