“Journey’s are the midwives of thought.”

-Alain de Botton

The Art of Travel is an easy read. Alain de Botton’s writing style draws me in and moves quickly enough to keep me attentive. Flitting between his own travels and the travels of historical figures, Botton showcases his unique take on things which I find to be both insightful and thought provoking. The above quote, for example, is something that I find really intriguing. To a certain extent, I agree with Botton. The mind wanders without any kind of pressure when we occupy it with something like staring out a train window.

However, I disagree with what he writes on page fifty-six: “It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insistes that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are” (56). This quote, I think, gets at what Botton is really driving at. That a person living in comfort can become numb. It’s easy to lose touch, fall into routines, and takes things for granted. I agree with Botton in recognizing the importance of fighting the lethargic grip of comfort, but I don’t agree with him after that point. He seems to blame the domestic setting for making life mundane, and favors travel as an avenue for escaping that trap. I don’t think that we are any less our “true selves” for closing ourselves off to the beauty in things we’ve come to expect. I do think we do ourselves a great disservice in not appreciating our own lives. My thoughts on this subject remind me of a screenplay I read freshman year here at TESC, My Dinner with André. In the following clip from the movie, Wallace Shawn tackles this topic of boredom with André Gregory.

Click here to view the embedded video.

André’s character is a little eccentric, but Wally’s speech has always resonated with me. I do think that traveling can be a way of waking yourself up. For example, John Luther Adams, a modern composer mentioned in an earlier reading,  fell in love with and moved to Alaska, a place which has helped inspire many of his compositions. According to him, you should “find where you belong – musically, geographically, spiritually – and ground your life there” (John Luther Adams). I do however think that traveling can be just as stifling as not. Botton himself addresses the disconnect between reality and fantasy that is often associated with vacations throughout the first chapter, and that kind of disconnect is fundamentally not dissimilar from the numbness of the mundane.

How do we combat boredom then? Botton actually goes on to provide an answer I agree with by refining the idea of travel to exploration. Using Alexander von Humboldt’s life as an example, Botton explains the importance of curiosity. “Curiosity,” he writes, “might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions” (116). I realized after reading this that my goal for this upcoming study was to reignite my curiosity regarding music. I think that breaking down what curiosity into questions branching from the fundamental is a thorough and efficient way of understanding it. I’m also reminded that, while I want to realize my own philosophy regarding music, art, and humanity, I must first comprehend why I want to  better understand those topics in the first place. By fueling our desire to know “we may reach that stage where we are bored by nothing” (Botton, 116).

Before I begin to unravel the layers of questions to find the roots of my curiosity, I think it’s fair to address some of the things which have recently piqued my interest. This week we’ve touched on foreign music, something which offers a world of new possibilities to me. To me, the sounds produced by foreign instruments are exotic and enticing, and the structures inherent in the songs they play are largely unknown to me. I loved immersing myself in the African rhythms of the workshop today, and am keen on learning more about the Gamelan music mentioned in the Soundscapes reading. I am, however, aware that I can’t stretch myself too thin. There’s a great deal left for me to learn about western traditional music (in fact there’s infinitely many more things I could learn about it), and I intend on keeping that as the focus of my study. I am, however, intent on setting aside some time to learn more about Japanese traditional music. Perhaps I’ll find some answers in the Yashiro Japanese garden here in Olympia, but, hopefully, I’ll find more questions.

Work Cited:

Adams, John L. “Winter Music.” Interview by Molly Sheridan. John Luther Adams. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.johnlutheradams.com/interview/newmusicbox.html>.

Botton, Alain De. The Art of Travel. New York: Pantheon, 2002. Print.

My Dinner with André. Screenplay by Wallace Shawn and André Gregory. Perf. Wallace Shawn and André Gregory. My Dinner with André. YouTube, n.d. Web.