our travel, our selves

lee maicon writes:

others (including own own mr. goodson in a recent and other upcoming posts) have more eloquently than i will here explained the effect that travel, technology and transculturalism have on us, our identities and our existence.

here's one recent and very clever example, that i love, addressing how technology and web 2.0 will impact our constructions of self. how does technology, travel and transculturalism change who we are?

william gibson's character cayce pollard's theory was that jet lag was when...

her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage

this may very well be true. one good thing, however, is the fact that travel forces us to experience, both new things and, particularly, ourselves. new space forces new perspective, which is why travel writing, from herodotus to kapuczynski is as engaging as it is. transculturalism can be just a more authentic representation of ourselves, unbeholden to the anchor of space or tradition or ingrained habits. (which is why planners need to get out of their offices, or desks, as the case may be.)

plus, it's fun to see new things in a new environment. get up and go somewhere. take some pictures. you might learn something.

Comments

[Nikita Dighe]

There once was a couple who took their children out of school for 1 year so that the whole family could go on a trip around the world. When asked about thier responsibility to their children's education the mother replies "I'm doing more than that, I'm not only teaching them about the world on our travels but they will get to see, smell, hear, touch and taste it too. Can you get that from a classroom?"