Once we make the decision to step away from the safety and the security of our home or our home village or small community, suburb, whatever it is, we are truly never the same. Because with travel, you begin a whole new range of experiences.
Some are joyous, for sure. Some are also rather fearful. And if you have a bit of arrogance at the beginning, you are certainly humbled by travel, because you are subjected to people that you would normally never know.
And that could be your fellow travelers. That’s certainly going to be the case when you’re faced with these endless rounds of security.
The customs guard can refuse to allow you entry to a given country, depending on the jurisdiction, for up to five years. He or she could decide that you’re not a worthy alien to be able to enter into the country.
And that can pose a lot of complications, because of course there is no appeal. So when you go there with your arrogant stance, you run the risk of basically being refused.
But on the more positive note, once you get past the travel and you’re deposited someplace having cleared customs, then your real adventure can begin, because the first thing that comes to you is the stunning decency of the average human being.
People, wherever you go, want to help you, and they want to guide you on your path.
Now, yes, there are the unscrupulous, and the people that will take advantage of you and try and take a disproportionate amount of your money, but many times, that’s the nature of the beast.
These people have less than you, and you look like you have more, and they want to take some of that away.
Very seldom will you run into such a risk that your life is in danger, for sure, but you are gaining new experience on how you can be bilked or stolen from, and it won’t happen a second time, usually.
So that’s another experience of travel, maturation, how to protect your private property, but inside the country, as I said earlier, you are filled with this sense that people are decent and they’re going to show you around.
I exceptionally like homestays. I’ve done this in India a number of times, for example, and you get the homestay plus for a little bit of extra money, sometimes for free, but sometimes for a little extra money.
People will show you around Varanasi, in Calcutta, Gantok, in Sikkim, exotic places like this, and they will describe what it’s like to be a local individual in this given environment. Absolutely fantastic, fantastic experience.
Changes your view of the world.
Now historically, we didn’t travel very much, did we? If we had a farm or worked on a farm, we perhaps kept within a distance of 20 kilometers. The next village was over the rise, and that was a long way away.
And when we went to visit the village on the other side of the rise, it was like we were going to another country.
And to actually date a girl, for instance, if you were a man from that village, wow, she was a maiden from a very, very, very far away place, almost mystical and magical in a certain sense of the word.
But of course, this world no longer exists, and even if we don’t physically travel today, we do have access to the Internet, which shows us or can show us everywhere, virtually.
And there is some question in the long term, whether people will physically travel more or travel less, and that also will pose some risk, because you can be given a false image of a place on the Internet.
Of course, it can be promoted in such a way as to be encouraging, like a Disneyland, but away from the touristic centers. I mean, what is life really like for the average person?
You will never know for sure, because you’re being encouraged just to go to those areas.
So what do we get from travel? Firstly, we’re allowed to be a little bit brave.
So if we are a fearful individual, like I am, for instance, I was always a bit fearful as a child, you gain bravery because you’re going to cross all these borders with these strange people, strange customs official, police, and otherwise, and you’re
going to have to keep it together. You have to know where your documents are. You’re going to have to have the correct visas and papers, etc.
So then once you’re in another land and experiencing a different culture, you’re going to have to be able to navigate where to stay, what to do, if you’re going to go to a different university in another country, all of those things, right?
The second thing travel gives you is a realization that we’re all the same. Whether we’re pink, orange, blue, or red, our skin tone I’m referring to, certainly we forget that our blood is red. So we are all the same.
We all want basically the same thing. We want to be in love with ourselves and society. We want to be safe.
We want to have an interesting cultural experience. We want to ensure that our families are fine. We’re all the same.
So then comes the question of course, where is war from? Well, war most times is from economic benefit, isn’t it, really? Has been, historically, people at the top benefit.
If it’s not financially, they benefit when it comes to power. And the people that fulfill those obligations of war are usually the young, especially men. They suffer and they die.
And we’re told this makes you a man. It makes you feel brave when you’re faced confronted with death. This was the line that they used for people during the First World War, when millions of young men were damaged forever.
If they weren’t killed, they were ruined psychologically. First World War was apparently a horrible war. I’m sure the Second World War was equally aspernicious.
But the First World War took a whole generation of very romantic minded men and destroyed them, truly destroyed them, in these horrific conditions for four years on the Western Front. Even today, it’s not properly documented.
Good book to read is all quite on the Western front. That’s from a German perspective, but still, it’s the conditions of war never the same.
I think it’s changed the way we view civilization in a way, because it was so easy to expend life in the First World War. Life was always a little bit more precious, certainly when it came to the ruling classes.
And yet, it was all tossed away, 25% of young men. Other ruling classes were killed in the First World War, so it was the end of the British Empire, for sure, because they couldn’t manage an empire with such a dearth of highly educated individuals.
And all the chaos with the collapse of empires, right? The First World War, big area of study, so travel. We realize that mankind can be bizarrely cruel, but of course, our example when we travel is one of love and peace and harmony.
And then the final thing that you come away with is a little bit like the monomyth. When you return home, which you will, inevitably you feel somehow more mature, more worldly.
So your view of mankind, even though it’s been subjected to, perhaps, circumstances that weren’t always positive, your view of mankind is much more hopeful in the end, isn’t it? So travel. I like to travel with my walking partner David.
He’s a great travel companion, but there are people who like groups. I don’t think the travel group is the best way because it does somewhat sanitize an area you’re going to, and it would be best to perhaps really understand where you’re going.
But either way, travel is important. So you know what they say, you know what they say. Critical thinking is everything, especially when it comes to travel, and critical thinking is great, truly great.
You take care. God bless. Bye-bye.