Wanderlust 101

Joodie | General
2 Jul 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

I’m having considerable doubts about packing up and simply traveling for a few months (the current tentative plan). It’s something I’ve never done before, but I have no clue what might happen, it could be amazing. Or it could be awful.

The thing that strikes me most is that if I don’t try, I will never know. So I wonder, which is more important to me, staying close to my family & being able to have them for support; OR leaving them for awhile and putting myself somewhere completely out of my comfort zone. I have wanderlust at the same time as… stay-at-home-forever… lust.

Maybe I shouldn’t travel so long-term? Maybe I should get a part-time job (my mom’s number one choice)? Maybe I should keep an apartment? Maybe I should put it all in storage and live in my car? There are a lot of possibilities, some crazy, others not so much, but I am seriously conflicted. My mom, who’s opinion matters most to me thinks I should stay here, get a job, make some friends and… chill out? (I’m not exactly sure what she wants me to do once I have some crappy Day Job at a gas station or whatever.) Why does she want me to do that? It sounds miserably boring. Why? Why couldn’t she be thrilled to have me exploring the world like she never had the chance to? It’s so hard not to have the support from those you most expect it from.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes on this subject:

It is better to travel well than to arrive.
Buddha

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
Maya Angelou

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.
Ernest Hemingway

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
Saint Augustine

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.
John D. Rockefeller

Travel in all the four quarters of the earth, yet you will find nothing anywhere. Whatever there is, is only here.
Ramakrishna

Some in favor of the sentiment “home is where you make it” others implying the necessity of travel to good life. To be honest I’m more bothered by the fact that I don’t have anyone supporting my possible adventure and instead I am encouraged to stay “at home”. It really bothers me that some people think this is the best way to live life. It bothers me because in my heart I don’t feel that’s true. But also, I have no evidence to prove otherwise. Maybe travel is pointless… something we do to spend our money, feel important or pass the time.

But perhaps seeing new places is in our nature. Is it not in all of human interest to see new things? We want to absorb new things into our mind and soul. We’d like to feel firsthand what we’ve only ever read about it books or saw on tv. I wonder if travel can turn into complete disaster however. I wonder if I might hide in my hotel room for weeks on end, unable to come out. I suppose that is my biggest fear. Mostly because that is what I feel is expected of me. I’m in a bothersome quandary and it’s taking me around in circles in my mind, driving me mad.

P.S. – Check out my Flickr feed for a daily morsel of creativity from me, to celebrate the Creative Every Day Challenge 2010.

Comments: How do you feel about the benefits of travel? Is it worth the money? The danger? The adventure? Is a good thing for everyone? I am very curious.