I have always made the claim that a person can learn more from traveling than they can in school or at university. I'll refine the statement slightly, but in general I still believe it to be true. A person doesn't learn 'more,' per se. It's hard to quantify something so abstract. And what one learns isn't 'better' by default, either. Just like one's experience at university, the quality of the material learned depends on how much personal energy and intentional thought one is willing to devote. Qualifications aside, here is what I know. Traveling is worth it. Traveling is important. Traveling is a necesity. During these past six months, more specifically throughout the last five weeks of pure traveling, I have learned so much about myself, about people in general, and about how the world works. I hope to continue processing this all for the rest of my life. But here's what I have to share with you so far....
What traveling has taught me about myself.
Traveling has given me a priceless opportunity to really get to know myself. I have learned that there are some essential characteristics about me that I just cannot change (or cannot change easily). So rather than fight to change myself, I have learned to accept myself, to utilize my strengths, and to love who I am.
On a simple level, I am refering to basic personal preferences. The enjoyment I receive from riding bikes is minimal to the happiness I feel when taking walks. Night life and general nighttime activities make me uncomfortable and suspicious. And whether I am in the United States or Chile, nothing bothers me more than when people talk on their cell phones in public. Basic.
But mostly, I am refering to the things that make up the very core of who I am. I view the world through a critical eye. Yes, at times this can be exhausting for me and for those around me. At times it fills me with doubt and stresses the people with whom I am conversing. But I would rather live by asking questions and seeking answers than live without any thought or consideration. Having a critical eye is a healthy quality for any good citizen--be it citizen of the world or citizen of a community. The key that I must learn, and have been learning througout these six months, is how to balance this skeptical eye upon a foundation of hope and optomism. Only then will I be able to note what needs to be changed, to give credit where credit is due, and to envision a better future. To envision a better future. Yes, the future is something I think about. Try as I might, I cannot always live here and now in this very moment. Yes, I do appreciate the beauty that is around me at each given moment. But at the base, I am a foreward thinking planner who needs to feel productive in the moment and likes to be somewhat ready for what is to come. Because of this, I have trouble taking a vacation and relaxing. All that I am seeing and doing must be part of a greater good, of a learning experience that will strengthen me and prepare me for my future tasks. I am flexible, but only to an extent. I have goals and I am determined to achieve them. So I combine the best of here and now with the best of then and there. For me, this is the only way I can live a life of adventure and happiness each day, because I know that my current experiences will help create a better tomorrow.
But how do I prefer to live each day of adventure and happiness? Well, when I am traveling, the answer is simple. By myself. Every Chilean asked me the same question with the same sense of shock...'You travel alone?' Yes, I do and yes, it is fantastic. I have had the privelege of waking up each day and asking myself 'What do I want to do today?' I have been able to spark conversations with every type of person because I am not dependent on another companion for constant reassurance and entertainment. I have been comfortable enough to spend hours and days entirely by myself, because I am accustomed to the joys of the solitary experience. True, I am not opposed to the idea of company. I have met some wonderful people who have inspired me and given me strength (more on that later). I can travel with someone else, but I can only do so for a day or two before I must move on. This explains why I don't like taking tours--in this situation, I find that I see, experience, and understand my surroundings better when I am alone. This also explains why I will cut a new relationship short the minute I find the other person becoming to attached. I cannot count the number of times I've performed the infamous Montana Exit throughuot my travels.What can I say. I am who I am.
But there have been some moments when I don't feel like myself, when I will experience emotions that are different from what I am used to. And although these moments may feel foreign, they too are a part of me. Rather than fight them, I should listen to my body and my mind and learn from these experiences. On a physical level, this happens whenever I get sick. Getting sick when traveling is an awful experience. You have no support, you are in an unfamiliar place, and you are living in the public eye. But pretending you are not sick will only make things worse. In stead, I have learned to listen to my body and give it the time it needs to recover. On a mental level, this happens during those inevitable times that I become numb to the scenery or homesick for the States. Months ago, I would have chastised myself for these feelings. I would have called myself weak and forced myself to cover up these emotions. But now I know that these feelings are part of me, and that I should acknowledge them and work with them rather than ignore them and hide them. I have learned to respond to these situations in a way that allows me to experience the emotion fully and change the feelings slowly. When I feel unable to grasp the beauty of what is around me, I stop focusing on the big picture landscape and start to notice smaller details. I look less at the grand mountains and more at the way the leaves sparkle. When I feel homesick and exhausted, I change locations or make a subtle physical change. I get on a bus or I get a hair cut. Something so simple allows me to mark a transition that reinvigorates me and allows me to continue.
What traveling has taught me about other people.
People judge that which they do not understand. This is natural. It's human instinct. We do it for survival so we can have a sense of what we should avoid and what we can approach. We do it to make sense of the world so we can deconstruct the unknown into something logical and understandable. An important key to traveling, however, is learning how to be safe and understand others without passing judgement. This has been relatively easy for me to do when it comes to local Argentines and Chileans. Thanks to my background in anthropology, I have approached most interactions with an understanding of cultural relativism. I have been able to understand why they live the way they do, why they prioritize their present relations, and why they distrust people from the United States (surprisingly this has less to do with our dark history and ugly international policies and more to do with our seemingly cold, self centered personalities). However, my greatest challenge came in the form of other travelers. At first, it was difficult for me to open up to the tourists and backpackers whom I met in hostels and on buses. It took an intentional effort to realize that not every young traveler is a party seeking, tour group hopping, unconsious money spender. Just like I have an interesting story for my quirky adventure, so too do they. Once I realized this seemingly obvious fact, I began to meet a range of fantastic, brilliant, inspiring people. The French motorcyclist who has driven his beloved bike around the world. The American Fullbright Fellow who, at 60, divorced her husband and moved to Chile. The rare jewel traders from Australia who have an entirely self-sustainable farm. The retired US Marine who now begrudgingly flies planes for Monsanto. The maried couple from New York who lives and participates in their forward thinking, progressive community outside of the city. The Spanish farmers. The Swedish biker. The English soul searcher. The wide-eyed dreamer from Santiago. Everyone has their story. Everyone has their reason for traveling. Everyone has their goals that they wish to accomplish. The quicker I realized that, the more I was able to get past the pleasentries and to begin the real conversations. Those were the conversations I cherished and those were the interactions that inspired me. But to get there, I had to suspend judgement for the time being and lower the wall ever so slightly.
This is an important lesson to take home to America with me. I know and have met many Americans that make me never want to return to the United States. They are self centered and close minded. They think any form of lifestyle other than their fastpaced, car culture, consumeristic world is boring and regressive. They refuse to see the impacts their actions have on the rest of the world or they feel so entitled to their position that they don't care. But for every one of these Americans, there are dozens more who give me hope, who make me proud of my country, and who drive me to return. Maybe they don't live a sustainable lifestyle and maybe they don't concern themselves with the current global state on a daily basis. But they are interested in what I am doing, they are conscious of their actions, and they work hard to improve their community. Then there are those who are making positive changes in the world and who are living active, concerned lifestyles. It is with them that I fight and with them that I will live and work upon my return. As one of my American muses told me throughout my travels, 'There are a lot of great people in the States. And there are a lot of great people who still don't yet knwo that they are great people.'
When all is said and done, everyone is the same. We are all people living our lives. On the surface, we all may appear different. But that is because we have adapted to our current locations and time period. Chile is a large country with many different climate zones. People live differently in the desert than they do on the island of Chiloe. That goes without saying. But when I pass them on the street or look at them from the bus, everyone is living. They are walking home from the supermarket. They are buying birthday presents. They are walking their children home from school. They are talking on street corners. They are embracing a lover. They are smoking a cigarette. On the surface these faces and actions may not appear noteworthy or interesting. Their not photogenic like San Pedro's salt flats of Patagonia's mountains. But they represent life, and life in and of itself is noteworthy and interesting. The key now, is to make everyone realize that although we are living our own lives, our lives are inseparable. We share a world and we share a mental connection.
But I cannot force people to change and I cannot force people to adapt this world view. I can only learn to understand where they are coming from. The only change I can actively cause, is the change within myself. Change myself. Unite my mind and heart and soul and body. That will inspire people. That will set an example. That spark will start a light that will spread accross the globe and illuminate us all. I have that light. You have that light. Those around you have that light. The more we open ourselves to others, the more we can inspire each other, invigorate each other, support each other, and brighten the world.
What traveling has taught me about how the world works.
People have the power to create the reality they experience. To a degree, they choose the world in which they live. They choose to prioritize certain things and to focus on certain truths. Everyone does that. You do it. I do it. When traveling in Chile, I chose to focus on the countryside, on the natural environment, on small towns, on the daily life of families, on the effects of institutions of religion and international corporations. Those are the questions I sought, so those are the answers I received. And I received these answers in different ways. In the countryside, I walked. I walked and I walked and I walked. Hills, fields, farms, mountains. I took in everything by moving. But in a city, where everything else is moving around me, I was the one that stood still. So I sat. I sat and I sat and I sat. Park benches, cafe windows, street corners. I took in it all by staying still. This is what I know of Chile, and this is how I came to know it. I won't claim to have an understanding of it all. I don't know what life is like at night. I don't understand the importance of restaurants or national cuisine. I made a choice and I prioritized. I chose my reality. If you understand the lens through which I see the world, you will understand me and my perspective better. It is important to talk to people, to understand what matters to them, to understand the lens through which they view the world. It will help you understand them, the country, and the world a lot better.
Of course, there are a set of confines within which we must live. We are only human, and we cannot control the world. We shouldn't even make the attempt. But what we can do is choose how to respond to the world that we are presented with. We can do this on a large scale. The world is flattening, and globalization has connected us in ways we are only beginning to understand. We must choose to be active members of our local community, as well as conscious global citizens. Buy local and recycle. Simple enough place to start. But we can also choose to respond to the world on a daily basis in our own personal lives. I make it a habit to find at least one thing each day that blows my mind, that makes me grateful to be alive. Sometimes it is as shocking as realizing that there is an active volcano in my back yard. Other times it is as simple as biting into a freshly picked apple. This seems like a minute task. This seems so easy that it couldn't possibly have any grand impacts. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how lucky I am to have at least one moment a day. And the truth is, I have multiple moments each day. Life is filled with ironies and coincidences. The more I notice them, the more enjoyable life becomes. The more I find something unique about each and every sunset, the more special this beautiful occasion becomes. I look at the people who pass me by on the streets, hurrying from one task to the next, and I wonder if they can say that they find a moment of peace and happiness in their busy, routine lives. But I can say that each day is spectacular. I choose to say that. And so it is. The world becomes beautiful, and I become inclined to dance, to sing, to laugh, to smile. I turn the switch, and what appeared dull and grey is now radiating with sunshine and color. Joy spreads within me and it expands. I pay it forward and the movement grows.
Learning to create my reality and choose my world has shown me that the world is not so black and white. Answers are neither simple nor obvious. Maybe the answers don't even exist. The only thing I can do is to keep asking questions, keep absorbing information, and keep learning. Confusing, I know. But exciting, too. So what's real? What are the answers? I don't know. It seems like cities are not the enemy, and the nostalgic countryside cannot offer us all salvation. Cities are sites of intense consumerism and superficial relations. The countryside can be a place of closeminded mentalities and inbred pessimism. So what am I fighting? I am fighting against a life of extremes. Against a life without hope, without thought, without passion, without love. Against a motonized world filled with self serving, bland, disconnected individuals. That can happen in the country and in the city. That's how the world works. And right now, more than anything, we need to bring out the best of everyone and every place. We need the progressive thoughts of the city and the natural connection of the country. We need the work ethic, reliable qualities of the conservatives and the free thinking, accepting mind of the liberals. We need the hope and optomism of each and every person. We need it all and more so that our world can be one of love, hope, connection, spark, culture, peace, and beauty. So that our world can be one we are proud to call home, we are honored to love, and we are grateful to share.
What I learned was not small. What I learned was not easy. The emotions I have experienced over the past six months were the strongest I have ever felt. I have never been happier, and I have never been more sad. I have never been more certain, and I have never been more filled with doubt. I have never been more present, and I have never been more lost. These answers are not final. These lessons are not over. My journey does not end here. This is simply another transition. Another movement. The adventure continues. The spark spreads. Today is beautiful, and tomorrow will be just as spectacular. This much I know for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Well, hello there.