It was raining outside. I was looking at the depressiveness of the day. The snow was vanishing with the rain. The teacher was talking about Heraclites, Socrates and Plato. A philosophy class–the perfect place where to muse.
What would I do in the future? What he look like? What do I have to do to try to enhance it? All choices were of importance at that time. I was emerging from my childhood to enter in my adulthood. Since that time, all choices I take has a repercussion on my future.
I was musing on these questions about my future. I was not in the mood to continue my studies for another 4 or 5 years. I had a flash: I wanted to stop them right now to see another part of the world. It’s exactly what I done. I got a summer job and gone to Europe the next autumn. I wanted to see the old continent.
I saw it. I have been to all main capitals of Europe. I was expecting something exceptional. I saw exceptional buildings, houses, parks and museums. Yeah they were exceptional, but they were only buildings, houses, parks and museums.
I was searching for something that I wasn’t able to explain what it was. It was not spiritual. It was a vague idea; something that I wasn’t able to focus on. I was wandering everywhere. I wasn’t taking attention to buildings anymore; it was not what I was searching for.
I was trying to understand what I was doing there; what sent me there. I had lost interest in buildings and architecture but I found interest in people. I talked to them, I mused with them. We talked about their countries and families. I tried to understand them for what they were. I found friends.
I found people. It’s what I always found in my trips. It’s the focal point of all of them. Now, what motivates me to go to a specific place is the curiosity I have to understand the people that live in this place. I want to know their culture; I want to understand it; I want to muse about it. To reach this goal, I need to talk to these people. I need to live with them. Buildings don’t talk; people do.
It’s why I done 12000km of bus. Because the focal point of my trip was in it: talking to people that came from around the world. It was my mobile house; a place where I invited people to talk; a place where I slept.
Do I found what I was searching for? No. Peoples aren’t the thing I was searching for? I don’t know. Will I found it? I hope so. The only thing that I suspect is that I was searching for something at 5000km of my home when this thing could be just there.
people trip Europe life culture
Max
April 16, 2005 — 6:44 pm
Eh, eh, you’ve been searching for something inside different people and cultures and what you found? Yourself! Not a bad discovery, in my opinion.
I agree with you: it’s not buildings or parks that make a travel interesting, it’s people.
The strongest souvenirs I had from my travels have always been apparently “stupid” things: not cathedrals, buldings or local restaurants; people casual conversations, their homes, their way of life, the older people faces, their habits, a supermarket queue, etc.
Confronting these simple things with mine gives me a more precise image of myself, and this is a very important part of a travel.
I wish you will find what you are searching for on your next trip!
Bye, Max.
Fred
April 16, 2005 — 6:44 pm
Hello Max!
Long time no see ๐
Have you gone to Rome to see the pope?
Exactly. Personally what I remember wasn’t the supermarket queue but the Safeways in Scotland. It’s can seem stupid but this is the only supermarket chain in this part of England. It’s also the place where I bought all my bread and peanut butter ๐
Glad to see that you are always here Max!
Salutations,
Fred
Nicole
January 1, 2007 — 8:29 pm
I too, am searching for something…Something I feel I have a grasp on…something I might already know. This something might be an answer, a meaning, or maybe finding a way to resolve life. I feel the yearn to do SOMETHING…I have to…I can’t sit around and let it find me, but here I am stuck, stuck on trying to understand everything…Its not possible.
I’m not sure why I’m writing this but I know that life cannot be wasted planing for what will be ahead, because your planss could be stopped short at any moment…
But here I am, my life as an 18 year old observer, watching sufferings I cannot ignore behind glass…while at the same time trying to finish college because that is what society has told me to do.
What is the better choice, wait painfully in the distance…or try and do something now?
Fred
January 2, 2007 — 11:02 am
Hi Nicole,
You well expressed what life is. I don’t think you ever know if you find what you were searching for. At some point in life, you find something, but you never know if it is really what you thought you were searching for…
The only thing you have to do it that situation is to live, to enjoy life, and to taste it as much as you can. After all you never know if you found, or not, what you were searching for.
Do things, create opportunities and enjoy life! It is so short that you can’t spend one minute.
Mason Cooley already said: “Regret for wasted time is more wasted time.”
I wish you good luck, and I have no doubts that you will do something that worth much for you and people around you.
Take care and happy new year 2007!
Salutations,
Fred