I have a friend who is fairly well traveled, at least compared to me. He has been to Europe, Asia, and South America, and has been to many cities in the USA. He 's traveled to some Balkan counties, and even made it to Istanbul and Cairo. He's definitely seen the elephant. I once asked him if there were any things he'd seen that, if he hadn't seen them, he thinks he would have really missed something. He said no. I was stunned by the answer. A lot of people who travel a lot go on and on about the wonders they've seen, and how they were transformed by the experience. My friend is a fairly insightful person, and also an honest one. He enjoys his travels, obviously, but he puts them in perspective. I wonder if more people, if they were being honest, would admit that the effect of their travels, however pleasant, do not provide the profound impact as the less glamourous, ordinary life of friends, family, and marriage and child raising in community. Of course, I've never seen the sunset in Bali, so what do I know?
Thanks for penning this Andy; you've articulated your thoughts wonderfully and given voice to much that has been on my mind. Hard to shake off the echo of Eliot's 'We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time.'
"“The biggest misfortune in human history is the invention of the combustion engine." - I love this quote. I remember speaking with my aunt, who lived to be 103, before she passed away in the 1980s. We were talking about church - and what changed with community/church and all it used to be. We asked "which invention hurt church/community the most?" We figured it would be TV. But no, she said emphatically it was the invention of the automobile. Prior to that, she said, church was an all-day event; If people walked or took horses/buggies to church, it was a complete day - with a community meal and more preaching, and games, and fellowship until evening. But once they all had cars, "everyone just got in their car and drove home" she said. Just like that, community was gone.
Read Virilio. Speed is a political weapon that is the result of our material conditions of existence. Speed enables the control of territory, and has been mass-proliferated. "Traveling to be amused" is only the basest manifestation of this fact, and trying to find virtue in travel is as fruitless as trying to find virtue in mass culture; you're looking in the wrong place. As a frequent flyer I want total tourist death probably more than most, but complaining about rootlessness and mobility is not seeing the forest for the trees.
Right of the curve people will make the best of this context of mass-proliferated hyper-speed as they have previously with every other context. At any rate there is no putting the genie back in the bottle... settled or nomadic, master speed or get your lunch eaten by those who have.
When I signed up to be a missionary guide I told people that it'd be good for getting my desire to travel "out of the way" before settling down into the rest of adult life. I'm beginning to see that I wasn't wrong, but not because I'm eventually going to be "full," of travel. Rather, I'm being formed as a fuller person that just doesn't need to voraciously consume far flung, random experiences like I used to. I am all over the US and the world all the time, and yet I find myself longing for home more than I ever used to. I want the old, melancholic air of New England and NY again, the damp, gray forests, the cloudy skies, and the sound of the sea. I miss it more than ever, and the only way Colorado ever seems to dissuade that is when I slow down and get to know it as a place and not just a basecamp for trips elsewhere.
Maybe, as I explore and experience more of the American West, the decay of "the West" that I mentioned is just a natural evolution and decay of that American need to go and move and expand. Mountain towns become non-places, become tourist and museum towns because a placeless people have difficultly creating a lasting place. Or maybe that's going too far into the idea, and it's something else. Interesting. We'll see how it turns out.
I have a friend who is fairly well traveled, at least compared to me. He has been to Europe, Asia, and South America, and has been to many cities in the USA. He 's traveled to some Balkan counties, and even made it to Istanbul and Cairo. He's definitely seen the elephant. I once asked him if there were any things he'd seen that, if he hadn't seen them, he thinks he would have really missed something. He said no. I was stunned by the answer. A lot of people who travel a lot go on and on about the wonders they've seen, and how they were transformed by the experience. My friend is a fairly insightful person, and also an honest one. He enjoys his travels, obviously, but he puts them in perspective. I wonder if more people, if they were being honest, would admit that the effect of their travels, however pleasant, do not provide the profound impact as the less glamourous, ordinary life of friends, family, and marriage and child raising in community. Of course, I've never seen the sunset in Bali, so what do I know?
Thanks for penning this Andy; you've articulated your thoughts wonderfully and given voice to much that has been on my mind. Hard to shake off the echo of Eliot's 'We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time.'
"“The biggest misfortune in human history is the invention of the combustion engine." - I love this quote. I remember speaking with my aunt, who lived to be 103, before she passed away in the 1980s. We were talking about church - and what changed with community/church and all it used to be. We asked "which invention hurt church/community the most?" We figured it would be TV. But no, she said emphatically it was the invention of the automobile. Prior to that, she said, church was an all-day event; If people walked or took horses/buggies to church, it was a complete day - with a community meal and more preaching, and games, and fellowship until evening. But once they all had cars, "everyone just got in their car and drove home" she said. Just like that, community was gone.
Read Virilio. Speed is a political weapon that is the result of our material conditions of existence. Speed enables the control of territory, and has been mass-proliferated. "Traveling to be amused" is only the basest manifestation of this fact, and trying to find virtue in travel is as fruitless as trying to find virtue in mass culture; you're looking in the wrong place. As a frequent flyer I want total tourist death probably more than most, but complaining about rootlessness and mobility is not seeing the forest for the trees.
Right of the curve people will make the best of this context of mass-proliferated hyper-speed as they have previously with every other context. At any rate there is no putting the genie back in the bottle... settled or nomadic, master speed or get your lunch eaten by those who have.
When I signed up to be a missionary guide I told people that it'd be good for getting my desire to travel "out of the way" before settling down into the rest of adult life. I'm beginning to see that I wasn't wrong, but not because I'm eventually going to be "full," of travel. Rather, I'm being formed as a fuller person that just doesn't need to voraciously consume far flung, random experiences like I used to. I am all over the US and the world all the time, and yet I find myself longing for home more than I ever used to. I want the old, melancholic air of New England and NY again, the damp, gray forests, the cloudy skies, and the sound of the sea. I miss it more than ever, and the only way Colorado ever seems to dissuade that is when I slow down and get to know it as a place and not just a basecamp for trips elsewhere.
Maybe, as I explore and experience more of the American West, the decay of "the West" that I mentioned is just a natural evolution and decay of that American need to go and move and expand. Mountain towns become non-places, become tourist and museum towns because a placeless people have difficultly creating a lasting place. Or maybe that's going too far into the idea, and it's something else. Interesting. We'll see how it turns out.
Traveling through your essays is always interesting.......