Someone once told me it was possible to write your way to freedom. I believed them. So this Christmas, this was my gift to me. Trust and faith in something I’ve been told my whole life. I can write and I can tell a story. What freedom means to any one individual is just as varied and unique as the person asking this question for themselves. For me, freedom means feeding my passion for discovery.

I am a fiercely curious person. Cultures, nature, customs, and traditions have all fascinated me in my brief twenty-five years on this planet. If I could dedicate the remaining years of this existence to just one thing it would be the exploration of all of the above. To indulge this, truly, would be freedom. To rove the world and capture the bizarre and weird. The joyous and the heartwrenching. To document the inspiring exotic and the even more inspiring commonalities. I wish to catalog my own experience in this world to continue the work of those curious minds which have come before me and the curious yet to come. It is a tradition of troublemakers not satisfied with the status quo. Starving for the answer to why.

My interests are varied and deep. I believe in the classic trinity of mind, body, spirit. This conviction has led me down many paths. My plan, if I am so fortunate, is to write for other websites and blogs specific to my varied interests. I’ll share that content here but it will be published there. This site will really act more like an intersection of all the content I publish online. Homebase for this professed fight for freedom. Digital Omoo will also host a weekly blog post about life as I journey along this path. The ideal plan is to grow enough as a freelance writer to be able to afford to freelance fulltime and to go entirely remote. Diving headfirst into a loving embrace with the world I have come so infatuated with. It is not to fund some extended vagabond vacation but rather a vagabond vocation. One I have long known intended for me. I am sure there will be more to come, going into detail about that ‘knowing’ but for now the focus is simply on the starting. Taking the very first, imperfect, hesitant, Bambi-esque steps along the journey. Truly. This is the most important part. Getting started.

If I can put myself in your position, I can imagine there is one consistent question remaining. What does Omoo mean? Omoo is a Marquesan word from the South Pacific. It means island rover or wanderer. Within a culture of seafaring voyagers, the word Omoo was reserved for those few perpetually at sea. Moving from island to island. A stranger to none, tribe or tide. I discovered this word while going through a Melville phase. I had just finished reading Moby Dick (which is incredible) when I discovered Herman’s first two books, Typee and Omoo.

These books were a semi-autobiographical account of his time spent living amongst island cannibals after jumping ship in French Polynesia. Not only did I enjoy the classic story of this man finding his humanity amongst supposed ‘savages’ but I also loved that to some extent, Melville actually lived the story. From there, Omoo took on additional meaning. It was the mark of this timeless truth. A writer’s first obligation is not in fact to write but rather, to live. To live first requires you to be free and writing may very well lend itself as the key to that freedom. Thus the paradox. Explore it with me. There is much to see, much to learn and much to do.