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.