TRAVELING THROUGH TIME

When I used to ponder what retirement would look like, the first association was that it would allow time for me to travel. I love exploring new places, new cultures, and new ideas. When I was younger I had visions of expanding my narrow consciousness through exploration, by understanding that this is not all there is, that others may well view what is important in the world through a different lens. I traveled in my late teens and early twenties through parts of Europe and Asia. I spent months at a time living in a place and getting to feel like I knew something of the nature of where I was. I was on a mission to understand how vast the world is, and to encapsulate a synthesis of the divergence therein.

Traveling had to do with going to other places and finding myself within the context of place. It had to do with remaining somewhere with commitment until ready to move on. The journey had to be as important as the arrival; the people could allow me in as they saw fit. The place would either draw me in or repulse me, and sometimes both. There was little caution and a lot of curiosity; perhaps that is the definition of naivety. 

Below is a response that I wrote to a friend in 2012 on the subject of travel:

Ramblings on Travel and Consciousness

Travel may offer us an opportunity to see different things, people, and places. More importantly, through travel, we may be able to actually see differently. To see through the eyes of a person who is living a different life, we are able then to imagine differently. Our horizons are broadened. Although we are still bound by our fears and preservation instincts we still have the opportunity to move beyond that; and that is where the adventure resides.

When I was younger I was not afraid of dying, I was correct in knowing that I would not die an early death. It was much easier then to travel, to follow my nose, to be open to the next thing, to remain non-judging but still to generally be able to discern and to make good decisions. It was a gift to have some money, usually a travel companion and plenty of free time. When I was in (and on my way to) India, I was excited and open. I was curious about what the place had to offer for me and knew, quite rightly, that I had little to offer in return. India then was the guru. I allowed her to nurture me and to teach me to see differently. As a kid from the East End struggling to break free of the tremendous gravity of class, place and family, I now had a resolution and anticipation that was wildly unfamiliar and freeing.

They say that in India we are taken back to another time. For me the world began to slow down even as the crowds and chaos erratically encircled me. Preconceptions will guide our experience and nowhere more so than in India. Whatever we bring to a place in terms of our expectations will surely play out in our perceptions and experiences. Our brains try to make sense of utter chaos and the easiest way is to try to fit the unnerving, unidentifiable patterns of life on the streets into something tangible, into pre-existing belief systems and ways of seeing, encoding and finding a semblance of meaning within the context of the already known. This can work well enough if you are on a trip or a sight seeing tour; if you have a few weeks out of your workaday life to explore another country, another culture. But, in traveling there is a commitment to living wholeheartedly in that place with those people as one of those people, though never accepted or truly a part of the place. There is the desire to learn and fit in even though you will never completely fit in, will always be extraneous. In that very process we are changed, transformed, no longer that which we were; and in that way consciousness is altered, expanded.

As with psychedelics, when a shift of this magnitude occurs in how we see the world, we still have to find a way to cognitively integrate the disintegration of what we previously believed. Otherwise we are lost, destroyed, bemused, baffled by it all; or more likely our brains will resort to our ordained safety mechanisms of finding order in what we already believed. Not too different from the dissonance we might feel when we find out that our beloved politician is a liar, that a wife cheated on us or that our esteemed sports team are not really that good any more. A state of shock ensues.

We now have what are known as a global economy, the world wide web, social networking, news, stories and photographs from and of the most distant places. You can travel anywhere from anywhere and you may not even have to leave your home. And yet, what are the images that are being drawn of places more foreign to us? So often in America I hear people talking about “those people over there” and offering some convoluted version of an article they read that marginalizes a whole race of people, a whole culture or country without any attempt at understanding. It is this concept of “other” that forms the definition of xenophobia. We fear that which we do not understand unless we embrace others as extensions of ourselves. We must reach out with a desire to understand, and with openness to learning, to expand our consciousness through connection, compassion and curiosity. 

During my workaday world there have been more opportunities to take trips for up to three or four weeks at a time. I traveled to various places in the USA and Canada – cities and National Parks. 

New York

Alberta, Canada

Alaska

Hawaii

I have been to England, Paris, Spain, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, and Japan in recent years. 

London

Paris

Cordoba, Spain

Positano, Italy

Berlin, Germany

Morocco

India

Sahara Desert

Japan

 I have been interested in photographing these places and have tended to see them through the camera viewfinder. These have been great breaks from the tedium of everyday, and have provided talking topics and photographic albums. Nevertheless they have always left me with a feeling of wanting more, a desire to go deeper. They have been thumbnails rather than landscapes, stolen glances rather than love affairs.

In retirement there is the siren call of a world of variety. There is little ground left that has not been trodden upon. There is a plethora of information available; sometimes it seems as though I have already visited a place when I get there. When I was in Venice, I looked around me and found picture postcards everywhere – I had seen these scenes before! 

Venice, Italy

I am calloused, and perhaps less open to change as I have grown older. I have more to lose and therefore I am more cautious and protective. My body is not as flexible as it used to be and traveling has thus become more difficult. I have a need for more comfort. I will take the easy route, the softer bed. I will choose to stay at home and rest rather than to go out and experience the place that I am in. In fact, I become more aware that the place that I am in is the body that I am in that moves through the places where I go. I am encapsulated and less open. These are the challenges that I expect to face when traveling now.