The Purpose of Travelling

It’s been almost two months since I last wrote, and trust me, i wish it hadn’t been so long. However, having been back in the country for one week tomorrow I think i’m finally ready to exit my mental vacation mode and move on. I purposefully refrained from trying to write about anything immediately after returning because it would have been nothing more than gushing about the beauty of the landscape and how I wish I could be back(I still do), yet there was enough underlying turmoil I knew there was something more substantial brewing I should wait for. Which unfortunately means this post will probably take a negative turn.

Now since i’ve been ready to write there have been many worthy topics i’ve been interested in writing about, but I hadn’t been able to find the motivation to write until this evening. Writing about a topic that isn’t fresh defeats the purpose in my mind, there’s no passion, no emotion, at least nothing that isn’t being recalled and projected onto the page. Writing to me is about the passion and emotion in the moment, when the thoughts and ideas are fresh, almost to the extant of stream of consciousness. Which brings us to the topic that has been bouncing around in my head for about 2 days that I finally have come to a conclusion on. The purpose of travelling.

Yesterday or the day before I shared an image on facebook from an old article listing out the reasons we travel, those reasons are as follows:health, education, to get away, realize the limitation of our own views, to be able to improve conditions at home, appreciate other kinds of beauty in the world,find our level internationally, have something to talk about, to have something to look back on, and to appreciate home.   Now i can agree with a few of these concepts, and a couple I would have to have a very long discussion with the author on the explanation before I could get on board. But in general I disagree with it entirely. On multiple levels.I don’t know about anybody else, but every time i’ve traveled it has made me appreciate home less. Every single time. I’ve never gotten back from anywhere and thought man I’m glad to be back. That just doesn’t fucking happen. I hardly want to talk about a trip past the week after i return because it just makes me more depressed that I am no longer there. On top of all of this, the most important aspect, improving life at home, is probably the least taken advantage of. Which brings me to the meat of my thoughts.

Ignore the immense beauty of the country, the beauty of the people, and the serenity the mountains instill, and the one thing that is the hardest for me to comprehend is the sheer amount of joy felt throughout the entire trip. It didn’t matter if there was beauty, ugliness, rain, or shine, there was always an inner core of joy to pull from the entire trip. I’ve been trying to figure out why, at first I assumed it was because I was just so excited to to be there, but then the newness wore off. I thought it was because the landscape was so beautiful, but then we visited two churches in one day and witnessed the quintessence of the Incan genocide, gold and God, and surrounded by so much hate and ugliness I still managed to be able to go out with the group and get some dinner and be social, had I been confronted with half that much at home I would have simply went home and sat in the dark listening to music for hours on end trying to reset. I then thought maybe it’s because I’m surrounded by good friends, but then I remembered I didn’t even know anyone’s names until we landed in Peru. And while they were all beautiful and wonderful human beings, not yet the best friends that instill happiness simply by being in their presence. The more I have pondered it the closer i’ve come to the conclusion that there simply was no reason. It just was.

That’s when it hit me. It hit me like a goddamn dark, depressing, disgusting sack of bricks. There was no external reason as to why there was so much joy there, that was just enjoying life. The fact that it was such a contrast to life here I felt the need to find a reason why makes me very sad. I’m not trying to shortchange the trip’s beauty as a nonfactor, i was almost reduced to tears 3 separate occasions just by being in sheer awe of the beauty that surrounded me. I thoroughly realize that here I have to go to class and work and there I had to do neither, and please don’t insult me by thinking I haven’t taken that into consideration. Looking back the whole trip feels like one big good dream, it doesn’t even feel real life because what I consider real life is so much bleaker. There’s no way so much joy could exist in my real life.

I then asked myself why? Why does joy seemingly not exist here in this existence when it was so abundant within the other. Am i holding out on myself? Is it out of my control? Was there some sort of external trigger there that allowed it? Was i just high off the airplane cookies I found and ate on the way to lima the whole time? Is it something that I can add to my life here?  Long story short, I don’t know. I try to think about my life externally and figure out what’s keeping the joy from existing here as well and I can find nothing. My job is easy and I enjoy the company of most of my coworkers, I actually enjoy what I’m studying in the University and have a passion to learn the material, I’ve got a pretty good group of friends to spend free time with, my dog is adorable albeit kind of a bitch sometimes, I make enough money to buy groceries and pay my bills on time, the only real negative right now is the location i’m living in, but that’s not a huge deal, certainly not overpowering enough to suffocate joy on such a widespread level. While it is easy for my to brush this aside as simply a personal problem, yet I noticed everybody else from the trip seemed to be feeling the same way. Maybe not as severely as me and maybe moreso. i don’t know and I don’t need to know, the truth is still there.

The underlying sadness that something we all shared was left behind in Peru, perhaps never to be reclaimed by all of us, and maybe not by any of us. But that is my new destination. I feel that i’ve come far enough I no longer need to dedicate my entire psyche to holding back the darkness, and I can afford to pursue other issues. Such as where the joy has gone and how to bring it back, if it is able to be brought back at all.