Neither Here Nor There

In recent years, I’ve been trying to understand the Why of traveling. If it is simply to see one more place than what has already been seen, then one could just keep seeing place after place, and not really know why. It would be like gluttony.

If it is to go to a better place than where I am, then why don’t I live there already? If I yearn to be there, then I must not be happy where I already am. And if I think that that place is unreachable, then I have resigned myself to my own limitations.

If it is to understand a different way of life, then what’s wrong with trying to understand the people in my own neighborhood? And if I assumed that the farther I travel the more variety I will see, then I am diminishing the potential of my immediate surroundings.

Last week, I think I found what might be a good reason to travel.

I have my reasons for living where I live. Where I live has its good points and bad points. The good points must outweigh the bad points, or else I wouldn’t be here.

Other people have their reasons for living where they live, and they think that their location’s good points also outweigh the bad points.

By understanding and embracing why people live where they do, I am forced to accept the fact that where I live is not the best place in the world. By understanding and embracing why I live where I do, and others like to visit here, I am forced to accept the fact that where they live is not the best place in the world either. I am forced to accept the fact that the concept of “best” or “better” does not really exist.

This understanding diminishes my perception that the choices I make are better than those of others. In turn, this understanding diminishes my own importance. As my own importance is diminished, the burden to maintain my own importance becomes lighter.

By traveling, I lighten the burden of my own importance.