I have many reasons to travel. I’m likely to write on all of them at some point, have already written on some as it stands.
A change of perspective is certainly a very important reason for me.
We live in this society of consumerism. You can buy everything you need. You needn’t want for anything. Supermarket shelves are packed with food for any liking, at the click of a mouse you can order anything you fancy online.
We take all this for granted, but lest we forget that it is in fact a privilege. I wasn’t born into a life as privileged as this. For a start, we had no internet. And the supermarket shelves were empty rather than full for a majority of the time.
I had a happy childhood nonetheless, because I had everything I needed and didn’t know what else I might be “missing out” on. I didn’t feel that I was missing out on anything as it was.
Only sometimes we got an inkling that there was more out there, behind the Iron Curtain. And only once the wall fell we realized that there was a wonderland right next door.
As horizons widen and we learn more about life, the universe and everything, our perspective shifts, adjusts and readjusts.
With everything we learn our perspective tends to change. As long as you have an open mind anyway. Some people gather new information, but don’t actually learn anything and are so static in their thinking that no amount of new information will ever transform into knowledge.
Narrowmindedness prevails and what a pity that is.
Walking in someone else’s shoes, changing a vantage point will allow you to gain a new perspective on things. No matter what happens, it will be useful. You will undoubtedly learn something from it. It’ll depend on the experience, if it’ll be for the better or the worse.
Eternal optmist that I am, I’d always hope for the better.
A change of perspective is one the reasons I need to travel. I am stuck in my world. My imagination can take me very far, but sometimes I need to see things for myself and walk a road that I’ve never taken before.
I don’t want to look at a picture of Macchu Picchu. I want to be surrounded by its walls. I don’t want to see a film about Patagonia. I want to breathe its air. I don’t want to be told how warm the ocean is in Southeast Asia. I want to walk into it myself.
Seeing something or hearing about it is a very different thing to experiencing it. I don’t think I need to tell you that, because that’s kinda pointing out the obvious.
But people forget. It’s so easy to forget these things. I don’t need to experience everything, but by experiencing things you’ll form a connection with them, you care more and your perspective changes.
If you see poverty first hand, you’re more likely to try and do something about it, especially when you’re in a position to do so. If you see the astounding beauty our planet offers, you’re more likely to want to preserve it.
Sometimes I feel like I just live on this planet, but not in this world. I feel disconnected. Because everything around me is man made.
I want to sink my feet into the sands of beaches across the world. I want to climb mountain tops and look out into valleys. I want to hug a tree that is five hundred years old. I want to get to know this planet that is my home. I want to see those parts of it that are still free of concrete.
Because all of that puts the little corner of the world that I inhabit into a new perspective as well. It makes it insignificant, though, no less unique. I need to expand my world and make it as all encompassing as possible.
My horizon isn’t wide enough. It’s wider than almost anybody elses I know, but not wide enough.
I have a long way to go yet.
2clouds 