Travel

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main thread of how I thought about travel over the years.

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at first I thought I traveled to see places.

Then I thought it's to meet people.

Then I thought to meet myself.

Then I stopped traveling for a while.

#innerjourney lol

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1 - seeing sunny places

I fell for the sunny beach for life travel dream, until I realised I don't really care about beaches and too much leisure is actually incredibly unfulfilling.

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2 - meeting interesting people

Experiencing different cultures taught me that there is no "set way" for anything.

People do things wildly differently, there are no real rules, only people used to doing things a certain way.

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3 - "meeting myself"

obviously the previous two help, seeing myself in different contexts. One could argue the whole world is a mirror that we look at ourselves in. Mediation retreats, chasing pleasures, meeting people, hardships helped in general, feels like it kind of set me up for the next step.

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4 - stopping travel

While I had a hunch it would turn out this way, most of my travels started reminding me of mindless consumption and chasing excitement.

I'm very grateful for the discovery and exploration phase of my life but at some point I had these nagging thoughts of making things that are worth my time, so I decided I need to stop running around a bit to get deeper into that.

Also for most of my travels I realised I was searching for a home, but then realised I probably need to build it. And then realised I probably have to build/ re-build myself first.

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from Seneca:

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"Do you suppose that you alone have had this experience?

Are you surprised, as if it were a novelty, that after such long travel and so many changes of scene you have not been able to shake off the gloom and heaviness of your mind?

You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate. Though you may cross vast spaces of sea, and though, as our Vergil remarks, 'Lands and cities are left astern,' your faults will follow you whithersoever you travel."

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5 - next:

I'm not sure, I'm revisiting old places, seeing them in a new light and thinking more and more about building instead of finding, or finding through building, doing a lot of thinking and doing.

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Definitely feels like I need to have a more boring life to have the patience and the awereness to get to some of the nuances I overlooked so far. So turning down the volume of the "outside world" and seeing how that will pan out.

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