Travelling is more than a physical journey
More often than not travelling is seen as a way to leave your everyday life behind, or to explore new and exotic places. Also there are business trips, family trips, school trips, and trips to Mordor to destroy a ring. The last kind rigorously not to be done alone.
Whose dream was to travel. Not while working, even though her bartender skills could be spent anywhere. It was her goal in life to see every place on Earth. When I asked what drove her to such intent she said: "You might think 'God' but I say 'Damn!'". Which, as far as motivation goes, I am still unsure whether this particular one sounds legit or not.
I believe wanting to visit a place because you've seen it on TV, or a friend of a friend has been there and said it was amazing, or because Pinterest told you Paris is always a good idea, to be pretty good reasons. You know how I feel about travelling and escape from the mountains. It's interesting how, for other people, and a dude called Goethe (XVIII - XIX Century) among them, travelling has to be more than a physical journey to see what everyone is looking at. This Goethe guy thought that even the most perfect postcard picture of a white beach, or sky high mountains, wouldn't mean much if the place didn't convey anything to you in person. Just like meeting a celebrity in real life. They suddenly appear so common and flawed, way different from the perfect ideal of human being we saw on the screen.
Most people have this Romantic idea of a journey into the greatness of nature. Feeling accomplished when the experience gives you the same emotions of an infatuation, leaving you breathless and capturing your senses. Such wandering would take away your breath and senses, leaving your mind blank and loss for words. Which may precisely be what some people are looking for in a journey they could only describe as 'Damn!'.
I am by no means the first to say this, in fact, Goethe said it way before me, that outer journeys are intended to support inner ones towards maturity. Travelling should be a way to find a missing piece, or ingredient, of your own completion. Everyone soul recipe is different and equally complex.
Image: by Martina
