Jan 14, 2013

Why Do We Travel

Go for a walk.

Go for a run.

Go out and loaf.

Why?

When a person travels, in my opinion, there must be a reason for it. One does not simply go out without a purpose.

Go and visit family, Go to the store, Go out to burn calories.

There is a reason to travel.

And we all have to find that reason, but traveling for the sake of traveling. Is like eating for the sake of eating. It's a zero sum game, nothing changes and so nothing will ever grow from it.

Sadly, when I think of jumping on my bike and pedaling away into the sunset. I mostly get stopped by the single horrifying thought: I have to get back too.

Like Samwise Gamgee, I keep faith in a return journey, when in reality, all that should be in my mind is the journey itself. However, doing that can be likened to jumping out of a plane.

I live in a city that I am still tremendously unfamiliar with, and to cycle out without a return plan - is a sure plan for me to realize kilometers from Pune that I'm shit tired, and I can't get back...

I am unfortunately chained to the city. By having luxuries like a bed, food, water coolers and even my laptop, it chains me to return. That is why one has to admire the Buddhist treatment of material possessions, they don't (ideally, and correct me if I'm wrong) have them. Nothing that isn't essential is kept. That's why they walk around in robes and have such happy faces (Again, subject to personal observation).

Letting go seems like such an unbelievably easy course of action. However, little do we know that it is now the toughest thing to do. It's an addiction. Ask a person who smokes, to stop smoking - and they will respond (possibly) with how hard it is. That difficulty is nearly hundredfold when it comes to surrendering the things that we no longer treat as luxuries, but rather as our 'god given right'.

Traveling is a fun and exciting thing, but the more look at it, traveling is either the celebration of having mountains of wealth and the safety that comes with it. Or it is the celebration of not having a fixed connection to the world, to know that you can sleep anywhere, because you don't have anywhere else to sleep.

Traveling should happen for the journey. And sadly, I feel that that journey can only happen when you don't keep checking your phone for the time, realizing that you have an assignment tomorrow or that you suddenly miss someone. You should be fit to sentence yourself to that reality, that you are committed to the trip and to turn back would be tantamount to failing your ancestors, after all. If they never made it out the front door, you'd have never been born.

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