4 ms·

It takes a while to really get to the point: "Travel is fun, so it is not mysterious that we like it. What is mysterious is why we imbue it with a vast signific

It takes a while to really get to the point: "Travel is fun, so it is not mysterious that we like it. What is mysterious is why we imbue it with a vast significance, an aura of virtue". I think framing that everyone treats travel as this enlightening, broadening experience ("we") is wrong. I'm not one of those people. I'm a filthy tourist that goes to museums and art galleries and goes home after two weeks happy to be back and I'm okay with that. I also know people that put months or years of their life on hold so they could travel aimlessly with a backpack and they seemed like they had a great time, and would probably argue they feel enlightened and broadened for doing so. So I don't really know who this article is against. There probably are some vapid people who fit whoever this is targeting. Don't know why this is written like it's uncovering some ugly truth about "us" and "we", whoever that is meant to be.

0xEF 3y ago
I travel for perspective, so I am not sure if I fit into your description of "imbuing it with vast significance," but I'm interested in exploring that. I have a pretty strong policy of regular self-review where I need to make effort to experience people and places outside of my day-to-day or comfort zone. In the US, it is very, very easy to become hyperlocally insulated and use yourself and your immediate surroundings as a standard by which the known universs is measured. I find that travel, and the mild culture shock or fresh experience that comes with it keeps all that in check in a pretty healthy way. I do have trouble applying any high virtue to that, though. It's much more selfish than that. Keeping my persective honed and dynamic allows me to function better as a human being, forming better relationships to get what I need, apply different ways of doing things to make my day easier, etc. In a way, sure, I guess that is broadening myself a bit, but I can't see any fault in that.
borroka 3y ago
Virtuousness is assigned to activities and pursuits that, in that context, to the non-virtuous may seem inconsequential, or worse than the "real thing", or a waste of time. Virtuousness is assigned, say, to reading, "she's a great reader," or cooking at home, "she makes such homely meals," while living one's life or going to a restaurant or bar instead of grocery shopping and peeling potatoes and cooking for hours is seen as plebeian. "She likes to drink diet coke" does not carry the same weight as "she likes to drink tea," where the former suggests an impoverished mind and the latter a certain philosophical attitude toward life. Or "she likes to walk everywhere" compared to "she likes to drive everywhere," where walking is "imbued with a vast significance, an aura of virtue," whether in the city, mountains, or woods (but especially in the mountains or woods). "She keeps a diary" sounds profound, but shallower when the diary is digital than when the paper smells of lavender and evokes flowering hills as far as the eye can see. I like to travel to certain places and at certain times, which makes me a "conditional traveler", and very often I travel alone, which often allows me to get to know the local people and to lose myself, for a few days or weeks, in another world, perhaps in another life. Other people like other ways of traveling, which I may find more or less appealing to myself, but it's the same feeling I get from clothes worn by others: I may not like them on me, but I don't have to wear them.

0xEF 3y ago

I travel for perspective, so I am not sure if I fit into your description of "imbuing it with vast significance," but I'm interested in exploring that. I have a pretty strong policy of regular self-review where I need to make effort to experience people and places outside of my day-to-day or comfort zone. In the US, it is very, very easy to become hyperlocally insulated and use yourself and your immediate surroundings as a standard by which the known universs is measured. I find that travel, and the mild culture shock or fresh experience that comes with it keeps all that in check in a pretty healthy way. I do have trouble applying any high virtue to that, though. It's much more selfish than that. Keeping my persective honed and dynamic allows me to function better as a human being, forming better relationships to get what I need, apply different ways of doing things to make my day easier, etc. In a way, sure, I guess that is broadening myself a bit, but I can't see any fault in that.

borroka 3y ago

Virtuousness is assigned to activities and pursuits that, in that context, to the non-virtuous may seem inconsequential, or worse than the "real thing", or a waste of time. Virtuousness is assigned, say, to reading, "she's a great reader," or cooking at home, "she makes such homely meals," while living one's life or going to a restaurant or bar instead of grocery shopping and peeling potatoes and cooking for hours is seen as plebeian. "She likes to drink diet coke" does not carry the same weight as "she likes to drink tea," where the former suggests an impoverished mind and the latter a certain philosophical attitude toward life. Or "she likes to walk everywhere" compared to "she likes to drive everywhere," where walking is "imbued with a vast significance, an aura of virtue," whether in the city, mountains, or woods (but especially in the mountains or woods). "She keeps a diary" sounds profound, but shallower when the diary is digital than when the paper smells of lavender and evokes flowering hills as far as the eye can see. I like to travel to certain places and at certain times, which makes me a "conditional traveler", and very often I travel alone, which often allows me to get to know the local people and to lose myself, for a few days or weeks, in another world, perhaps in another life. Other people like other ways of traveling, which I may find more or less appealing to myself, but it's the same feeling I get from clothes worn by others: I may not like them on me, but I don't have to wear them.