Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Well isn't this a long post?

Sometimes my world travel exploration is really nothing more than sitting in a coffee shop in a new city, ordering a pot of tea and a plate of fries, and hanging out with my laptop. Really what I'm doing right now i could be doing from any city (well, any city with internet, tea, and fries)and indeed is something that i've done in most cities i've visited. So where is all the exlporation? Is it really travel if i stay within the confines of a familiar bubble, and upon moving, simple pick up the entire thing and shift it?

Ok ok, in all fairness i rarely do what i'm doing right now and the only reason I'm indulging is that I'm only in this city for about 8 hours, I have a heavy bag, and I need to stay in the vicinity of the bus station. But still, these ideas are something to consider, and things that I do often.

I've been thinking a lot about travelling and learning, exploring and discovering and what it all means. Right before i left Hawaii this last time i began to flirt with the ideas of exploring and travelling at home, delving deeper into the essences of everyday events as opposed to seeking the (sometimes) superficial knowledge of 'exciting' 'exotic' things. To say it another way, I've been contemplating the differences between knowing a lot about a little instead of a little about a lot. Now that I'm travelling more and more, indeed more than I ever thought I would, I find myself revisiting this topic more and more,and as I ponder my actions and their incentives I have been rolling three quotes over in my head. The first one is by Proust, something that lodged itself in my head incorrectly and, thanks to a conversation with a friend, i recently revisited and corrected my memory of. it goes like this:

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of hundreds of others, in seeing the hundreds of universes that each of them sees. -Marcel Proust

This is the first quote that I encountered along the lines re-discovering the old, and though it does not quite get to the roots of what i've been mulling over, i still think it is worth comment and it is something that I've thought about at different stages in my life. It's not only about rediscovering your daily life but also about acknowledging that we all see the world around us through certain filters, be they related to culture, age, sex, orientation, or something as simple as the differences between a right handed person's experiences and left handed person's. It is about not only becoming more familiar with your own reality but giving space to and exploring the realities of those around you. Very interesting.

The next quote also skirts around the edges of my main issue a bit, but is definately relevant to the way that i've been living my life the past few months. Those of you've that I've been talking to regularly know that in this particular branch of the tree that is my life (aha, i'm so poetic.) I've encountered something entirely foreign and rather challenging- i want to go home. I find myself pining for and lusting after a place that I've already been. Novel. For someone who has always been sniffing around the next plane ticket, it's an interesting and, blessedly, welcome change. It is a development that comes at a rather ironic and also quite challenging time, considering the fact that I've finally gotten myself into a lucrative and comfortable groove and indeed will not be returning home for a matter of months. Some of you may scoff at 'months' and advise me that it is but a blip in the saga of my far reaching life, but when a person hasnt lived in one place for more than 3 months in over two years time she begins to relate to time in different ways that most people. A month or two here or there is a very different concept in the world of Jessie than it is in the world of most people. Thusly, this interesting dilemma I find myself in is rather ironic, and though irksome and irritating, i must admit it is a predicament i find myself glad to be in. I look forward to arriving home and finally living without the constant itch of wanderlust invading my thoughts and senses. This next quote plays upon this theme,revolves around ideas of what exactly it is to use the time you have at your discretion in a truly useful manner. I know that I have been guilty of looking past the present in attempts to grasp at the future. It is something that though I am aware of, and was aware of while living in Hawaii, I find extremely difficult to stop- especially now that I feel I've found what I really truly want (to return home). I identify very strongly with this quote, and find that it is a rather good example of the way that I have not only been abusing my travel experiences recently but is also analogous to the way I misused a lot of my last respite period at home. It is from the book Siddartha, and was written as follows:

“Are you not also a seeker of the right path?”
There was a smile in Siddhartha’s old eyes as he said: “Do you call yourself a seeker, 0' venerable one, you who are already advanced in years and wear the robe of Gotama’s monks.”
“I am indeed old,” said Govinda, “but I have never ceased seeking. I will never cease seeking. That seems to be my destiny. It seems to me that you also have sought. Will you talk to me a little about it, friend?”
Siddhartha said: “What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.”
“How is that?” asked Govinda.
“When someone is seeking,” said Siddhartha, “it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, un­able to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, be­cause he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, 0' worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.”

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Very poignant, that quote. I mull over it quite a bit.

The third quote speaks directly to the concepts that have been most recently on my mind, and is by TS Eliot, a man whose writing i have never really taken the time to read. Interestingly enough, I just learned from Wikipedia that his birthday is 100 years and two days after my own. Odd. Anyway, onto the quote that I'm trying to introduce. In addition to chastising myself for wasting my time traveling being preoccupied with thoughts of home (a mirror of the time I spent at home fantasizing about travelling) I've been consdering where it is (spiritually speaking) all of this travelling is going to drop me off. I'll leave it at that for now and let you go ahead and read the quote.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot, "Little Gidding" (from the last of his Four Quartets)

On a similar, or unrelated note (depending on how you look at it) a song that was popular when i was in high is for some reason all of the sudden all the rage in southern china. and its playing in the coffee shop over my fries, tea, and L word. Sigh.

This post was written to the strains of Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield, a song that finds itself of late on constant repeat in the life of one Jessie Marie.

Love
J

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