{"id":539,"date":"2015-04-01T14:29:54","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T21:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.evergreen.edu\/melosmusicalcityfieldstudy\/?p=224"},"modified":"2015-04-01T14:29:54","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T21:29:54","slug":"journeys-are-the-midwives-of-thought-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/journeys-are-the-midwives-of-thought-4\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cJourneys are the midwives of thought,\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Journey’s are the midwives of thought<\/em>“… This is a quote from Alain de Botton’s book\u00a0The Art of Travel<\/span>. One immediate reaction\u00a0I have to this statement is this:\u00a0which precedes the other?<\/em> Do journeys initiate thought, or thought initiate journey?<\/em> 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<\/em> would be the midwife of journey.\u00a0But other times, a person approaches a journey whose dawning is inevident. Picture a projecting\u00a0object intersected by a high tree branch because the wind disturbed its inertia, then it brushing against lower\u00a0branches in\u00a0descent, 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,\u00a0our 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\u00a0between “journey” and “thought” in light of The Art of Travel<\/span>. And I believe no person can escape either one.\u00a0Each of our journeys certainly deliver thoughts. We all\u00a0began one before we even had any thoughts.<\/p>\n

As de Botton clearly agrees, curiosity is a potent force. Upon reflection, I find\u00a0it 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\u00a0just 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;\u00a0whereas\u00a0Gustave Flaubert\u00a0cultivated<\/em>\u00a0the conviction that he was born in the wrong country and probably asked himself at one point “What about Egypt would feel like home?” \u00a0Each 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?<\/p>\n

The exotic turned out to be more\u00a0homely\u00a0<\/em>to Flaubert\u00a0than it\u00a0was exotic. From this, we can extract the feeling\u00a0of “home” as not merely the place in which one finds physical shelter. In\u00a0the\u00a0last quarter of\u00a0our program, Musical Cities, I wrote a poem in line with this feeling in response to our readings on the “urban ethos”.\u00a0The poem:<\/p>\n

“Every city is the capital of something.<\/em><\/h6>\n
As someone looks outside of their window<\/em><\/h6>\n
some are reminded to stay indoors,<\/em><\/h6>\n
some are reminded that a world exists.<\/em><\/h6>\n
Everyone is reminded something of themselves.<\/em><\/h6>\n
<\/h6>\n
You don’t have to open your eyes.<\/em><\/h6>\n
<\/h6>\n
The sound of aggregate conversations across the pavement,<\/em><\/h6>\n
responding to your solitude.<\/em><\/h6>\n
Pulsations in the air,<\/em><\/h6>\n
which excite some meaning.<\/em><\/h6>\n
The warning from a steam pipe<\/em><\/h6>\n
that you are approaching another rehearsal of death.<\/em><\/h6>\n
A deafening silence coupled with fog,<\/em><\/h6>\n
which lulls or augments cacophony.<\/em><\/h6>\n
Or the ground trembling from concentrations of heavy vehicles on their way<\/em><\/h6>\n
to somewhere you will not know,<\/em><\/h6>\n
fooling your wanton instincts.<\/em><\/h6>\n
<\/h6>\n
Without opening your eyes,<\/em><\/h6>\n
can you not sense when you are home?”<\/em><\/h6>\n
<\/h6>\n

The connection here is the idea that home exists both as \u00a0a physical place\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>a state of mind, in which one finds solace. Where Flaubert\u00a0was\u00a0physically<\/em> was hard to bear and so the unusualness of Egypt was more attractive. So, his\u00a0mind traveled to\u00a0Egypt when his body did\u00a0not. 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\u00a0some exotic place. And that a lot of the time, the mental\u00a0<\/em>images we create in anticipation are more practical and a “more-than-adequate substitute for the vulgar reality of actual experience” (de Botton 26).<\/p>\n

Readers of the book may\u00a0recognize that journeys such as Flaubert’s to Egypt, are in fact worth it in terms of personal growth. So how articulate is line between\u00a0the adequacy of\u00a0mental\u00a0<\/em>experience and\u00a0physical\u00a0<\/em>experience? I can’t answer that question yet. But I know that most<\/em> of my travels to the exotic have merely been through imagination, or states of mind. I have experienced that\u00a0<\/em>mode of travel plenty. But what is fulfilling curiosity without challenges, those of “having to be there”?\u00a0Perhaps I’ll be better equipped to answer the former question when I get back from my field study in the Philippines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[],"tags":[29],"geo":{"latitude":47.0460091,"longitude":-122.9258881,"description":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1071"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/musicalcities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}