“Journey’s are the midwives of thought“… This is a quote from Alain de Botton’s book The Art of Travel. One immediate reaction I have to this statement is this: which precedes the other? Do journeys initiate thought, or thought initiate journey? Perhaps this this a trivial inquiry, though it is an interesting one, I think. For instance, one might merely conceptualize a year-long journey in their head, thus, thought would be the midwife of journey. But other times, a person approaches a journey whose dawning is inevident. Picture a projecting object intersected by a high tree branch because the wind disturbed its inertia, then it brushing against lower branches in descent, only for it, by chance, to roll down the bare hill on the east side rather than the static contour of the west. To further this flowery image: sometimes, our internal anemometers (wind speed measurement device) are rusted into place, and so we are deceived by its motionlessness. But there is always wind, and it affects us in ways we are usually ill-equipped to see. Since every individual is imprisoned to the present moment, we are faced with two irreducible options: to take hold of it, or not. I do not plan on asserting any moral answer to this question; the subject of this journal entry is on the relationship between “journey” and “thought” in light of The Art of Travel. And I believe no person can escape either one. Each of our journeys certainly deliver thoughts. We all began one before we even had any thoughts.

As de Botton clearly agrees, curiosity is a potent force. Upon reflection, I find it odd that he did not start with his thoughts on curiosity. (Although, since there is most likely a logical process in the content, I would not press this issue too hard). I find it odd because curiosity is nature’s device through which we learn what to do and what not to do, as infants, up until we die. (Of course, curiosity can be just as much hazardous as it is enlightening). As de Botton explained, a childlike curiosity which pervaded since his adolescence drove Alexander von Humboldt, privileged as he was, across the world; whereas Gustave Flaubert cultivated the conviction that he was born in the wrong country and probably asked himself at one point “What about Egypt would feel like home?”  Each person’s curiosity initiated their journeys of pursuit. Pursuits in which they would answer: “What is out there in X?”, which, in the end, made impressions on their thoughts on and understanding of the world. How childish (yet, unobjectionable) is that?

The exotic turned out to be more homely to Flaubert than it was exotic. From this, we can extract the feeling of “home” as not merely the place in which one finds physical shelter. In the last quarter of our program, Musical Cities, I wrote a poem in line with this feeling in response to our readings on the “urban ethos”. The poem:

“Every city is the capital of something.

As someone looks outside of their window

some are reminded to stay indoors,

some are reminded that a world exists.

Everyone is reminded something of themselves.

You don’t have to open your eyes.

The sound of aggregate conversations across the pavement,

responding to your solitude.

Pulsations in the air,

which excite some meaning.

The warning from a steam pipe

that you are approaching another rehearsal of death.

A deafening silence coupled with fog,

which lulls or augments cacophony.

Or the ground trembling from concentrations of heavy vehicles on their way

to somewhere you will not know,

fooling your wanton instincts.

Without opening your eyes,

can you not sense when you are home?”

The connection here is the idea that home exists both as  a physical place and a state of mind, in which one finds solace. Where Flaubert was physically was hard to bear and so the unusualness of Egypt was more attractive. So, his mind traveled to Egypt when his body did not. This idea also has a connection to de Botton’s words in “On Anticipation”. He writes: “In another paradox that des Esseintes would have appreciated, it seems we may be best able to inhabit a place when we are not faced with the additional challenge of having to be there” (de Botton 23). De Botton draws attention to the fact that, as humans, we bring all of our “behavioral luggage” with us, even when we attempt to escape to some exotic place. And that a lot of the time, the mental images we create in anticipation are more practical and a “more-than-adequate substitute for the vulgar reality of actual experience” (de Botton 26).

Readers of the book may recognize that journeys such as Flaubert’s to Egypt, are in fact worth it in terms of personal growth. So how articulate is line between the adequacy of mental experience and physical experience? I can’t answer that question yet. But I know that most of my travels to the exotic have merely been through imagination, or states of mind. I have experienced that mode of travel plenty. But what is fulfilling curiosity without challenges, those of “having to be there”? Perhaps I’ll be better equipped to answer the former question when I get back from my field study in the Philippines.