Essays

Wanderlust

How far do you think you can go in this world? How many years do you have to live? I for one cannot bear the truth that even after my death, there will still be things left to do, things left to explore, food yet to eat, people yet to meet. I know this sounds strange but before dying I want to experience everything. Everything, till the point I can’t go no further. Till I collapse and be satisfied with all that I’ve done. All that we experience in our day to day lives is only a fraction of things around us. The world is huge, and there are countless possibilities waiting for us. A philosopher once said, that he felt that it is strange that birds tend to live in one tree, their whole lives even though they can fly off to whichever place they seem fit. Then he asked himself the same question. What ties him to one area? What is holding him back from exploring the world? And the answer is that we people are burdened by are responsibilities and to our work. We fear that our future may bring us problems if we don’t constantly work. We humans need to learn that, what we experience in our life is more important than money. We need to always remember that life is a journey and not a destination, an experience rather than a goal. We need to be constantly reminded that.

 In my opinion traveling is the best way to experience something new. It helps us meet new people, in foreign lands in foreign conditions. We learn how simple things can impact our surroundings, for example how being a coastal area change the way of the people, their lifestyle, their culture and traditions. It’s fascinating how small things can impact us. When we live in only one area, we tend to believe that there is only one kind of world, the world that one person lives in. But the fact is that there is a multitude of kinds of worlds, each one very unique from the others. It is mindboggling to know that there are always lifestyles and traditions that are still yet to be explored. That is why people have the urge to travel, to explore unexplored lands. Like hiking the Himalayas or living in a new city. The joy that you get from it is beyond words. It is like a part of your life now, that you can share with others in your course of life.

 The joy that you get from it is beyond words. It is like a part of your life now, that you can share with others in your course of life.

Imagine a world, where everything is the same. Every road, every person, every building is the same. How dull would a life like that be? There would be no need to socialize, no need to try something new. But this is not the case in our world. Our world offers diversity in everything. It offers diversity in life, in activities, in the people we meet. Hence there is a need to travel and to explore. To witness that part of reality that you have not yet seen or experienced. It’s also what makes you different from the person sitting next to you.

They say there are two ways of living your life. One, in which you live your life the way others tell you to live. You follow their orders and become the sheep in a hoard of cattle. The other I would say, is the kind in which you exclude yourself from the others and be your own person. You make your life’s decisions the way you want them to be. They say travelling the world and witnessing yourself it’s rich culture and diversity is one of these decisions. It is not necessary, but it is something that we need from the inside, which gives us a sense of fulfilment. When we travel, we do it because it is what our heart wants. To get to experience something that is beyond the ordinary.

When we travel we broaden our understanding of the world. We get to know how same things happen in different lands. They say, to best know about a place, we must experience it by being there. I largely agree with this notion. Reading books or looking at pictures will only help you imagine what a place might be like. It might give you very accurate information about a place and a picture may show you a good view, but nothing compares to actually seeing it with your own eyes. Seeing is
believing, and when it comes to travelling, feeling it is believing.

How much a person knows of a place can be directly linked to how long a person has lived there. For example, a person living at a place for five years will know more about a place than a person living for six months. But this is not completely true. To truly know about a place, you must travel its veins, experience its diversity and know its people and languages. When we go for tours we only see a part of what is being tried to show to us. We don’t know about the problems the people face, the way they talk, the things they like. Living there solves one half of the problem, and truly experiencing the way of life there solves the other half.

(Written by – Mitul Magu)

27^th April, 2016