The journey totem
Generalizations are questionable. Actually, deplorable. More, they are detestable. Let’s consider the statement: “Traveling improves you, opens your mind and makes you happy”. The implication is considerable, since it implies a certain benefit brought by the act of traveling in terms of personal evolution, open-mindedness and the achievement of happiness. That is quite an achievement!
Obviously, it is not as simple as that, for each of those goals not only depends on our nature but above all is the result of a huge amount of work on ourselves. If we are shallow, ignorant and full of prejudice when we pack, we will be as shallow, ignorant and full of prejudice (if not more so) when we unpack.
“Caelum, non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt (Those who cross the sea, change sky, but not soul.)” [Quinto Orazio Flacco]
Like so many other things, travel can be the richest and most authentic life experience or the most miserable and silly. Banally (?), it is we who determine which of the two cases will come true.
Against the common belief, a philosopher from ETH Zurich, Michael Hampe, has relativized and challenged the journey totem, the cult object of alleged extraordinary powers idolized by many. In the following, some highlights from his interview (read the original article here):
- The industrialisation of holidays has increasingly turned travel to remote, exotic locations into a mark of social prestige. People talk about where they’ve been on holiday, and this leads to competition — for example, who’s been to Fiji and how many times.
- Philosophers often perceived travel as a type of escapism. They criticised the belief that it was possible to solve life’s problems with a change of location. […] Generally, problems in life have less to do with a place, and far more to do with a person’s character and habits — and you can’t escape from those on holiday.
- The question is, what type of travel encourages this type of development [to broaden your horizons — ed.]? If you travel to a tourist resort, there’s little chance that you’ll get an insight into another culture. But if you work abroad for a year, you will gain another perspective on your native country. You’ll begin to question truths that you take to be self-evident back home.
- In order to be influenced by foreign cultures, you have to suspect that your own view of the world is incomplete and one-sided.
- People are often disappointed because they think they have to go on a certain holiday for image reasons, even though they don’t really want to.
