Travelling is a fool’s paradise

I love travel, no question about it. There is no other activies that can take us to places with exotic cluture, beautiful snenaries, and wonderful nature, all away from our daily routines. For the last couple of years, we used all our vacation time going to places. We hiked on the icefield in Alaska, we swimed in between corals in Hawii, we sweeped through 30 out of 59 national parks of the United States, and also, we spent some time in the remote land of China like Tibet and Uygur province. My favorate part of those trips are not the colorful souvenirs, not the serene views, not even the flavorful food, but the beauty in people, the general benevolence of normal people after you met their wondering eye beams.

Then one day, I read this sentense "Travelling is a fool’s paradise". I was shocked, how can someone who prefers an active life style be refered as a fool? I want to argue and defend travelling, for all the people who enjoys travel. But who do I argue with? Emerson? the man who is considered the father of the American literature? Here is his sentenses in the essay "Self Reliance" published in 1841, about hundred senvety years ago:

“Travelling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”

That very last sentence has always stuck with  me since the first time I read it. After a while, I have to admit that Emerson is right. Even though there are immense pleasure to see as much of the world as we can, travelling is a poor effort to escape something that one should be dealing with, emotionally or otherwise. If we are sad, we carry that sad self with us, everywhere we go. And when come back home, the problem that haunted us before is still there, as unrelenting, as giant as it used to be.

Yet it is not quite right. Emerson himself traveled a lot before he developed all those famous essay that set up the foundation of modern american philosophy. He went to Europe, he visited Voltaire's home in France, and he met Thomas Carlyle in England, whose work had influenced him greatly. Did he consider the young self as a fool? Definitely not. Actually, every truth has its content, and we can't take a sentense out of the whole theme. This essay "Self Reliance" has one theme, "Trust thyself", never imitate. Those who travels to find new things, things that he does not carry within his heart, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth. For a person with intellect, he shouldn't be travelling with the hope to find something greater than he knows. Rather, he should be obey his heart, exhibit his inner gift that he has cultivated all through his life and let it shine.

So what Emerson meant is not about traveling, it is about finding one's individualism and going with it, not  just imitating from others. He believes that there is a God, but everything else is also connected to it, therefore everything is divine. And for human, there is divinity in each of us, we just need to find it and let it guide us through the difficulties of life. The truth is not with God, but it could be intuitively experienced from the nature with a independent mind. That is how he transcended external authorities, organized religions, and the conformity to society norms.

It all sound too idealistic and heavy, now I suspect most people, like me, feels that we are fools already, becuase philosophies give us big headaches. But who need philosophy anyways? We all have our character, our own rule of thumbs toward life, and our divinities is with us no matter what. We still like travelling, because we simply enjoy it. We like to be intoxicated with the sights and sounds of new places, and the warm heart of the people, though we know it’s a fleeting enjoyment. I look back fondly on the places I have been, and I look forward to new destinations.

转贴：少去旅游，多去旅行

我们常把旅游与旅行混为一谈，其实两者可谓差之一字，谬之千里啊。

旅游是一种消遣和消费的过程，花钱享受异地的风光、风情、美食和服务。有人说旅游就是从你活腻味的地方到别人活腻味的地方去。讲究走的顺利，住得舒适，玩得开心，食得美味，购得称心如意。讲究这些时，一遇到飞机误点，旅馆脏乱，景区拥挤或者是刮风下雨，购物挨宰等等，便会怒气冲冲，怨天尤人，觉得十分扫兴倒霉。

旅行则是一种体验和感悟的过程。体验自然，感悟人生，不惧怕遭遇雨雪风霜和艰难险阻，把一切都视为人生的一种经历，一种体验，随遇而安，始终保持着平和的心态，沉着应对，这就是旅行。

旅游就像快餐一样，将景区、景点作为集中目标，恨不得省略一切过程快速到达，以了却此生到此一游的心愿。所以我们国家才出现了什么N日N国游。

旅行如品佳饮，要调整心态，放慢脚步，是漫漫旅途中的细细品位和观察，以获取新知。旅行没有终点，行者永远在路上，正因为如此有别于旅游者酷爱的高档、奢华、和世界知名人头攒动的旅游胜地。旅行者钟情于人迹罕至的荒野荒原，深山大川，天涯海角。

旅游之所以是从你自己活腻味的跑到别人活腻味的地方，那是因为心被功利和物欲所束缚，只有当心是自由的，才能走到哪儿都有美的发现，都有行者的快乐。有一个旅行者，写了一本书，书名叫做《中国人你为什么不快乐》，说的是心被欲望禁锢就不会有快乐，心永远在探索新知，生活才会充满奇趣与快乐。

旅行在一个人独行的时候，会有独特的眼光和思索。相伴而行时，可以彼此分享与交流，而令人身心愉悦的自然风光和异域环境，又使行者容易敞开被城市禁闭的心扉，彼此深入沟通了解。因此，伴旅往往能够成为长久的知音、知己。这和旅游中的所谓一夜情和艳遇也是完全不同的。

旅游者选择的旅伴常是昙花一现，游过之后各奔东西，彼此忘却。古有读万卷书，行万里路之说，认为把读书和旅行结合起来可谓理想和完美的人生，实际上旅行如人生，人生也是一次长途旅行，有一位叫马赛•普罗斯特的学者说：真正的发现之旅不在于发现新的领域，而在于拥有新的目光。我们也可以说真正有价值的人生之旅不在于拥有权势或金钱，而在于拥有精神、智慧和道德的力量。

让我们少去旅游，多去旅行。

Oh, the curiosities that we have

I haven't been posting my travel blogs for a while. The reason is quite simple, I didn't travel. For as much as we want to explore the new territories, our physical body chained us down. For me, there are frozen joint, aching back, and even worse, I have discovered a mysterious food allergy to some nasty shell fish. After adding all the other constraints in life, the job, the family ... all of these, made traveling not as attractive as it used to be.

Seeing yourself getting old, sometimes you just don't have the cheer...

But even we don't physically travel to new destinations, our mind can still go to places. Sometime we also call it reading a book. From book, I have discovered various things. And the most interesting things are the curious characters like Richard Feynman.

He is famous, he won Nobel Prize in 1965, he was part of Manhattan project that developed nuclear bombs, and he investigated the Challenger disaster. He was a Cal Tech professor and his books are the favorite souvenir if you go to the college bookstore.  

He is still everywhere even after he died 26 years ago. If you want to learn introductory physics, he authored the best book out there. His words, his stories get to be told over and over again by different people. If you open a book on physics of the future, he is there, talking about theoretical physics. You open a book about inspiration, he is there, talking about metaphysics and nature.You go to Yourtube, he is there, talking about other various subject about science and human in general.

 Feynman's small talk on flowers - http://vimeo.com/55874553

But he is not a typical Nobel Prize winner. Yes he is a genius and he has done a lot of great things for scientific discovery, but his IQ is rather adequate at 125 only (I mean jeez my son has a higher IQ according those online test and that didn't help with not getting a F in his math test). Most people don't understand anything about his work on Quantum physics or electromagnetic theories, yet a lot people came to say "We love you, Dick" after he died. He never really cared or strived to gain popularity yet he is loved so much. Why?

He is a curious character. Feynman's great trait isn't his intelligence; it's his passion to understand, his sheer doggedness. From a boy, he was taught to figure things out. Then one day he saw a dinner plate tossed vertically into the air like a Frisbee and began to wonder about its wobble. After that there was many years of long, slow, hard work, slogging away at a difficult scientific problem with all his strength until it was solved. That ultimately led to a Nobel Prize in physics. In his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman", he talked about how he enjoyed cracking national security safes, and playing pranks on people, with a marvelous sense of humor. It seems like he treated all sorts of problems as puzzles and got great pleasure for solving them.

People also got to know him through his many faces outside physics because his curiosity moved well beyond things scientific. He is a poet and a musician. He can write in Chinese and he played world level Bongo drum and he sings well. He even sign silly songs like "I want my orange juice", see video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKTSaezB4p8. He did other crazy things, like resiging from the national academy of science, like dating undergraduate students, hanging out with strippers, he even stood in court to support a nude bar he frequented. He was eccentric in all ways but he was always himself. And when he followed his nature, he sees the connection of events. And yet he was a simple man, who could laugh and made other people laugh. His love of life spilled over to all the people he met during his adventure in this planet.

Reading about Richard Feynman, it seems that getting old may not be that bad, as long as you have a curious heart.