And If Travel Is Like Love, It

And If Travel Is Like Love, It Is, In The End, Mostly Because It's A Heightened State Of Awareness, In Which We Are Mindful, Receptive, Undimmed By Familiarity And Ready To Be Transformed. That Is Why The Best Trips, Like The Best Love Affairs, Never Really End.

The Reason I Love Travel Is Not Just Because It Transports You In Every Sense, But Because It Confronts You With Emotional And Moral Challenges That You Would Never Have To Confront At Home. So I Like Going Out In Search Of Moral And Emotional Adventure Which Throws Me Back Upon Myself And Forces Me To Reconsider My Assumptions And The Things I Took For Granted. It Sends Me Back A Different Person.

Yes, We Know More Than Ever Before, And It's A Wonder That We Get To Inhabit A World Full Of Driverless Cars And 3d Printers. But That Doesn't Mean That We Know Any More About The Essential Things In Life - Love, Faith, Death - And It Would Be Dangerous To Assume We Did. The Only Thing That Gets Us Through Sometimes Is A Proper, Humbled Sense That We Don't Have A Clue, We Can't Be Sure What's Going To Happen Next And Life Will Always Be Much Larger Than Our Ideas Of It.

Writing Of Every Kind Is A Way To Wake Oneself Up And Keep As Alive As When One Has Just Fallen In Love.

I Think People Like Me Are In A Relatively Privileged Position Because We Have To Some Extent Chosen To Live In Foreign Places. I Would Always Make The Distinction Between Those Who Are Exiles In Terms Of Being Thrown Out Of The Place They Want To Be, And Others Who Are Exiles In Terms Of Going Toward A Place They Would Rather Be.