05: Falling into a Flow State

Two Travellers. One Conversation. Different lessons learned on the road.

Hello there, welcome to an on-the-run series about TRAVEL. A series of reflections on what long-term-travel looks like beneath the shiny packaging and distant dreaming. A series hosted by Jay Ventress otherwise known as Jaytheauthor (Author and street artist) and Matthew David Nelson (Travel photographer and writer) reflecting on the good, the bad, the ugly, and all the blood, guts, and lightning bolts travellers often encounter on the misty road that never clears.

A lot of what we do involves these contrasting moments of intense solitude and inward reflection offset by hours spent roaming the streets and being open to chance encounters and discomfort. But I think our practices are also different enough that there is a lot we can learn from each other.

All photos are collaborations between the two authors

Matt asking Jay: Your craft in the streets has two opposing dimensions, both a push and a pull action. Posting the letters is very vulnerable and seems to be an act of sending compassion into the world - like Buddhist prayer flags almost, haha. But then when you were in Melbourne talking to the people on the streets, it was like you were pulling stories and portraits into existence from people who couldn’t express themselves on their own. Your practices are unique and allow you to feel and experience more than most writers. Which side of your work is more uncomfortable, the posting of stories or their gathering?

JAY - I never thought of the letters as prayer flags, that’s such a beautiful image. Funny thing is, if you met me in person, you’d probably think I’m an extrovert. When I’m around people, I’m chatty, full of questions. I ask a lot of questions because I like to learn how people think. If somebody shares a different opinion, I get energized and ask more questions because it helps me question my own mental navigation system.

One of the challenges I face with writing is how it sinks me into my seat. Ever since I started taking it seriously, I’ve noticed myself becoming a lot more introverted. When I’m in the zone, whether it’s for a few hours or a few days, I don’t want to leave the house. The longer I retreat into my mind, to write, the deeper my boots sink into the floorboards. But, like I always say, everything comes at a cost. And if the price of becoming a better writer is becoming more introverted, I’ll pay it. Being introverted isn’t entirely bad; it’s taught me how to be content with my own company.

In a way, posting my letters is how I yank my boots out of the floorboard. It gives me a reason to leave the house, breathe in fresh air, and stop overthinking. When you’re posting letters, the writing is already done, the mental lifting is over. All that’s left is the physical act of sticking paper to walls. It’s more of a workout for the body than the mind.

But I’ll admit, when I first start posting again, I tend to keep to myself. Those first few days, I’m still shaking off the introverted shell I’ve been huddled in. On top of that, I’m dead-lock-focused on completing the mission I’ve set for myself, whether it’s 200, 500, or even 1,000 letters. It’s like my energy is locked onto the task, leaving little room for outside distractions or interactions.

It’s only towards the end of a city run that I start to feel my confidence returning. That’s when I begin to open up, to let the world in, to welcome new conversations and experiences. In a way, posting those letters is a bridge back to the living breathing world around me.

It’s mad to think how something as simple as stepping outside, leaving your words on public walls, can reshape you. It’s as if every letter I post sheds a layer of my hesitation, growing a little bolder with each letter. Posting the letters feels a lot like meditation. It’s uncomfortable at the beginning, the same way your legs start to hurt after sitting in one position for too long, but then you eventually stop resisting the discomfort and accept it for what it is.

By the time I’ve finished a session, whether it’s a handful of letters or a hundred, it’s like I’ve cracked the shell I started in. The world feels brighter, my energy lighter, and I’m ready to connect again. Zest for life restored.

Jay asking Matt: Do you have any specific rituals you undertake whenever arriving in a new city with your camera? Are there any little things you do to familiarize yourself with a place, even if they are silly. Ways to shoot a little confidence into your veins to go out there and try to capture the city's magic in film cartridges? No matter who you are, it’s always a little daunting to arrive in a new place, to extract magic from it.

MATT - I’m still developing my process here - and still feel like I’m a beginner, even. My initial work was around documenting distance hiking trails through remote areas of Eastern Europe and Nepal, and so my subjects were either landscapes or people who knew me well enough to spend days or weeks in the mountains with me.

The act of hiking all day, for days on end in the Himalayas or the Albanian Alps helped in so many ways. Off the grid completely, your mind is calmed, and the physical act of reducing your life to the process of simply putting one foot in front of the other strengthens you and makes for a prolonged meditative state. And then just the sheer beauty of all that surrounded me made it such a gift to photograph the places and the people in them.

So it’s been challenging to adjust to the complete opposite side of the spectrum: dense, urban environments (crawling with strangers) where you have to filter and process so much more information/stimuli. It’s quite overwhelming. But here’s what I’ve learned so far:

It takes days or weeks to understand the spirit of a place, and you can’t expect to just swoop in and make quality pictures without understanding the context of what’s around you.

Knowing the place well allows you to better fall into a flow state, where you aren’t thinking so much about where you are or where to go next. You can eliminate more unknowns forget your self-consciousness for a while and just get into a rhythm.

I used to be so anxious to find something interesting that I would rush through places that were teeming with potential just because I was uncomfortable and in a hurry, and to no surprise, come out with uninteresting pictures.

And you need to give yourself a lot of time to get deeper and deeper into the process. Going out for an hour is nowhere as impactful as spending a full day. As the hours go by, it’s kind of the closest thing to being out in the mountains, you fall into that meditative state that allows magic to come forth where it otherwise wouldn’t when you’re still at the surface level of your mind.

I sometimes will even walk around without my camera, and do my own thing - chasing down street food or places to read. It helps to be observed by the locals eating/drinking at food stalls/dive bars that they eat at or drink at - show them that you’re no different/not above them.

Sometimes that’s the perfect opening ritual: Get a little dopamine boost from a coffee and pastry somewhere, and then just head out into the city to see what attracts you.

Just yesterday I was at a street food stall in Delhi in a random neighborhood with no tourists, and I went over to talk to the man who was washing the dishes for a little while, and I think everyone around me was just like, “what is this guy doing?” But they seemed genuinely happy I was interested in what they were doing, and started showing me around and asking questions. And when I did eventually take my camera out of my bag, it almost wasn’t even noticed.

I try to not come off as separate from the locals if possible. Let them get a feel for me and my personality well before I point a camera at them. Body language is a huge part of that.

And whenever I do eventually come back with my camera, I will be sure to always walk around with a big dumb grin, just to appear as friendly and approachable as I can versus suspicious and self-conscious. Sometimes people will mirror this smile right back at me, and it opens the door for an interaction to take place. For this reason, coming back to the same places throughout the week/month really helps as you build a rapport with locals.

I think it also helps to just let go of your desire to accomplish or capture anything, and just be open and allow what unfolds around you to happen naturally. Slow down and notice the little details, and don’t do anything that feels forced or unnatural.

It seems we’re both pretty hardcore introverts, and so I’m curious how you were able to connect so seemingly effortlessly with the street-dwellers of Melbourne.

JAY - These days, I don’t pull stories out of people the way I used to. Occasionally, I’ll catch fragments of wisdom while talking to a stranger in a café or while eavesdropping in on a conversation, but it’s rare now for me to hear a story and think, “That just changed my life.” Back in Melbourne, it felt like every other day brought a revelation. A story that completely rewired how I saw the world.

Sometimes, I feel like the version of myself in Dear Stranger, Origins was someone else entirely. I miss that Jay. I think who he was then was shaped by circumstance, stuck in one place because of Covid, unable to leave the city, forced to find ways to stay engaged with the world around him. And then, almost as if guided by fate, I met John. To this day, he’s one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever known. Him, and another person named Leon, who the world will soon meet in another book. Unfortunately Leon died a few years ago, but I hope to immortalize him in ink one day. He deserves to live on forever, just like John. John was the man who gave me the confidence to strike up conversations with strangers on the street.

The letters I wrote in Melbourne were so different from what I write now. Back then, they were shaped by the people I met and the lessons they shared. These days, my letters are more inward, focusing on anxiety, loneliness, estrangement, and dreams. That shift wasn’t easy. At first, I wanted to keep writing the same kind of letters I had in Melbourne. Externally. But Brussels isn’t Melbourne. The people here on the street felt different. Sure, there are some genuinely homeless people, but many on the street seemed caught up in something darker - part of Romanian begging mafias, using kids as props to pry coins out of people’s pockets. I remember watching children being shuffled between "families," like pieces on a chessboard. That world didn’t inspire me; it crushed me. It felt like there was no light there, only sadness and darkness.

That’s why I shifted the focus of my letters, from looking outward to looking inward. Inner stories aren’t tied to one specific city; they are universal stories, reflections of humans not places. The letters I wrote in Melbourne worked because I had the time and space to truly listen to people, to sit in their stories and let them unfold. But now, with constant movement and my ambition to take the Dear Stranger project to a broader scale, I needed something more universal, something I could carry with me, regardless of the setting.

Still, I miss those days of collecting stories. Back then, my letters felt like they had such a beautiful purpose: to listen, to learn, to capture the fragments of other people’s lives, to make those same people realise how incredible and valuable their words are. Each conversation was a little adventure, a reminder of how beautiful, cruel, and inspiring the world is when you stop to hear someone out.

And the more I talked to people, the easier it became to strike up a conversation, like how the first day of running is always the hardest because your body has to acclimatize to the sudden jolt of exercise. Maybe it’s time to write letters about people again. Maybe I can become the Jay I was in Melbourne again … I don’t know.

Thank you for taking the time to sit with us and talk about travel. This conversation is one of many episodes with regards to travel, philosophy, and whatever lives in-between those two worlds. If you would like to join us for the next conversation, feel free to subscribe, and if you want to follow our personal adventures around the world, you can find Matt and Jay on Instagram.

Much love and fire speed wild child. - Jay and Matt