Summer of 2017. I was finally free from school and now the future lay before me, not like an open horizon as I’d envisaged, but like a maze with endless entrances. My illusion of freedom dissolved – infinite possibilities I may have had – but I felt stifled by choice, this liberty nothing but a burden. Overwhelmed, I dwelled on the future, believing that reasoning could find reasons for what I do next. Following the chain of causation back from future to present led me to university, but a week before studying started, my heart triumphed over my head. I’d never been outside of Europe, and Indonesia looked like an exotic land where adventure was guaranteed. I booked a flight to Jakarta and my friend Charles didn’t hesitate to join me.

Recalling the memory of stepping off the plane in Jakarta, one that will never leave me, brings back wafts of the thick, hot air that seemed to buzz with energy in the night. Charles and I had no plan, but this time no plan felt like the right plan. Jakarta was intense, a sprawl of over 35 million people smouldering in the heavy Javan air. The days rushed by, a febrile blur of stimulation and excitement, everything amazing and novel, pulsating and mad. We sped around the city on the back of mopeds, twisting through queues of traffic and over pavements, and ate roadside nasi goreng that made my eyes stream with chilli. Mostly we just walked around the city, through side streets of ramshackle houses and shops all the way to the coast, soaking up the life around us, our eyes as wide as newborn babies. The city was smothered in darkness by six, but the energy only intensified and we were drawn into throbbing clubs, their glitz and glamour a stark contrast to the streets outside.

We decided to sail around Indonesia, but failing to find a boat in Jakarta, travelled to Lombok to continue our hunt. It’s fortunate this failed too because, despite our exuberance (or perhaps because of it), it’s likely we would’ve drowned and been eaten by crocodiles. Instead, we decided to travel on foot. The hills were covered in prickly scrub which had been burnt in patches in a desperate attempt to grow crops under the pulsing sun. Like the plants, we withered, lugging our heavy packs around in the midday sun.

Soon we came upon a secluded bay surrounded by hills where palm trees grew around an arc of golden sand and the waves broke on an outer reef, leaving the waters calm. The entire bay was a kaleidoscope of coral and creatures – blue-spotted stingrays, blacktip sharks lurking under ledges, moray eels poking out of holes, turtles, white and black striped sea snakes. Farmers grew tobacco in a flat wedge of land above the shore, and a dirt track led up to a village on the hill that looked out across the bay.

Just as we’d set up camp in the shelter of a honeycomb cliff, an old man with skin wrinkled as a prune walked past, wearing nothing but a loincloth. He looked at our tent and jabbered away in Indonesian, and we felt uneasy, no clue what he was saying. At two in the morning, as we lay awake in the stifling humidity, voices approached and torches found our tent. People surrounded us and I lay frozen stiff, my mind flicking back to a line I’d read in Lonely Planet about machete wielding muggers. imaginations running wild, but the locals were probably only curious, or bewildered! Looking out across the bay later that night, we were met with the bizarre sight of fishermen diving amongst the coral, their torches flashing in the water.

One day Charles and I met Alan, an athletic Swiss guy who was fanatical about surfing. Alan sorted some boards and we paddled after him out to a reef on the edge of the bay where the swell was tumbling over the sharp corals. True kooks, we only succeeded in burning the skin off our entire backs in the savage sun. That night the sand ground our skin raw and we swore to stop camping in Indonesia. The accommodation wasn’t exactly expensive anyway so we moved up to where Alan was staying. Plates of chicken rendang, gado-gado and coconut pancakes nourished us until our sunburn healed.

Some time had passed now and although I was having a great time, I began to yearn for another experience, another opportunity to learn and grow. This may sound vomit-inducingly cliche and cringey, but it’s just true! Living with intensity is addictive, and when life starts to settle down, when a routine develops, it begins to feel mundane. The start of this adventure was intense and my threshold had been raised, and now that things were starting to become comfortable, I wanted more.

An Italian girl, Gaia, told us about Work Away and we signed up. The premise of Work Away is simple: in exchange for work, a host provides free meals and accommodation. Really though, it’s just a way to immerse in local culture, meet people, and get involved in some amazing projects. The host also gets to meet and learn about different cultures, plus gets a worker who’s genuinely interested in their project. It offers far greater freedom than volunteering through a company and provides the opportunity to travel for next to nothing.

We travelled to Pulau Muna, a low-lying island off the South East coast of Sulawesi about the size of a small English county. Tono, our host, welcomed us with smiles and nervous silence, and then we jumped on mopeds and for over an hour rattled along the dirt roads that crisscrossed the island through the rainforest. We’d put our trust in people we’d never met on an island in the back of beyond, and with no idea where we were being taken, for a moment I felt vulnerable. Soon enough though, this thought seemed ridiculous.

When we finally arrived at the village, Wakuru, a feast was waiting. Tono had never hosted on Workaway before and Pulau Muna is unfrequented by tourists, so most people had never met a white man. Word got out we’d arrived and a feverish crowd soon gathered, with endless photos ensuing. Questions followed, with Tono, the only English speaking Indonesian, acting as translator, which was daunting for our job was to teach the children English.

Tono lived with his mother, Ina, and two nieces, Niar and Anti, in a simple wooden house built on stilts, surrounded by coconut palms. Food was cooked on an open fire in the kitchen at the back of the house and we ate lapa-lapa, stewed fish, and sambal, sitting cross-legged on the thick planks polished smooth by years of footfall. It felt a little surreal, this convergence of lives so different, and we chatted until darkness overtook us, with so many questions and so much to learn from each other. Lying beneath a blanket that night, listening to the sounds of the village going to sleep and smelling the cool night air, I felt so blessed to be on Muna.

As the only English speaker in the village, Tono had decided to set up the ‘free nature school’, and about thirty children came to his house voluntarily to learn English. I loved teaching them, but why did they want to learn English? So that they could leave Muna and move to Jakarta to find a job. My moral dilemma was that by teaching them English I was helping them to realise this future, but was it really best for them? Did the children really want to give up their idyllic lifestyle to live in Jakarta? Of course, I had no right to tell them how to live or to decide what was best for them, but with their best interests at heart, I wondered if they’d idealised life in Jakarta, and would be disillusioned by the reality. Or perhaps I was romanticizing life on Muna? In the end, the reality we live in is just the stories we tell ourselves.

Each morning, the sounds of cockerels crowing and a moped starting in the village stirred us at dawn, the air still cool, but already smelling of the rising sun. Just up the road was an area of scrubland that Tono farmed, growing pineapples, chilis, cassava, jackfruit, cashews and plants I don’t know the name of. Cashews grow in a peculiar way, each nut attached to a fruit like a mussel clinging to a rock. This was Tono’s livelihood, for he lived off the land. After only a few hours of work, just as the sun was beginning to make us sweat, Tono would say that we’d done enough for the day. Four generations of Tono’s extended family lived like this, growing different crops and sharing them with each other to get by. But they weren’t just getting by, they were thriving. With very few material possessions, the little income the family had was enough.

The rest of the day was spent with friends and family, cooking, eating, chatting and playing, mostly outdoors. People rarely spent time alone, it just wasn’t part of the culture and the tight community meant problems were shared and worked out quickly.

In the afternoon heat, we’d jump on mopeds and zoom down to a sinkhole in the jungle called Moko lake. Filled with bright turquoise water, a turtle had lived in the lake for years and was well known to everyone. One time we were at the lake alone, and the turtle played games with us, just as a dog would. Hours were spent jumping off the surrounding cliffs into the water and climbing trees for even more height.

Tono’s brother Ao was a fisherman, and each evening he’d return from the market with any fish he hadn’t sold. On one occasion we followed him into the jungle with Tono, where he showed us a traditional fishing method that had been passed down the generations. The root of a plant was dug up and crushed to release its sap into a pond, causing the fish to float to the surface in a drunken state so that they could be collected. The smaller fish were left and awoke from their stupor moments later.

Food on Muna was very simple and healthy, consisting mostly of vegetables, rice and fish, and this was undoubtedly one reason for everyone’s excellent health and fitness. Tono’s grandmother, over 100 years old, still helped out in the garden. Green veg and sambal was always on the plate and often sweet potato and jackfruit. Only once did we eat meat, when Ao bought some back from a wedding, and it was treated as a very special occasion. I remember the most delicious fresh pineapple, dadar (bright green Pandan pancakes filled with palm sugar and coconut), barongko (steamed banana and coconut parcels) and epu-epu (palm sugar, cassava and coconut parcels), these were the treats. Some people would say the food was bland, and it certainly didn’t have the flavour of elsewhere in Indonesia. One day I cooked a rich Japanese fish dish for Tono and his family, which they clearly found overpowering, although they reacted with endearing politeness. Even if bland, this was the food that grew on Muna, and there was no other choice.

Most importantly, because of their philosophy and lifestyle, people were mentally healthy – I’ve never met people more content with life.

Does this narrative actually represent reality? Perhaps it is romanticizing Muna because while Muna may sound like a utopia, it would be naive to think there was no suffering or challenges for people who live there. The reality is poor healthcare, sanitation, education and food security – these problems make those of the West pale into insignificance. For any kids growing up on Muna, developing type 1 diabetes would be a death sentence, something that Action4Diabetes is trying to change. There’s no questioning that money would improve the quality of life on Muna. Tono’s family slept on thin foam mattresses, and ever since they’d seen their neighbour’s spring mattress, they really wanted one.

But do we have to go from one extreme to another – from the problems of the developing world to the problems of the developed world? What problems? True, some people are content – those with wealth – but is such wealth not born from inequality – exploitation of developing countries and a division of society in developed nations? The richest 10% of the global population currently take home 52% of the income. The problems lie with the poor, who are forced to live in a society built for the benefit of the rich. And yet we hear time and again that wealth beyond necessity doesn’t make one content – so is all of this for nothing?

Inequality has never been higher and therefore never before has the scope of what we can desire been larger meaning people have never had the capacity to be less content. Consumerism has made people believe products can make them happier, so it’s no surprise that we’re envious of those above us in the social order who can afford such products. Inequality maintains this envy, that itself incites consumption and fuels economic growth.

People work long hours in jobs they don’t enjoy because that’s what it takes to survive in this society. We’re forced to stay on a treadmill of consumerism to pay for technology that supposedly makes our lives easier, but actually just speeds things up. Much of what we spend money on isn’t necessary for survival, but stepping off the treadmill means falling behind. For many, there’s little time for pleasurable, creative or educational pursuits or time with friends and family. The community is fractured. We’re physically unhealthy from the inherent inactivity of our lifestyles and the ultra-processed food we eat. We’ve polluted our environment with the poisons responsible for the rise in non-communicable diseases. Longevity is valued above the quality of life. People feel alienated and don’t know anyone intimately enough to share their feelings. All of this contributes to the mental health epidemic that plagues us. Our lifestyle is destroying the environment and it’s grossly unjust that places like Muna will be the most affected.

We may have what people in Muna lack, but we also lack what they have. Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? Can people in developing countries get a better quality of life without their minds being polluted by individualism and consumerism? Or does it take individualism to move up in today’s world? On the other hand, how easy is it for the poor to not conform to the society that punishes them in developed countries? A privileged few can grow up with the entitlements of the rich and then transition to a simple life, but to break free from a culture you’ve grown up in is extremely difficult.

My trip to Muna opened my eyes to another way of life and made me question so much about the world we live in. Some people will think that this discussion is pointless. It’s just theorizing, it changes nothing and nothing will change. But I’m not writing for a point! I’m simply writing down my thoughts to try and make sense of them. This subject is so overwhelmingly complex that thinking about it normally makes me conclude that none of this matters anyway, just go and live life, because thinking will never bring answers. Ultimately then, I’m writing for myself. I still haven’t come to any conclusions, but I enjoy just exploring these ideas for their own sake. I’m still considering them today, and it’s certain they’ve had an impact on my own life choices. I’m not telling people how to live their lives or saying how the world should be.