Shifting gears

When I created this blog back in 2018, the idea was to write about travel “hacking” and to share the big quit-job-and-travel trip that I was doing with my partner at the time. I thought I’d be posting almost daily and putting in effort to monetize the site. Nope – didn’t even come close. I wanted to write. I just couldn’t find the motivation to do it regularly, and I didn’t really know why. It took some time, but I eventually realized I never really “bought in” to that trip. The “doing something for the wrong reasons” realization is a bit cliche, but it fits here. I thought that quitting your job to travel was something cool people did, and I thought doing it would make me cool, too. Unfortunately, that’s not how being cool works.

You’re reading this, so I obviously still want to write. But blogs about travel deals and tips and all that jazz are so common now, and I don’t feel like I have anything extra to add. Plus, I’ve realized that I want to talk about much more than travel. Things like…

Personal growth

Up until a few years ago, I had little interest in the world of “self-help”. I wish I could say that I thought most of it was fine and just wasn’t for me. But really, I thought I was better than all of it and could figure out my problems on my own. Then I went through a breakup – specifically, a breakup that I wasn’t expecting and didn’t want to happen. And even if you haven’t been through anything like that yourself, you know it’s not fun. It was painful enough that it got me to put my pride aside and start opening up to anything I thought might help – diving into things like mindfulness, Buddhism, relationship psychology, attachment theory, doing meditation, going to therapy. And it all helped. A lot. Not just with the heartache, but with my life in general.

I was able to find things that worked for me, but I feel like a lot of what’s out there isn’t very accessible or even the opposite of helpful. I hope that sharing my thoughts and experiences can help add content for people like me who are skeptical of it or are just uncomfortable with the way a lot of is it written or delivered.

Culture, ethnicity, race

I’ve never put deep thought into defining my ethnicity. If I had to be quick about it, I’d just say I’m half-Filipino, half-white, and born and raised in America. Digging a little deeper, my dad is an Igorot – indigenous people from the mountains of the northern Philippines – and didn’t move to the US until his late twenties. My mom was a caucasian mix of Irish/Scottish/Dutch and several generations American, but she also spent several years living in the Philippines as a Peace Corps volunteer, immersing herself in and adopting Igorot culture and languages.

Physically, I’m white….ish. Like, I’m basically white, but you can tell there’s something else going on. I grew up in Rockville, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C., where most of my close friends were black. Then I moved to southern California when I was 21 with my only non-black friend, and in the fifteen or so years there, my friend circles were almost completely white and Asian.

You hear that my name is Nicholai and think I’ve gotta be Russian or Ukrainian or something. And my last name, Moguet, looks French. Between my name and how I look, nobody ever knows what I am. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I also don’t really know what I am. Never felt white – not Asian enough – not black.

There are pros and cons to all of this, of course. In one sense, I have a diverse background that’s allowed me to become a cultural chameleon. I’ve learned to appreciate and adopt aspects from many cultures, and I can blend in basically anywhere. In another sense, I’m culturally homeless, which can be lonely, isolating, and confusing at times. Blending in is not the same as fitting in, and for as much love as I experience with friends and family, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I’ve wholly belonged anywhere.

Politics, philosophy, society

I’ve always been curious about people and why we think what we think and act how we act. I also like being able to explain why I believe something. So of course, I spend a lot of time thinking about the “why” of things. And the why to the why. And the why to the why to the why. I know many people are like this, and I appreciate reading deep dives into topics, so I’d like to add what I can, where I can.

I also think that where information comes from and how it’s delivered are huge parts of how open someone will be to it. I find it extremely hard to find balanced sources of information, and while it’s impossible to be completely without bias, I’m going to try to get as close as possible. Similar to how my cultural history has given me a wide sense of how different cultures are, I’ve held and explored many different political, philosophical, moral, and ethical beliefs over time, which has given me an idea of how people from many different perspectives look at the world.

I’ll be writing about all types of topics that involve modern society. Romance and relationships, race and culture, socioeconomics, sexuality and gender, just to name a few. What’s my goal here? Simply, peace. Both in the individual sense of helping people better understand and be at peace with themselves, and also in the societal sense that I want people to get along. I hope that, even if just in a small way, my thoughts might help someone or something.

In conclusion…

I obviously have a lot to both unpack and explore, so feel free to come along for the ride. It’ll be fun! “Fun.”