Traveling: shallow excitement?
More than I think about traveling, more I conclude that pure traveling is a quite shallow experience for me. I am not saying that is not awesome to see all the beauty the world has to offer. I am saying; it is not so fulfilling as I thought it would be.
It does depend on how you travel. I never liked touristic organized groups and hordes shifting from one attraction to another. I was always interested in incredible stories, unusual people, new experiences, different cultures, and breathtaking nature. With my family we wanted deep travel involvement. We didn’t want to be tourists. We didn’t even want to be backpackers. We just wanted to somehow blend with environment we’ll encounter and fully live in it. We took almost nothing with us, only some clothes to change and computers to earn money. But then we realized, that we don’t know how to practice our ideas. We didn’t know the language, so our communication wasn’t working. We had our needs as individuals that we had to take in consideration and treat them inside the team of four. We noticed we are not able to work when we are handling unknown surroundings. Finally, it revealed to us that we are not doing anything as we were supposed to. We were without dedication to the main cause. Everything was somewhere in the air, without any discipline. How can we rise in such a chaotic situation?
We had to stop kidding ourselves: we were tourists, we were treated as one, and we acted accordingly. We were spending money not making it. We saw things but didn’t feel them. Another notion came to us: we need community, we need human connections. And you cannot make one if you are just wandering from one place to another.
In the end, you are not doing anything else but packing that little possession you drag with you, and shifting from one place to another, without real focus and vision: What do I generate? What am I building?
I started to feel useless. I wasn’t creating. I couldn’t write because I was too exhausted. We didn’t have any friends to share our feelings. Kids didn’t have anyone with whom they could play. We weren’t building our incubator; we were homeless. We had no shelter. Birds make their nests even though they migrate. What were we making? What was our contribution to the world?
The other day I watched a movie with Leo — The lost city of Z. While watching, it came to us what was missing in our experience. We didn’t have a real purpose. We didn’t have the strong WHY. “To see the world” is so shallow, and media pumped. The guy in the movie had his vision. He wanted to discover the lost city he was sure is hidden out there in the jungle. He had a bigger picture for times when things get hard; when you want to quit. That is how you should start your project: with a sharp idea. What do you want to achieve?
I don’t want to be mare consumer and destroyer of a new world by barging in. If I am putting myself into the unknown system, I need to know why am I doing it. Why do I stir up the stillness of a small village with my presence? Do I give anything in return? If not, who am I kidding?
What is my WHY?
