[We're about 12 years in the past now]

I had just spent 2 very interesting weeks in the middle of nowhere. This, nowhere, was a property in a forest area owned by a guy named Les.

Les had been fortunate years ago in scoring 2 plots of land: Multiple acreages for a bargain of just under $20,000.

He left half of it intact for local wildlife and used the other half to create an off-the-grid life for himself.

He had, in fact, only recently made the decision (after decades), to get connected to the power company's grid — he was fed up with his gas powered freezer.

The rest of it was self sufficient: Rain water supply, solar power, vegetables, chickens, and the rest.

He was a builder by trade and quite a unique one at that. He never worked with anyone else. He built entire houses by himself. He'd developed a series of contraptions that allowed him to successfully do all the construction work on his own.

On his own property, he had created bunch of small self-sufficient houses using wood, lime and straw bail.

I was really glad to spend some time in this set up, especially after the previous 2 months of sleeping outdoors on cold-concrete had been relentless.

Having gotten his phone number through someone I'd met a few years back, I decided to give him a call on a hunch.

I asked him if I could spend a little time on his property. I was fortunate that he agreed to my request, as he'd become a bit of a loner by this point in his life.

The only downside for me would be using the toilet on my trip here. Les had kindly warned me about this: It was a pit with a toilet seat on top of a wooden box, housed within an old shack with spiders, flies, and mosquitoes!

What a combination, and traumatizing to say the least. Every few weeks he’d close one pit up, dig up a new one, and then put the creepy-crawly infested shack back on top of it.

For someone who has lived rough for so long, I still have a major problem dealing with low hygiene set ups. I guess some things will never change.

Now, this was the first time in my life I got to spend time in a spot where, apart from the odd sound of birds, you couldn’t hear a damn thing.

I had wanted to spend time in a location where my thoughts would be the only things I could hear, so I could just deal with them in silence. I really felt that I was up for the challenge.

I even managed to make friends with a Chicken while I was here; although I’m not sure if she shared the sentiment.

She had the scraggiest feathers from being attacked by the others. She was also the last one to head back into the pen in the evenings, which I always found interesting.

I’d sometimes sit and just watch her peck the ground in the evening. But whenever she’d notice me walk towards her, she’d stop, and lift up one leg. We’d then have this long stare off, and the first one to move would lose.

She’d stand on one leg as long as it took. I never won the contest, but this was the only entertainment I would require in my stay here.

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When I was around 17, I stumbled upon a copy of this really interesting book: Jiddu Krishnamurti’s Talks with American Students (1968).

After scrolling through it and feeling intrigued, I just put it away for a few years; yet, even when I got rid of all my belongings, I kept hold of it.

In my early 20’s I picked it up again.

I would open up a random page of this book in times of distress & doubt, and each time I’d find something to hold onto within myself. He really spoke to that gap between my intellect and my heart, and expressed concepts that were like my own unexpressed thoughts.

The time I spent at this property, in essence, was me finally practicing consciously the essence of what Jiddu had expressed.

After a few weeks had passed by at this serene property, I felt quite centered, and I decided to move on. It was a long drive in Les’s pickup truck all the way to the train station. From here, I’d have to catch 2 trains to get back to town.

When I got to the half-way mark of my train trip, I had to disembark and wait for my next connection. Since it was a 2-hour wait in between, I decided that I'd walk down to the town center to take a look around.

As I walked out of the train station, I felt this nudge to ‘not catch’ the next train. This was bizarre, because I didn't have anywhere else to go.

While navigating this strange inner dialogue, the name of a beach town popped into my head. I immediately thought to myself: ‘No way, not that place!’. I had visited this beach town a few years ago, and I had absolutely hated my stay there.

It was now also the time of the year when the town would get extremely crowded, and the vibe last time around caused me to leave within 24 hours of arriving there.

Now logically (at this point) I only had enough money to purchase my return fare to the coastal town and back, & probably pay for 2 nights of accommodation. I’d have to forage for food from the ‘free shelf’ at this hostel, if things were to go my way.

Yet, against my better judgment, I made my way to this beach town and checked myself into the local backpacker’s.

It was surprisingly quiet when I arrived, which was odd for this time of the year.

“It will get extremely busy in 2–3 days time for the festival”, the hostel owner announced.

I wasn't planning on staying here that long, so I didn’t really care.

As a positive omen, someone had checked out just before I arrived, and left behind a fair bit of free food on the shelf. This was going to do me just fine for the duration of my stay.

I walked along the river, took a hike up the hills, enjoyed all the fresh air, and spent time watching the waves on the beach. It was quite spectacular. Who would’ve thought?

I even got to sleep in peace; there was only one other bed taken up in my room.

The next afternoon, I made myself a sandwich and dropped into in the lounge room to chill out and watch some sport. The owner had gone home for a few hours break.

He was a quite an offbeat character. He didn’t take bookings in advance, and neither did he have a contact number for someone to reach him. If someone turned up when he wasn't around, they'd just have to wait endlessly until he'd reappear at an irregular time. Besides, if the owner did not like you on the first meeting, he‘d refuse to take you in!

So there I was, chilling on the couch, enjoying my sandwich, when a traveler decided to pop in and say hi. He asked me if I worked there? I said no, but I told him that if he was willing to wait a few hours, he could possibly get a bed.

The traveler wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, so we just chatted for a bit. The chat quickly turned into a great conversation.

Tim had rented a car and driven up from a city which was a few hours away. Although he had originally planned to keep driving past this beach town, something made him stop here and come check out this hostel.

From the sounds of it, Tim's personal life back home had gotten quite messy. His business had yet to hit its straps, while he'd been funding his business with credit cards since the housing market crash. He knew he was under extreme stress, and felt that he urgently needed at least a short break.

Following a hunch, he jumped on a flight to a city he hadn’t visited before. He was definitely searching for something.

We ended up chatting about a lot of different things: We traversed Eckhart Tolle, investing, and other rabbit holes of life. These kind of conversations were right in my sweet-spot as I enjoyed moving between philosophy, spirituality, business, and everything else in between.

A few hours had now passed, and fortunately the hostel owner arrived back. Tim chatted with him for a bit, and the owner seemed to give him the nod of approval.

Tim later went to pick up 'The Power of Now' from the local book store on my recommendation, and disappeared for the next day and a half.

In the mean time, I had run out of money to pay for more nights. But a few hours before I was planning to leave, I overheard the hostel owner saying to a guest that he'd like someone to give him a hand for a few days during the festival rush.

I decided to offer my assistance, and in return, he hooked me up with a few days of accommodation.

As I'd mentioned earlier, the hostel owner was a strange guy. In years to come I’d get to know him better, and boy, was he a character! The kind of person, who cannot be anything but himself: Unabashed, unfiltered and a pain in the ass.

This also made him impossible to work with; it’s why, I only ended up working with him for 3 days. Surprisingly, he complemented me at the end of it, saying: “That’s 2 days more than anyone else has ever lasted!”

He was definitely an acquired taste.

The local legend was that even Sharks couldn’t mess with him. A lifeguard from a rescue helicopter witnessed him punching a shark when one got too close to him, during his daily swim routine in the ocean.

He was definitely the kind of person who'd do such a thing.

I, for one, was glad to have secured a deal with the hostel owner. Something about the beach town this time around felt completely different, and I thought it would be nice to stay here a bit longer.

Its funny how this place has ended up becoming my year-end pilgrimage — pretty much every year since.

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Tim finally turned up almost 30 hours later, but he had this wonderful glow on his face.

I asked him what had transpired?

He said our conversation had sparked something in him, and when he started reading The Power of Now, a whole bunch of things just shifted within. He couldn’t stop reading the book and writing notes! He drove around, stopped in different spots, and was completely engrossed in the book for a day and a half.

He asked me if I had some time free the next day, to which, I said yes. He then added: “I’d like to chat some business with you.”

We went down to a cafe the next morning and I shared what I thought about his business and what I felt he could change, which he really appreciated.

He then excused himself for a few moments. When he returned back, he handed me 400 dollars. I was pleasantly surprised by this, but it was also a lovely validation that my insights had actually been valuable to him.

Then something very interesting happened: Tim received an email that brought a smile on his face. A deal which he'd not been able to close for quite a while had finally closed, and he'd just received a 3.5K commission!

Unbeknown to Tim, he played a game of ‘give before you get’, and I was fortunate enough to witness this in real time. We both knew our trip was going to get better from this point.

One of the highlights was an unexpected side adventure of getting free entry to the expensive festival grounds — all by following a series of synchronicities one lazy afternoon.

There was definitely magic in this town this year, as the hostel attracted a very interesting group of people. Every single person kept extending their stay beyond their initial plans, and were so sad when they finally had to move on.

Tim and I continued to stay in touch. His business moved from strength to strength in the coming years; the goals he wrote down on his first visit here all came to pass.

My journey has been a bit more complicated to say the least.

In the months following our meeting, I helped build a couple of sites for his business. Having never done something like this before, I found a development team online from Pakistan and got them to code up the sites. I still don't know how I managed the team and the projects from public libraries!

I look back at different periods of my life sometimes.. the surreal nature of it all.